Vineyard Manager Jim Barbour
Ask a soil expert, climatologist, or biologist and they’ll echo in unison: “Great wines are made in the vineyard!”
But if you’ve grown up reading Wine Spectator, or other popular wine press, you’re likely to think that great wines emanate from the cellar, through the alchemy of an all-knowing, all-tasting, winemaker.
Over the last ten years, winemakers have even become celebrities; people collect the wines of specific winemakers, regardless of the vintage, regardless of the block where the fruit originates.
But in wine-country, the debate about whether great wines are made in the vineyard, or in the cellar, elicits a different response; here it’s understood that the unsung hero is the vineyard manager.
In Napa Valley, prominent vineyard managers include David Abreu, Davey Pina, Andy Beckstoffer, and Jim Barbour, all whom I know and whose respective grape-growing skills I respect.
One Napa Valley wine merchant, David Stevens, of 750 Wines, in St. Helena, decided to spotlight the skills of one of these unsung heroes and has assembled what can only be called The Ultimate Holiday Gift: The Jim Barbour Box.
This is a signature collection of 12 different wines produced by 5 different area winemakers, but ALL the grapes for these wines were managed, nudged, trimmed, even caressed, by Jim Barbour and his teammates Nate George and Jesus Rios.
Photo by Jenn Ferrington. The Barbour Team behind the Barbour Box: Jim Barbour (center) and his partners, Jesus Rios (left)
and Nate George (right).
I can't think of a time when a vineyard manager was celebrated as colorfully or as commercially.
Jim Barbour has personally signed each bottle in the box. And as there are only a few such boxes to be had, please stop hemming and hawing about what to get that special friend – or how to say thanks to napaman for all his fine wine and food stories this past year! NOW is the time to jump off your sofa, and call 750 Wines to reserve a box.
Jim Barbour at a tasting of the wines in his Barbour Box
Ask proprietor David Stevens for what he calls the “Vineyard Managers Studio Collection.” I call it the Barbour Box. Much easier to recall.
I will share details of the contents of the box below… but FIRST make that call to 750 Wines and stop wavering about what to get napaman for the holidays; you have found the perfect gift!
Each Barbour Box contains:
1. Barbour Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Heidi Peterson
Barrett; Vintner, Jim Barbour
2. Ashe Family Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007
Winemaker, Philippe Melka; Vintner,
Kristine Ashe
3. Casa Piena, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker ,Thomas Brown; Vintners,
Carmen & Gail Policy
4. Chiarello Family Vineyards, Roux Old Vine Petit Sirah, 2005
Winemaker, Thomas Brown; Vintner,
Michael Chiarello
5. D.R. Stephens, Moose Valley Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker Celia Welch; Vintners, Justin,
Don and Trish Stephens
6. GTS Vineyards, Diamond Mountain, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Thomas Brown; Vintners
Tom & Nancy Seaver
7. Kelly Fleming Wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Celia Welch; Vintner, Kelly
Fleming
8. Keever Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Celia Welch; Vintners Olga
& Bill Keever
9. La Sirena Wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Heidi Peterson Barrett;
Vintner, Heidi Peterson Barrett
10. Parallel Napa Valley, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Philippe Melka;
Vintners, The Chins, Doilneys,
MacQuoids & Sargetakis
11.Revana Family Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Winemaker, Heidi Peterson
Barrett; Vintner, Dr. Madaiah Revana
12. Wolf Family Estate, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005
Winemaker, Karen Culler;
Vintners, Jane & Doug Wolf
The case price is $1,500 plus tax and includes complimentary shipping, but napaman is happy to save you and 750 Wines any aggravation and personally offers to go by the shop and pick up your gifted holiday 12-pack.
“I am honored at being featured like this, but I am not normally in the limelight and I’m much more comfortable in the background,” says the 57-year-old Barbour.
Napaman caught up with him, 750 Wines owner David Stevens, wine blogger Roy Piper and St. Helena Star Business/Wine Editor David Stoneberg at a tasting this morning of seven of the 12 wines in the Barbour Box.
Jim Barbour has been planting grapes, and coddling them to ripeness in Napa Valley for more than 45 vintages. By now, he figures – as do his clients – that he must know what he’s doing.
Barbour’s dad, an insurance agent in San Francisco, decided that he wanted to get into the winery world, so he bought Sequoia Grove, in Rutherford, in 1962. Although only a child at the time, Jim was put to work on the 30-acre parcel.
“I got $250 to prune all 30 acres!” he recalls. “It seemed like a lot of money at the time.”
Initially, as a young adult, Jim thought he would become a parole officer; to this end, he enrolled in a police course in Chico, CA, but he only lasted a month into the studies when he realized what the workday of a parole officer would be like. (You can imagine how hellish it must be if you would voluntarily prefer instead to work your fingers to the bone in the vineyards in searing, 104 F degree heat…)
The parole system’s loss became Napa Valley’s gain; Jim graduated in plant science from the University of California, Davis, and got a job with a respected area vineyard management firm.
By 1990, Jim was set to go out on his own; his own earliest clients included Grace Family, Wolf, Pride, D.R. Stevens, and Revana.
Today, Jim and his two business partners farm 500 acres and supervise an additional 460 acres, bringing the total acreage of what they oversee to nearly 1,000. Them’s a lot of acres.
750 Wines assembled a small panel of wine writers this morning to see if they could identify a commonality among the wines in the Barbour Box.
Naturally, each winemaker will impart his, or her, DNA to the finished wine, but I must say that I did detect what I thought was a common element to all these 2005, 2006 and 2007 wines: the fruit is absolutely LUSH. The fruit appears to be as ripe as you can get it without going into sur-mur, or overripe, territory.
What we tasted this morning:
Barbour Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Warm, ripe red fruit on the nose with a hint of cedar. You can just sort of guess that there’s a hint of Cabernet Franc in this bottle (turns out to be 3%).
Heidi Barrett makes this wine for Jim Barbour’s own label.
This is a good expression of a tight, youthful ’06 Cabernet, with lots of
purple fruit, ripe flavors and elegant balance. 92 points.
La Sirena Wines, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
For a 2006 Cab, this has quite a mature nose. Complex,
with a hint of stewed fruits and raisins. Initially, there are lovely ripe
blackcurrant notes, followed by a hint of cedar-y wood, then a series of
intriguing twists along the swallow. And don’t forget the long finish. 93
points.
Keever Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Wow! Holy winemaking, Batman! This is a rich, textured
(silk pajamas), eventful wine, made under the stewardship of Celia Welch, whom
we have praised many times on napaman.com. This wine has all the telltale signs
of her wizardry: a delicious attack, lush complex flavors, gorgeous balance,
sensually elegant. But she had a head start using Jim Barbour’s cared-for
fruit. 95 points.
GTS Vineyards, Diamond Mountain, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Black ripe fruits on the nose; on the palate an amazing
gradation of different fruit flavors with an exceptionally long finish. Very
tight tannins. This beaut needs a few years to integrate and settle down. 92
points.
Casa Piena, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2006
Despite what the label proclaims, this wine appears to be
slightly hotter than several of the other wines in the tasting; not obnoxiously
so, but this young wine hasn’t developed time to give off complex aromas, so
the perceived alcohol is easy to recognize. The wine has a gorgeous, round
profile wound around a core with licorice-like flavors. 92 points.
Ashe Family Vineyards, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007
This wine, limited to 50 cases, has never before been
shown to the public; this Cabernet will be released in March, 2010. Of all the
wines, tasted, it has the palest “nose,” giving off little more than ”classic
Cab” aromas.
On the palate, the wine delivers a lush texture, has an
excellent start and a beguiling finish. There’s a bit of spice hidden toward
the back end and the faintest hint of cacao nibs. 94 points.
Wolf Family Estate, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2005
The only wine in the limited tasting from the 2005
vintage. The wine has a Cabernet Franc kind of nose, hinting at blue-ish fruit
and high-end notes of coffee. Very alluring, very well structured, a hint of
soy sauce and oh! – the Barbour-caressed fruit gushes on the palate. 92 points.
That’s it. What are you waiting for?
To order your own Barbour Box, call David Stevens at 750 Wines, in St. Helena, at 707-963-0750. As they say in K-Tel commercials… operators are standing by to take your order….
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