Winemaking

The winemaking goal is to provide delicious, balanced wines that enhance the meal.  Since the wines are estate bottled, we have the advantage of exact timing for harvest and all winemaking operations which has become more rare in the Napa Valley.  The emphasis is on terroir-driven wines with layers of complexity and worthy of aging.  Our wine library, going back to 1985, reveals the achievement of these goals.  Farella wines typically are alive and ever-evolving, “telling a story” of the site and personality of each vineyard block.

The Sauvignon Blanc is a light, refreshing wine that emulates the white wines of Northern Italy. The Merlot, normally blended with a portion of Cabernet Sauvignon, is a supple wine with intriguing berry/cassis fruit and spice character. In 1991 we added Cabernet Sauvignon as a varietal, a very rich, ample and complex wine styled for fans of balanced California Cabernets. The 2001 vintage marked the first for a new product, our proprietary blend, Farella “Alta” which was produced until the 2007 vintage and has now been reborn in 2014.

Originally, Farella Alta was made as a blend assembled from individual barrels approximately 2/3 Cabernet Sauvignon, 1/3 Merlot.  In 2014, the new era of the Alta has been made as a co-fermentation harvested on the same day in the same proportions and the blend finalized before bottling.  It also now normally includes a small portion of Malbec.