ORNELLAIA ANNOUNCES NEW NAPA PROJECT
Tuscan estate Ornellaia has announced a new venture in California in partnership with Dalla Valle Vineyards, called ‘DVO’.
Napa Valley and Bolgheri have so much in common: grape varieties, winemaking techniques, peaks of quality that are rare elsewhere. And, in a few months, a wine. It is called “DVO”, and it is the result of a partnership of the highest profile, between Ornellaia, the Bolgheri griffe of the Frescobaldi family, and the Californian Dalla Valle Vineyards. A joint project born from the friendship that, for years, connects Axel Heinz, oenologist and director of Ornellaia, and Maya Dalla Valle, who in 2013 spent a training period at Ornellaia.
“At the base - says Axel Heinz, to WineNews - there is the bond between two great wine families, but also the belief that great wines can be made in any high vocation region of the world, like Napa Valley. The first vintage, 2018, will be released in the second half of the year, at a price to the American public, where most of the 5,000 bottles produced will end up, of 275 euros. We did not want to bind ourselves to a formula related to only one grape variety, in this case it is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon (85%) and Cabernet Franc (15%), aged in barriques, adopting the style of Ornellaia. The result, of course, will be that of a great Napa Valley wine”.
And here is the focal point. “The objective - resumes the director of Ornellaia - is not to make an Italian wine in California, but a Californian wine with a European sensibility.Besides, with the Dalla Valle family, of Italian origin, there is great harmony, especially in the cellar, where we work in a very similar way. It is an embryonic project, which is taking its first steps, but we have every intention to make it solid. Also because we have already received many requests, which will be impossible to fulfill, but the will is to commercialize it everywhere. It will not be a wine produced in large volumes, but it will be an important project, which I have followed and will follow personally, despite the difficulty of being present during the harvest, which in Napa Valley and Bolgheri is practically contemporary .
Founded in 1986, Dalla Valle Vineyards one of world’s most celebrated wine estates located in Napa Valley’s famed eastern hillsides of Oakville. This preeminent multigeneration family-run winery has earned acclaim for producing wines of extraordinary character and complexity, vintage after vintage. Today, Dalla Valle is guided by the mother-and-daughter team of Naoko and Maya Dalla Valle, who steward every aspect of the viticulture and winemaking with a level of meticulous care and detail reserved for the great First Growths, to ensure Dalla Valle continues to thrive for generations to come.
