I grew up in a wine family, with my family having started and continuing to run Frog’s Leap and Tres Sabores wineries in Napa’s Rutherford AVA. Both wineries grow their grapes organically and dry farm their vines, the practice of which requires a hybrid of respect for tradition and creative endeavor. This synthesis carries over to winemaking, where I have been taught that the highest art of winemaking consists of a creative evolution of the aroma, taste, and feel of a place, which can only occur if one has eyes both on the past and the future.
I started Calder (my middle name) as an attempt to begin my own creative evolution, using a grape that has a long history in the place where I was born, was planted and vinified by my winemaking idols, and, I believe, tells its own unique version of what makes Napa, Napa.