Winemaker Notes
For years, Bill Foley and his wife, Carol Johnson Foley, had dreamt of opening a winery bearing their name in Napa Valley. They both enjoyed the grandeur of Napa’s scenery and the rhythm of its lifestyle, and, more importantly, the couple loved the opulence and complexity of Napa’s wines. With the launch of Foley Johnson in 2012, the Foleys have created a world-class winery with premier vineyards and a historic tasting room right in the heart of America’s preeminent wine-growing region.
Located along Highway 29 in the prestigious Rutherford AVA, Foley Johnson exemplifies the understated elegance and casual warmth of the Valley. The winery produces two tiers of wines: Napa Valley and Handmade. The Napa Valley tier focuses on Bordeaux varieties from the nearly 50 acres of estate vineyards around the winery in Rutherford. The Handmade tier features special small-lot bottlings from some of the renowned winemakers in the Foley Family Wines group of wineries including Dave Lattin of Kuleto, Leslie Renaud of Lincourt, Paul Warson of Firestone, Mark Lyon of Sebastiani and Lisa Bishop Forbes of Chalk Hill.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.