Over the weekend, I visited Corison Winery, a small winery
and family farm in St. Helena. When visiting a family owned and operated
winery, I love to hear the story behind the business (we certainly heard the
value of story, especially family stories, from Christine Wente this quarter).
Corison
was of particular interest to me because it was founded by female winemaker,
Cathy Corison. Before discovering wine, she was a biology major and stumbled
upon a “wine appreciation” course. She immediately fell in love with wine and
went on to earn a master’s degree in Enology at UC Davis. Before founding
Corison, she held winemaking positions at Chappellet and Yverdon. She founded
Corison in 1987 and originally was purchasing grapes from other vineyards in
the surrounding area to make her wine. In 1995, she went on to secure an
estate vineyard via the purchase of Kronos Vinyard. The property is unique in
that it has original vines that they still use today; many vineyards in Napa
were hit by phylloxera in the 1980s, but the varietals on the Kronos vineyard
were untouched. Today Corison specializes in cabernet sauvignon. Cathy, with
her biology background, is relatively simplistic in her winemaking process and
believes in letting the fruit and nature do the work. It was a pleasure
visiting her winery; it was simple, relaxing and warm. And of course it’s
awesome to hear the story of an amazing female winemaker. I will certainly be
back.
Really nice NYT article about Cathy’s work: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/dining/at-corison-winery-the-focus-on-napa-cabernet-never-blurs.html
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