Dominus Estate, is a California wine

California wine

California wine has a long and continuing history, and in the late twentieth century became recognized as producing some of the world's finest wine. While wine is made in all fifty U.S. states, up to 90% of American wine is produced in the state...

 estate producing Bordeaux

Bordeaux wine

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world...

 style blends, owned by Christian Moueix

Christian Moueix

Christian Moueix is a French winemaker and the president of the négociant house Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix in Libourne, overseeing production in several estates in Saint-Émilion and Pomerol including Château Pétrus and Château Trotanoy...

. The winery

Winery

A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, bottling lines, laboratories, and large expanses of...

 is located in Yountville

Yountville, California

Yountville is an incorporated town in Napa County, California, United States. It is in the North Bay portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 2,933 at the 2010 census. Almost one third of the town's population lives on the grounds of the Veterans Home of California.The town's name...

 within the Napa Valley AVA

Napa Valley AVA

Napa Valley AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Napa County, California, United States. Napa Valley is considered one of the top wine regions in the United States...

.

History

George C. Yount

George C. Yount

George Calvert Yount was a trapper in William Wolfskill's party from New Mexico and came to California in 1831. He was the first Euro-American permanent settler in the Napa Valley, where he was the grantee of two Mexican land grants. Yountville, California is named for him.-Biography:George C...

, the founder of Yountville, planted in 1836 the first vines of the valley on the location of Napanook vineyard. In 1850 the property was bought by Charles Hopper, and owners since include Hugh La Rue, a pioneer in the use of rootstock

Rootstock

A rootstock is a plant, and sometimes just the stump, which already has an established, healthy root system, used for grafting a cutting or budding from another plant. The tree part being grafted onto the rootstock is usually called the scion...

 and John Daniel Jr., the owner of Inglenook Winery

Inglenook Winery

The Inglenook Winery produced estate bottled wines in Rutherford, California in the Napa Valley. The winery was founded in 1879 by a Finnish Sea Captain Gustave Niebaum. Niebaum died in 1908 and the winery was shut down during Prohibition...

 who bought the estate in 1946.

Following Daniel's death in 1970, Napanook passed to his daughters Robin Lail and Marcia Smith who in 1982 began a partnership with Christian Moueix, acting on a recommendation by Robert Mondavi

Robert Mondavi

Robert Gerald Mondavi was a leading California vineyard operator whose technical improvements and marketing strategies brought worldwide recognition for the wines of the Napa Valley in California. From an early period, Mondavi aggressively promoted labeling wines varietally rather than...

 to establish production in Napa Valley. Moueix, also in charge of production at Château Pétrus

Château Pétrus

Pétrus is a Bordeaux wine estate located in the Pomerol appellation near its eastern border to Saint-Émilion. An estate of limited size, it produces a limited production red wine almost entirely from Merlot grapes, on occasion with small amounts of Cabernet Franc, and produces no second wine...

 and president of Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix

Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix

Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix, or JP Moueix, is a Bordeaux négociant house founded byJean-Pierre Moueix in 1937, situated on the Quai du Priourat in Libourne, in the Bordeaux wine region of France...

, became the sole owner of Dominus Estate when Lail and Smith sold their shares in 1995. Napanook, the estate's second wine

Second wine

Second wine is a term commonly associated with Bordeaux wine to refer to a second label wine made from cuvee not selected for use in the Grand vin or first label...

, was first released in 1996.

With the previous thirteen vintages crushed and aged at the nearby facility Rombauer Winery, a new winery was constructed by the Swiss architects Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron

Herzog & de Meuron

Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, BSA/SIA/ETH is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog , and Pierre de Meuron , closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of...

 in 1996, a $

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

5 million, 50000 sq ft (4,645.2 m²) structure. The architects' first U.S. project, it was constructed from stone-filled gabions to provide protection from scorching heat by day and the cold at night.

Production

From an estate of 124 acres (50.2 ha), the vineyard area extends 108 acres (43.7 ha) in 14 blocks, with some presence of phylloxera

Phylloxera

Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...

-resistant St. George rootstock from the Inglenook period, the grape varieties are 87% Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...

, 8% Petit Verdot

Petit verdot

Petit Verdot is a variety of red wine grape, principally used in classic Bordeaux blends. It ripens much later than the other varieties in Bordeaux, often too late, so it fell out of favour in its home region. When it does ripen, it is added in small amounts to add tannin, colour and flavour to the...

, and 5% Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone - as in the Loire's Chinon...

.

The annual production is 7,500 to 12,000 cases which includes both Dominus and Napanook.