27 Dec A Day In The Life Of Kirk Venge, Winemaker Extraordinaire

At 5am on September 15th of this year, I set out in the pitch dark from Calistoga with Kirk Venge, third-generation Napa winemaker with two brands of his own and winemaking consultant to some of the most exciting wines being made in California right now. The idea was to shadow him in order to gain insight into the routines of an elite winemaking consultant during the COVID-19 pandemic — how was his already high-stakes work complicated during this challenging time, and how did he manage to deliver for the clients who had entrusted him with their most important projects, as both consultant and collaborator?

The first answer is that a global pandemic was the least of Venge’s worries. It’s easy enough to social distance out in the vineyards, as well as mask up and take your space in various winery facilities. (Some of Venge’s consulting clients have brick-and-mortar wineries and some work via custom crush.) There are certainly large questions about business decisions to be made, given the uncertain nature of luxury wine sales now, but the bigger problem on Venge’s hands this day was smoke. The 2020 series of fires in Napa and Sonoma started dangerously close to harvest time for many vineyards, and we set out to investigate which, if any, of the vineyards he has longstanding contracts with would have any grapes to harvest at all.

I learned a great deal during my 12-hour outing with Venge, punctuated by a lovely lunch at Auberge du Soleil — a perfectly cooked burger with a pre-release bottle of Eleven Eleven’s 2018 powerhouse Cab, of which Venge is admittedly proud. It’s a juicy, brawnily structured wine that will age beautifully for many years to come, and it was during this lunch preview that I understood what’s in it for him: He really likes making other people happy. He’s the perfect winemaking consultant for brands with a clear vision of what they’re looking for because he has both the connections to the best grapes and the vinicultural know-how to pull it off in the bottle.

While Venge gets the opportunity to execute his own vision at his two properties, Venge Vineyards and Croix Estate, he’s also one of those rare people who enjoys helping others realize their often quite-specific wine dreams. Because he works with some of the most highly sought-after vineyards in the world (think Baciagalupi, Beckstoffer, Platt, Antinori, Stagecoach, Dutton, Renteria), he has at his fingertips anything a newer winemaker might be interested in acquiring. And between his two brands, he makes wine from pretty much every grape variety grown in Napa and Sonoma. Current clients include the aforementioned Eleven Eleven, Macauley, Hunnicut, B Cellars, Jax, and Mirror.

The trajectory of the 2020 harvest has been a challenging one. What’s the big deal about a little residual smoke in the air? Well, it turns out that you can’t taste smoke taint in the fruit itself (we tried). This sneaky defect appears on the palate only once fermentation is well underway. And while there are laboratories that can test for smoke taint — we spent all day gathering samples from some of the world’s most famous vineyards (including Platt and Beckstoffer To Kalon) for just that purpose — Venge wouldn’t get results back in time to decide whether or not to pick these grapes for his clients. The alternative? To “bulk them out.” This often happens when grapes are deemed unsuitable for top brands and sold at inexpensive bulk prices to make inferior wine. (Luckily, all of the vineyard owners are covered by crop insurance, but the losses are still tremendous, given the millions of dollars at stake.)

We stopped in to one of his clients’ wineries to taste some grapes already undergoing fermentation. And while I have a decent palate, I couldn’t really pick up on smoke taint, though Venge said he could after a few seconds in the mouth. I did get a hint of possible taint in the retro-nasal assessment. What was clear is that 2020 would be a difficult one, with tough picking calls and many grapes left on the ground.

We ended the day in the Venge Vineyards barrel room, tasting through about 20 samples in various stages of development — all beautiful representations of their terroir in their respective vintages. Venge was in his happy place, after a stressful day of the kind he is accustomed to navigating with grace and good humor.

Article by: Kim Westerman, Senior Contributor, Lifestyle/Travel, Forbes,  Nov. 17, 2020
Posted by: Jason Williams, General Manager, Venge Vineyards