2015 M. Trinchero Forte

Trinchero Family Estates was started in 1947, when brothers John and Mario Trinchero purchased Sutter Home Winery in St. Helena. Since then more recent generations of the family have expanded the business by acquiring numerous brands in the U.S. and Australia, including Ménage a Trois, Napa Cellars and Trinchero Napa Valley. The family’s umbrella business also includes rum and tequila brands. Trinchero Napa Valley is the family’s prestige wine label, and it is mostly single-vineyard wines from the family’s Napa vineyards. Trinchero Napa Valley makes Bordeaux style wines and grows Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. The M. Trinchero label is in honor of Mario Trinchero, and the estate considers its M. Trinchero wines to be "ultra premium."

Napa Valley AVA is the most famous winemaking region in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world. With nearly 43,000 acres of vineyards and more than 300 wineries, it is the heart of fine wine production in the United States. Winemaking started in Napa in 1838 when George C. Yount planted grapes and began producing wine commercially. Other winemaking pioneers followed in the late 19th century, including the founders of Charles Krug, Schramsberg, Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyards. An infestation of phylloxera, an insect that attacks vine roots, and the onset of Prohibition nearly wiped out the nascent Napa wine industry in the early 20th century. But by the late 1950s and early 1960s Robert Mondavi and other visionaries were producing quality wines easily distinguishable from the mass-produced jug wines made in California’s Central Valley. Napa Valley’s AVA was established in 1983, and today there are 16 sub-appellations within the Napa Valley AVA. Many grapes grow well in Napa’s Mediterranean climate, but the region is best known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay is also very successfully cultivated, and about 30% of the AVA’s acreage is planted to white grapes, with the majority of those grapes being Chardonnay,