Purlieu Wines

We lease and farm a small vineyard in the Coombsville AVA, providing beautiful fruit for our Purlieu and Le Pich Cabernets. We also source grapes from the best vineyards elsewhere in Coombsville—including Meteor, Caldwell, and Blue Oak.

The Coombsville AVA — the newest (and arguably most exciting) AVA in the Napa Valley — benefits from a climate that is greatly influenced by the San Francisco Bay. On average, the days here are seven to ten degrees cooler than in St. Helena, just a few miles northeast. This means that the Coombsville growing season is much longer, so the grapes are allowed to ripen more slowly and evenly, translating to beautifully nuanced and expressive aromas in the finished wines.

There are two distinct soil types in Coombsville: The first contains colluvium deposits that are reddish brown; here, the Cabernet grape shows off its spicier, more structured side. The second soil type is composed of flaky volcanic ash; our Cabernet from these plots show a bright, elevated red fruit note along with distinct floral aromas and especially crushed violets.

We expect phenomenal things from the Coombsville AVA and look forward to wines that express Napa in its most dignified, beautiful, complex and ageworthy form.

And the objective is always balance: healthy fruit at peak ripeness, with power but also with freshness. With balance comes the capacity for wine to age, fascinate and excite. The Napa Valley is blessed with a dizzying array of soil strata, microclimates and exposures. We’ve sourced the fruit for our flagship Purlieu, and its sister label Le Pich, from a variety of top vineyard sites throughout the Napa Valley.

We rely on our strong relationships with the best growers and our ability to walk the vines daily. Winemaker Julien Fayard and vineyard manager Steve Matthiasson work together to ensure that every cluster on every vine is treated as an individual and receives the precise amount of both nourishment and stress needed to produce perfectly balanced fruit.