Joseph Phelps Estate Sauvignon Blanc

Tasting note:

The 2016 Joseph Phelps Sauvignon Blanc is beautiful, focused and full of energy. Pears, lemon oil, white flowers and mint flesh out in an inviting, layered Sauvignon Blanc endowed with gorgeous texture and personality. The aromatics are expressive and floral, but the emphasis is all on texture, much of it coming from fermentation in puncheon.

Winery introduction:

Napa Valley’s Joseph Phelps Vineyards was established in 1973, at the cusp of a second ‘Golden Era’ of winemaking (the first being post-Prohibition). It was an era when the whole of California caught its big break on the world stage thanks to the 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting.

Unlike many of those 1970s pioneering estates – Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Heitz and others – Joseph Phelps remains family-owned to this day. It is a winery carved from the vision and determination of Joe Phelps, an entrepreneur who found himself in the perfect place at the perfect time. 

Many of Phelps’ contemporaries back then – such as Bob Travers of Mayacamas and Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars – created seminal estates of their own. While in recent vintages they, like so many others in Napa Valley today, have transitioned to a more slick, modern style for their wines, Phelps is content to let vintage conditions shine through, avoiding an overly homogenous style.