The Micro Winery

For more than 70 years, Martini family winemakers have walked the hillside vineyards of Napa and Sonoma counties, searching for the most distinctive flavors of the best Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Mike Martini has focused this accumulated wisdom in the small-lot Cabernet Sauvignon wines he crafts in the“micro-winery” he recently built in St. Helena.

Every aspect of winemaking is done by hand here, grand ideas acted out on a small scale to make a “flavor map” of the most famous Cabernet vineyards of Northern California. Mike blends small batches of mouth-filling wines that can highlight the differences in the vineyards or balance their individual strengths in a marriage of flavor and structure.   By sourcing grapes from the most prestigious AVAs in Napa and Sonoma and subjecting them to the same advanced winemaking techniques, Mike is conducting a “terroir mapping” that will enlighten us all on the true subtleties and influence of terroir.

“I only get to make wine once a year,” Mike says. “The micro winery gives me the chance to be more creative, work out more ideas about the grapes and the wine, and move forward faster to find the ultimate Cabernet.”