The Peter Michael Story

Although the wines of Peter Michael are extremely successful, this story is not just about success. After all, many California wines are successful. This is a story about how a winery handcrafts wines that have been on allocation since the first release in 1989 and seem destined to remain so. It is a story about judgment and philosophy where a clear objective was established at the outset and maintained throughout.

In 1982 Sir Peter Michael built the winery on a square mile of rocky volcanic ridges that form the western face of Mount St. Helena. In so doing he realized a dream conceived as a young man when his father, who lived in France, took him through some of the renowned chateaux of Europe. From the beginning, the wine-growing philosophy was modeled on the French tradition that grape selection, barrels and methodology all were to come from France, but not in an effort to imitate the French. On the contrary, Peter says,

"What I hoped to be able to do in the '80s was to show that the then general pref-erence to choose French wines was misplaced. I am very pleased to find that in the '90s and into the next millennium, California is known as the place where great wines can be consistently produced, some of them from the Peter Michael Winery."

What he wanted was a range of wines that could hold their own alongside the wines of Burgundy and Bordeaux. First, under the steward-ship of Helen Turley and subsequently Mark Aubert and Luc Morlet, these ideas were distilled into practical principles that would be used to govern the operations:

the vineyard terroir would be the single most important feature
the wines would be lightly elegant rather than powerful
a hundred-year commitment to the development of a great estate.

Peter Michael Winery is equally committed to personally hand-sorting each cluster of grapes prior to pressing. This is a painstaking and laborious process, but it ensures that only the finest, fully matured grapes make it into the wine. The judicious use of oak is stressed because it pro-duces an opulent wine with a seamless balance of expansive fruit, oak fla-vors and aromas. This is something every winemaker strives to achieve, but few attain.

The Peter Michael Estate, with the only winery located in Knights Valley, scales the western side of Mount St. Helena. Its rugged slopes are home to numerous wildlife. Redwood Creek meanders through the prop-erty and is one of the healthiest tributaries of the Russian River with an-nual runs of native Salmon and Steelhead. Fostered by their deep respect and stewardship for the land, the Michael's have re-forested this breath-taking mountain estate, having planted over 10,000 redwood and fir trees. In addition, they have designed each of their small vineyard sites to pre-vent erosion of the precious topsoil.

General Manager, Bill Vyenielo, joined the team in 1991 and over-sees the business and marketing activities. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Animal Science from UC Davis, an MBA from Pepperdine University and has over 15 years of wine industry experience.

The wines of Peter Michael have earned numerous accolades from the critics including Robert Parker who has yet to rate any Peter Michael wine below 90. He has been heard to say that if he were a French winemaker living in Bordeaux or Burgundy, he would be rather worried by the wines now coming from Peter Michael Winery and a handful of other wineries in California.