June 8th – Napa Valley, CA – La Pelle Wines, founded in 2016 by winemaker Maayan Koschitzky (Atelier Melka), vineyard manager, Miguel Luna (Partner, Silverado Farming Company) and Pete Richmond (Vineyard Manager, Silverado Farming Company) has announced the release of their 2018 Bien Nacido Vineyard-designated Chardonnay. This is the first time the partners, whose mission it is to create terroir-driven wines that are the ultimate expression of the sites from which their fruit was sourced, worked with Chardonnay, and with fruit that was sourced from outside the Napa Valley.
Co-founder of La Pelle, Pete Richmond, worked for Bien Nacido Vineyards in the 1980’s and developed a fondness and respect for the now iconic site. Located in the Santa Maria Valley AVA of Santa Barbara County, the maritime site has over the years provided fruit for brands such as Au Bon Climat, Sine Qua Non, Tyler, Chanin and Ojai Vineyard, to name just a few.
Steve Miller, President and CEO of Bien Nacido Vineyards, who, along with his brother, Bob Miller (now deceased) established Bien Nacido Vineyards in 1969, says, “Our family has been fortunate to attract wonderful talent, to nurture the evolution of Bien Nacido Vineyards from its inception to today. Without question, Pete Richmond is one of the most important contributors to our vineyard’s success. His ability to craft and fine tune seasonal cultural plans to the variations of vintages, and produce outstanding and consistently excellent fruit, while being responsive to the individual nuances of a constellation of talented winemakers’ wishes is a testimony to his talent, responsiveness, and hard work. The Miller family is excited to be a part of La Pelle’s forthcoming release of their first Bien Nacido Chardonnay. We wish them the very best.”
La Pelle’s debut Chardonnay joins a portfolio of La Pelle wines that includes Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley), Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley), Cabernet Sauvignon, Reserve Designation (Napa Valley), and three single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons: Ceniza (Coombsville AVA), Red Hen (Oak Knoll AVA) and Alluvium (St. Helena AVA).
Though their backgrounds are varied (Maayan ~ a winemaker and farmer from Israel, Miguel ~ a viticulturist and winemaker from Mexico, and Pete ~ a vineyard manager from Northern California), all three share a connection to farming, a curiosity about the science of winegrowing and a love of Napa Valley. With La Pelle, they are fulfilling a common desire to explore how management of vines at the ground level translates into the creation of high-quality wines that exude freshness, acidity and are balanced with complexity and depth. To learn more about La Pelle, please visit www.lapellewines.com.
