Vincent Arroyo Family Winery

Vincent Arroyo Family Winery is located north of Calistoga off of Silverado Trail on tiny Greenwood Ave. Since the nearby Greenwood Bridge was closed after an earthquake in 2014, visitors must reach the winery from the Silverado Trail (contrary to what any GPS shows).

The winery was founded by Vincent Arroyo, a former mechanical engineer from Silicon Valley who was looking for a more “rural” lifestyle. He was attracted to the farming aspect of the business and eventually became his own winemaker; he has never had any formal training. His first commercial release was from the 1984 vintage. Around that time Vincent proposed a 54 parcel subdivision called Arroyo Acres – but this ultimately this was never developed.

While thumbing through the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1970s Vincent discovered a property for sale north of Calistoga. He moved here in 1972 onto what is called the Greenwood Ranch, and for 10 years sold grapes to the Napa Co-op in St. Helena; this is now the home of Hall Winery.

When he purchased the property there was much work to be done – prunes still grew on site; prunes and walnuts used to be plentiful in Napa Valley. In addition, there were older grapevines and numerous relics lying around from previous owners. He removed many of the older vines and prune trees and replanted to various grape varieties; today they continue to selectively pull out the older vines; their older vines are still head pruned while their new vines are all trellised. Vincent Arroyo has grown from 23 acres at the time of Vince’s initial purchase to currently 75 acres (of which about 65 are under vine) and just a few hundred cases produced annually to about 8,000 cases today. All of their red grapes come from their estate vineyards. And the focus of their production is from Calistoga.

While Vince is no longer actively involved, after retiring from Vincent Arroyo he started another brand called Otra Vez meaning ‘another time’ in Spanish. These wines are housed in a separate winery across the street from Vincent Arroyo. His daughter Adrian is President and General Manger of Vincent Arroyo; she and her husband Matt Moye are the current owners of Vincent Arroyo. Matt and Adrian met in law school at the University of Pacific in Stockton, California. While practicing law, perhaps wine making was not yet in Matt’s realm of possible career paths.

Matt grew up n Oakdale (near Modesto, California) and worked for GALLO while in high school. But it wasn’t until much later that Vince convinced Matt to take a year off from his legal job and learn wine making at Vincent Arroyo. Matt wasn’t sure wine making was going to ultimately be a career choice, but he was quickly hooked by the combination of both art and science, the lifestyle and by the beauty of Napa Valley. Matt apprenticed under Vince and today is the head winemaker for Vincent Arroyo.

The wines are only sold at the winery or online; they do not focus on retail distribution. And it should be pointed out that their wines are among the better price point to quality ratio bottlings in Napa Valley.

Early on, Vincent began noticing guests inquiring about purchasing wines from future vintages that had not yet been bottled. Capitalizing on this demand, the winery began selling ‘futures’ allowing guests to put a partial payment on wines from future vintages that had not yet been bottled – with the balance to be paid at the time the wines shipped. This is one of the few Napa Valley wineries that have successfully built a wine club around futures.

And their Standing Orders Club is not a rigid wine club where the winery chooses which wines are sent to you – rather membership in this club can be highly customized. Customers decide which wines to be shipped each year. And if that is too much trouble, one can certainly leave this decision to the winery.

Select Wines
The focus of their production is nearly entirely on red wines; they used to produce a single Chardonnay each year but more recently produce several white wines including a sparkling bottling. They use a variety of different oak for aging the wines; the Bordeaux varieties are aged entirely in French oak and the Petite Sirah and Zinfandel are aged partly in American oak. Some of their wines are barrel aged up to 24 months.

If one were to categorize the style of the Vincent Arroyo wines it would be one of freshness. No opulent, straddling over ripeness and hedonistic descriptions needed here. Acid and fruit driven. In general, their wines are refreshingly also bottled lower in alcohol then many of the contemporary Napa Valley producers.

Whites
The 2022 Vincent Arroyo Mélange Blanc is a unique blend of 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Chardonnay; this wine is medium yellow in the glass. The bouquet offers honeyed notes including aromas of honeycomb and honeysuckle accompanied by ripe Golden Delicious apple, pineapple, yellow nectarine and apricot. Sweetly fruited, this bouquet delivers plenty of aromatic pleasure. Some of the aromas on the bouquet are mirrored on the palate as flavor including pineapple, plenty of ripe stone fruits, pomelo, mango, mandarin orange and lemon juice. Its texture is rounded and supple. Finishes bright with mouthwatering acidity and lingers with an herbal and very subtle bitter character. The alcohol is a refreshing 13.1%. And some of the Chardonnay used in this blend is from their original fermentation of their primarily 100% varietal Chardonnay bottling. Pair with filet of sole or halibut.

The 2022 Vincent Arroyo Napa Valley Chardonnay is deep yellow in the glass; the bouquet announces its presence immediately as California sunshine Chardonnay with aromas of warm butter and ripe fruit including mango, yellow peaches, apricot and pineapple. There is a nuance of toasted oak on the bouquet but its not overtly ‘oaky’. Well-layered, this bouquet is highly generous. The palate mirrors the bouquet to some extent with ripe stone fruited flavors, butter, pineapple and toasted oak. Rich with bright acidity, the finish is long and flavor filled. 13.2% alcohol. Drink with friends poolside on a warm summer afternoon before firing up the BBQ, or simply drink in the pool while resting on a floatie with a good book, a wide rimmed hat and a dark pair of sunglasses.

In special years they make a late harvest Chardonnay (we tried the 2015 vintage); the palate is sweet but not overtly so with very flavorful and noticeable rounded and creamy mouth feel. And in 2020, Vincent Arroyo released their first ever sparkling wine, the Vincent Arroyo Family Winery Sparkling Wine Brut. This wine is 100% North Coast made in the traditional méthode champenoise.

Reds
The 2021 Vincent Arroyo Napa Valley Sangiovese is medium to deep ruby in color; the bouquet falls in the center of the red fruited spectrum with scents of cranberry, currant, raspberry, red cherry, Santa Rosa plum, blood orange and rhubarb. Also worth mentioning are several layers of dried herbs including sage. Its aromas smell fresh and youthful. Bright, cheerful, and energetic across the palate this wine sings with acidity. The flavors are very similar to the aromas with higher toned red fruits including sour cherry, cranberry and currant. The finish lingers tart, zippy, juicy and mouth watering accompanied by an herbal note including dried bay leaf. The tannins are grainy and linger with a moderate grip which ultimately outpaces the fruit. What we would give to have some of our grandfather’s home made tomato based ravioli right now; this wine would be the perfect pairing.

In tribute to their Spanish heritage, they grow and produce a Tempranillo. The 2021 Vincent Arroyo Tempranillo Rattlesnake Acres is deep ruby; there is nothing shy about this bouquet and those who love plenty of aromatic depth will gravitate towards the aromas on this bottling. It offers scents of violets, red licorice, plum, dark raspberry and blueberry with darker and savory elements including sweaty saddle leather, sage and tobacco spice. A light note of clove and nutmeg show in the background. Balanced and bright, the palate sports flavors of red cherry, currant and cranberry. A light to moderate but persistent tartness from the red fruited acidity is accompanied by grainy and dusty tannins, similar to sand that has not yet been fully polished. We wouldn’t mind enjoying this bottle with lamb on the BBQ.

The 2021 Vincent Arroyo Napa Valley Merlot is medium ruby in color; the aromas are about the variety and its core of fruit; no heavy mocha, chocolate, or baking spices here. The oak plays a complementary role rather than a dominating one. And this is very ok in our books. It offers scents of spiced plums, red cherry, dark raspberry, library book and dried sage which is one of our favorite smells. We always collect wild sage when we are in California’s great Owens Valley or other eastern parts of the high desert areas in the state. The palate is brightly lit with flavors of not fully ripe red plum, sour cherry, currant and cranberry. A red fruit tartness lingers on the finish paralleled by gravelly tannins with a lasting dusty character. 13.3% alcohol. The ideal pairing in our mind would be with Thai crying tiger, a plate of grilled beef marinated in oyster sauce, fish sauce, garlic, and soy sauce.

The 2016 Vincent Arroyo Cabernet Sauvignon (100% varietal) is deep ruby; the nose offers aromas of cocoa powder, dark raspberry, chocolate, licorice, and Graham cracker. The palate is red fruited with flavors of cherry, currant, cranberry and red plum. This is still a highly youthful bottling 8 years post vintage at the time of our tasting. The tumbled and gravelly textured tannins sport a chalky character with a drying/dusty finish. The persistent, slightly tart and mouth watering finish lingers with notes of dried tobacco leaf and dried herbs including sage.

Vincent Arroyo also produces another bottling of Cabernet Sauvignon called Rattlesnake Acres. The label on this bottle was listed as Rattlesnake Acres through the 2016 vintage. Starting in 2017 the label changed to the letters: RSA – with the S looking like a coiled snake.

The 2015 Vincent Arroyo Zinfandel is made in a refreshingly different style then many of California’s warm weather contemporary Zinfandels. It is only 13.7% alcohol, and the lower alcohol and higher acidity (often but not always correlated) is noticeable when you taste this wine. If offers a pleasing mouth feel and is well-balanced between fruit, alcohol and acidity. The bouquet shows darker fruit aromas accompanied by hints of chocolate. The palate lingers with flavors of red cherry and plum. A generous helping of tannins anchor the finish. This wine should be very age worthy.

The 2015 Vincent Arroyo Bodega is a Bordeaux style blend; the name carries additional meaning for Matt and Adrian as they were married in Bodega Bay (neighboring Sonoma County). This wine is a blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% each of Malbec and Petit Verdot. The bouquet sports pretty aromas including floral nuances (violets) along with a sweetness of fruit. The palate reveals flavors of black cherry and blackberry; this wine features bright acidity along with big flavors and long-lasting tannins paralleled by hints of vanilla.

Vincent Arroyo has long been known for Petite Sirah and currently makes several wines from this variety including their Winemakers Reserve Petite Sirah. They ferment up to 10 different separate blocks of this varietal in any particular vintage – these are aged in oak for a year; then the lots to be used in their reserve wine are identified and blended together and then aged for another two years in new American oak barrels before being bottled.

The 2014 Vincent Arroyo Winemakers Reserve Petite Sirah offers deep and dark fruit driven aromas. It smells inviting. On the palate, the wine delivers an intensity of flavor with dark cherry and blackberry flavors. There is an earthy note at play here as well. Mouth filling flavor but not mouth filling tannins – which is not always the case for wines made from this variety. During one visit, Vince cracked open his inaugural vintage, a 1984 bottling of Petite Sirah. This was one of his last few bottles; our memory has faded on this one somewhat but we remember it still showing well for what was at the time, at least 35 years post vintage.

They also make a Petite Sirah Port-style wine; we tasted this from the barrel and while still a little young, it already had good tannin structure, intense fruit and was well on its way to becoming a delightful dessert wine. They use high proof neutral flavor spirits to fortify this wine, preferring to keep the focus on the varietal characteristics. The 2015 Vincent Arroyo Petite Sirah (sweet wine) shows a sweet and rich flavor profile (prunes); this wine is very smooth on the palate. Almost with a little dusty nuance and somewhat chewy. Hold this wine for a while if you can.

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Vincent Arroyo is very dog friendly; they have maintained a long tradition of making wines named after their own winery dogs; these labels are retired when one of their dogs pass on.

Visitors enter the winery by driving down a long gravel road through the vineyards to reach the actual tasting room and winery. As you step out of your vehicle, most likely you will be greeted by one of their Labradors. The winery is located next to a small olive orchard; they also produce a limited quantity of olive oil made from approximately 60 trees growing on site. An outdoor patio is located next to the gravel parking lot and weather permitting, this is a nice place to relax in one of their wooden chairs made of barrel staves with a glass of wine in hand.

Visiting the northern part of Napa Valley is often relaxing as there are less crowds, less traffic and fewer wineries. The tasting here is a throwback to some extent – relaxed, casual and held in a large room with walls that have never seen a coat of paint. There is no fancy artwork or other “distractions”; it is very much a functional working winery. The old table where visitor’s typically start their tasting is still the original tasting table that Vince used when he began to receive visitors for tastings back in the 1980s. And employees enjoy their work; they tend to stick around for quite some time.

In 2017 Vincent Arroyo was recognized in an article in Travel & Leisure as the top vineyard in the US – based on analytics run by Yelp of wineries across the country. Vincent Arroyo has long prided itself on superior service in a homey setting; this is certainly a nice feather in the cap to be recognized for their hard work in this regard.

In regard to pricing, it helps they have owned their vineyards for many years and focus on the wines rather than visual eye candy. They have earned a loyal following from customers around the country including Texas which is one of their largest markets.

Also of note are the variety of events held at the winery; a highlight is their “Amigos de Arroyo” in which up to 80 people help with harvest by picking grapes and taking them back to the winery for crush. This is open by lottery system. In addition, they hold an annual winemaker dinner, open house every May, and a popular barrel sampling event held every February.

For more information, to schedule a tasting, to purchase wine or to join their wine club, visit: www.vincentarroyo.com