Gemstone Vineyards

Gemstone Vineyard

Based in the small town of Yountville in Napa, California Gemstone crafts some of the absolute finest Bordeaux style blends anywhere in the world in addition to hand crafting small lots of Chardonnay. Famed wine critic Robert Parker has long been a fan of Gemstone and his graces when combined with the incredible quality of the wine and low production levels have ensured that Gemstone wines are available only to their own mailing list members and at fine restaurants around the country.

A few years ago the ownership of Gemstone changed from founders Suzie and Paul Frank to the current owners Carole and Michael Marks who come from a high technology background in Silicone Valley. The transition has been seamless because of the hard work of both sides, as well as Marks’ willingness to keep other winery staff consistent, such as winemaker Phillipe Melka who has been a mainstay at Gemstone since 2005 which incidentally was the first year that the winery was able to craft estate wines, controlling everything from the vineyard until the bottle was set on your kitchen table. If Melka’s name sounds familiar he has been called one of the most influential wine consultants in the world, perhaps only behind famed French wine consultant Michele Rolland.

To give you some idea how highly allocated this wine is, you aren’t likely to find many wineries which need to issue apologies to their customers because their entire vintages sold out in only 9 days. Thus is the case with the 2005 Gemstone Proprietary Estate Blend which is the most well known and renowned wine made by Gemston. Consistently scoring 92-96 points from major wine critics this is truly one of the great wines in the world. In many ways it is a classic Napa Cabernet Sauvignon which will benefit from spending a few years in your cellar, although it wouldn’t be neglectful to leave it in your cellar for up to 25 years to see how the bottle ages, which should be quite gracefully.

Gemstone crafts such high quality, sought after wine because of their incredible vineyard. They like to say that “Technology, Innovation, and a Bit of Courage… Extraordinary wine is a product of extraordinary effort in the vineyard…” which I don’t think could be any more true. Planted on a hill with some of the highest stone concentrated soil in all of Napa Valley the original founders decided to divide the property up into micro sizes with most blocks consisting of only 5 vines. This incredible attention to detail shows through in their wines and makes it one of the most sought after and rare in the world.