Bougetz Cellars was founded in 2008 by owner and winemaker Thomas Bougetz. Originally from Minnesota he went to school in Iowa where he graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Computer/Electrical Engineering. Incidentally this is where he met his wife Joan who has a Bougetz Cellars wine named in her honor. His work with Boeing NASA as an engineer took him to Seattle where he soon discovered the surrounding wine regions including finding a passion for Oregon’s Willamette Valley and the Pinot Noir produced from this region. Wanting to learn more about how wine was made he enrolled in classes at the Northwest Wine Academy, a teaching winery run by South Seattle College.
Northwest Wine Academy is as fine a small teaching winery as we have seen; it is compact, clean, functional and houses a number of valuable winemaking items including a concrete egg, amphorae vessels and a bottling line. Furthermore, a teaching classroom adjoins the winery along with accompanying hospitality and culinary spaces. Visitors are able to sample wines by the glass or by flights. Thomas finished his oenology program here and also worked two harvests locally.
After catching the wine bug, Thomas began looking for a career change – one that would combine high tech with wine making. He discovered a position offered by a San Francisco based multi-client winery needing help in creating a system for categorizing and locating wine during its various stages of development including managing vineyard sources. This was at Crushpad, a winery that produced numerous brands both for small and large wineries.
Leaving his old job Thomas moved to the San Francisco Bay area and began working for Crushpad as their Vice President of Engineering. During his time there he began making his own wine; his first vintage was from 2008.
While Crushpad ultimately dissolved in 2012 their impact in the wine world lives on in a fairly influential way. During their time in business, they setup a number of their own clients with prominent vineyards throughout Napa Valley and beyond. We have met with numerous Napa Valley based vintners who got their start in wine making at Crushpad who continue to make wine on their own or now have their own brands.
Northwest Wine Academy
And like a number of other vintners, Thomas cultivated both grower and vintner relationships while working at Crushpad – connections that he continues to use today including for a number of their current vineyard sources. And these sites are from premium parts of the valley ranging from Coombsville, Atlas Peak, Mt. Veeder, Pritchard Hill and Rutherford among others. Thomas does not just purchase grapes from particular vineyards; he leases specific blocks of vines within vineyards so he can have direct control over them from irrigation, to canopy management to harvest decisions.
Despite the excellent reputation of Napa Valley it often difficult for newer and smaller Napa based producers to stand out among the hundreds of wine producers in the valley. They don’t make much wine and they haven’t yet established any sort of brand recognition among serious wine enthusiasts (often takes at least 10 years in our experience) and haven’t had time to build a mailing list or wine club. Therefore, when Bougetz Cellars began earning high scores and positive reviews from wine writers – wine enthusiasts started to take note.
Select Wines
Whites
The 2022 Bougetz Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Bliss, Rutherford Dalla Gasperina Vineyard is medium yellow in color; the bouquet offers aromatics of fresh herbs including tarragon, a lemon zest, grapefruit, lime, passion fruit and honeysuckle. As the bouquet evolves in the glass its scents become a bit more tropical and stone-fruited. Balanced and bright but with some noticeable weight, the mouth feel is is waxy, velvety and supple. The palate offers an initial mineral note along with flavors of pomelo, not fully ripe pineapple, honeydew melon, green apple and like on the bouquet, finishes with a note of tarragon. Tasting this wine made us want to pair it with the Thai Pla Gapong Neung Manao (steamed fish with lime and garlic), a dish we have immensely enjoyed numerous times in Thailand. And we might add that Rutherford is a sweet spot for growing Sauvignon Blanc in Napa Valley. The problem is that growing this variety in this particular sub appellation is not as economically viable as growing red grapes; every year it seems like we see less and less of this variety in Rutherford.
The 2015 Bougetz Cellars Sauvignon Blanc was sourced from a vineyard in Rutherford and contains 9% Sémillon. Immediately shows a pretty bouquet with honeysuckle, citrus blossom, a hint of flinty minerality, cut grass and as it opens more tropical nuances along with aromas of lemon. On the palate there are flavors of pineapple and peach; balanced across the palate it is fairly crisp on the finish with some spicy lingering undertones. Shows some weight on the mid palate without being heavy. Drinks very well by itself and drinks even better with a room full of friends (from personal experience).
The 2021 Boegetz Cellars Parched Chardonnay Sonoma Coast is medium to deep gold in color; the bouquet offers honeyed aromatics including of honeycomb, honeysuckle, corn tassel, butterscotch, caramel and melting warm butter. The sweetly fruited scents also offer layers of ripe apricot, peaches and yellow nectarines. The palate is ripe, buttery and sports an oily and creamy mouth feel with a noticeable tug between weight, flavor and acidity across the entire palate. It showcases flavors of ripe pineapple, mango, apricot and yellow peaches in light syrup. The finish lingers with a light drying and persistent herbal character showing more on the front of the palate than the back. With a name like Parched, we immediately thought of some of our favorite camping spots in Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Starting in 2022 the vineyard source for this wine transitioned to the Russian River Valley.
The 2022 Boegetz Cellars Belle Reve Viognier Yates Family Vineyard Mt. Veeder is medium gold in color. Bougetz Cellars recommends initially serving this wine chilled straight from the wine refrigerator and continuing to enjoy it for some time as it warms up in the glass. The main reason for this is to notice how the aromatics change. The bouquet is sweetly and tropical fruited including of honeysuckle, butterscotch, crème Brule, vanilla pudding, star jasmine, yellow pineapple, mango and baked apples. As the wine opens, the aromas become even more intense. One would not be incorrect in calling its scents dessert-like. Richly flavored, the palate reveals apricot, yellow peaches in syrup, pineapple, vanilla and a nutty character. If offers a fleshy and creamy texture. Lingers with a subtle but noticeable bitterness on the finish, which is sometimes expressed by this variety. We are sure we want to pair this with a spicy Thai dish, but we haven’t yet figured out which one.
Reds
A rather unusual offering for a Napa Valley grown and produced wine is their proprietary blend called Jovana, named in tribute to Joan, the Italian equivalent of her name. This wine varies each year but always contains Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The 2019 Bougetz Cellars Jovana is 65% Merlot and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon from Mt. Veeder. This wine is deep ruby in color; the bouquet contains aromas of damp potting soil, mushroom, sweaty baseball mitt being used on a hot summer day, bittersweet chocolate, coffee grinds, dark raspberry and dark plum. If we were to summarize its overall aromatic profile, it would be gamey. It is loaded with layers of character. And we like that. The palate is darkly fruited with flavors of spicy plum skin, blackberry, crushed dark peppercorn and a meaty character. The tannins are grainy and lightly gritty with a subtle but persistent drying character; they parallel the fruit for some time on the finish. Perhaps pair with cured meats, a charcuterie board or a medium rare steak from the BBQ.
The 2014 Bougetz Cellars Jovana is a blend of 65% Merlot and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon with each variety coming from single vineyards (Merlot from Oak Knoll and the Cabernet Sauvignon from Mt. Veeder). Fairly dark in the glass. If a wine’s bouquet was to define the word elegance, this wine certainly does so. Slightly floral initially as the wine opens reveals bright aromatics including blackberry, dark cherry and plum and a kiss of mocha. Shows excellent flavor, balance, acidity and a very polished finish (with subtle slightly earthy tannins).
The 2014 Eminence is one of several Cabernet Sauvignons they produce including the Amaryllis and the Prominence – and is arguably the lightest style of the three. The 2014 Eminence Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is blended with 4% Merlot and 4% Petit Verdot. This wine reveals a voluptuous and attractive nose with plenty of fruit accompanied by aromas of black olive, licorice, cloves and milk chocolate. Very layered aromatically. Shows darker fruit on the palate framed with bright acidity. Polished tannins ensure a smooth finish. This is a smartly priced value Napa Cabernet Sauvignon which over delivers for the price.
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Thomas is a winemaker who prefers to stay in the background if you will – letting his wines create publicity for his work rather than spending personal time promoting and traveling to market the brand. And in 2014, recognizing the fact he wasn’t able to do both wine making and sales he hired Jennelle Manzanares who for several years was responsible for sales and marketing the wines. Until 2019 Bougetz Cellars did not have a formal tasting room and Jennelle would sometimes bring tastings of Bougetz Cellars on the road to select events and locations including to the annual Loyola Marymount Tasting at LMU in Los Angeles, an excellent tasting that Los Angeles wine enthusiasts should put on their radar for the end of every January.
They physical winery is located just south of St. Helena in what used to be Argur-Martucci Winery. The space is used for Bougetz Cellar’s own production as well as a handful of other custom crush clients. The winery is permitted for a very limited number of visitors each week.
Atlas Peak Road Rasting Room
In early 2019 Bougetz Cellars opened a small tasting room in a part of the city of Napa called Vichy Springs – or what we call the Silverado Wine & Arts District, home to several wineries, tasting rooms and art galleries. The primary building on site houses two other winery tasting room neighbors and is estimated to date from the 1950s. It has seen many uses over the years including as a machine shop, storage for an art gallery, possibly used for storage of whisky when it was being distilled nearby at the old Hedgside Distillery (now the home of Del Dotto Winery) and for yoga.
And because this is within the city limits of Napa, the tasting room is not confined to the same regulations as if they were in the county. However, while in the city limits, this is certainly not an urban tasting room (about a 10-minute drive to downtown). One primary perk of being within the confines of the city include being open to the public by walk-in. Several unique tables are setup for couples or small groups with the tables being made out of embedded heads of barrels, corks and even one riddling rack inside some sort of see through acrylic material. Several paintings hang on the walls including during one of our visits, paintings by noted Napa Valley based artist, Layla Fanucci. Art from their neighbor, Jesse Gallery rotates on a several month basis.
An old Italian press dating from 1873 stands outside the tasting room. This is for decoration as it is not used in their winemaking. Several outdoor spaces are available for tastings, weather permitting including tables directly in front of the tasting room. And this tasting room is one of less than 20 wineries in Napa Valley on the itinerary of the Napa Valley Wine Trolley.
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The first vintage of Bougetz Cellars was merely 50 cases. Today their production is around 1,500 cases each year with the focus being on Napa Valley wines; the exception being their Russian River Pinot Noir grown in neighboring Sonoma County. In 2024 Bougetz Cellars announced it would be rebranding the design on the bottles of all their wines starting with the 2023 Bliss Rutherford Sauvignon Blanc. Simple, yet elegant this design has a more sophisticated look.
Bougetz Cellars can also bring their wines to your home or other location if you provide the stemware. A representative of the winery will join you and friends for a tasting which usually lasts at least two hours. They will bring both the wines and appetizers; each event must have a guaranteed minimum of 35 wine loving guests.
Distribution is only to a select number of states including Michigan and Iowa. For more information, to purchase wines and to join one of their wine clubs, visit: www.bougetzcellars.com
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