The Napa Valley Reserve

The Napa Valley Reserve is a private club with a Membership of approximately 500 couples who share a passion for wine and the way of life that surrounds it. While grape growing and winemaking are central to The Reserve experience, Members, who come from more than 37 states and 11 countries, share other passions as well, including travel, the sporting life, culinary arts, fine art and legendary automobiles, among others. We offer our Members unparalleled experiences in a beautiful, private setting where they are at liberty to relax and enjoy one another’s good company.

In addition to producing fine wine, The Reserve conducts events for Members at the winery and other national and international locations. As part of our yearly curriculum, resident and visiting experts explore a variety of topics including grapegrowing, winemaking, and the culinary arts. Past events have ranged from roundtable discussions with international winemakers to wine and culinary pairings with renowned chefs at restaurants and homes around the world.

On a property reflective of the region's agricultural history, reconnect with your passion for wine and a way of life authentic only to Napa Valley. Where gracious wine service enhances  the enjoyment of comparative tastings, blending sessions and educational wine and food pairing experiences. This is a place for all seasons. Winter, spring, summer and autumn all bring opportunities for the enjoyment of a life lived outdoors...where the air is fresh and sweet and the scenery natural and beautiful.

Located in the heart of Napa Valley, The Reserve's eighty-acre property is framed on all sides by natural boundaries, defining a proportion that's perfectly suited to a fine wine estate. With acres of vineyards, orchards and gardens, the property is reminiscent of some of the great wine estates of Europe, many of which have been held within the same families for centuries

Here the process comes to life as you collaborate with the winemaking team on every detail of your wine, from blending to barrel toast. Assisted through each phase of the process, you'll be rewarded on release day with wine that's comparable in quality to Napa Valley's finest.

Though we offer a multitude of ways for our Members to enjoy the club, the most rewarding aspect of membership at The Reserve is enjoying the final product. The experience, which H. William Harlan describes as “capturing the whole season of work in a bottle of wine,” is a fulfilling one that all Members across the globe will be able to enjoy many years down the road.

During the winter months we invite you to work with the cellarmaster performing the traditional crafts of topping, barrel sampling and barrel-to-barrel racking. You may also wish to select barrel types and desired toast. Working with a label designer, this is also the ideal time to design a custom label.

After aging and before bottling, you may work closely with the winemaking team to develop your own personal wine blends. Wine is extracted from the barrels and the optimal balance of flavor in the wine is determined. Throughout the barrel aging process, you'll work with our cellarmaster to test the development of your wines in the barrels.

After one to two years in the barrel the final blend is determined and the wine is ready for bottling. During the summer months, the very personal process of naming your wine, designing your label and selecting the size and shape of your bottle becomes real and the wine becomes an expression of you.

September and October — harvest season — are months of great activity. Join in as grapes are hand-picked before dawn while they're still cool then gently hand-sorted and put into tanks and barrels. Daily activities include following the fermentations, monitoring sugar and temperature levels, performing traditional punch-downs, pump-overs, barrel stirring and barrel rotations.

In its ten years of existence, The Reserve’s Membership has grown rapidly, both in number and in geographic diversity. Currently we have more than five hundred Members, two-thirds of whom live outside the state and come from around the world. We have Members in thirty-seven states and eleven countries. By working with our winemaking team and label advisor, our Members from all locations are able to create unique experiences and wines that they may call their own.