Kindred-spirit California winemakers hit Houston.
Californians, one at the start of her career and another at the end of his, appreciate their jobs
The wine planets aligned in Houston recently, bringing to town hours apart winemakers with vastly different backgrounds and experience, representing one of California’s most iconic wineries and also one of its smallest, newest producers.
Jeffrey Stambor has overseen the historical Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) cellars in St. Helena for 28 years, which is about as long as Melissa Apter Castro has been alive. But, had we been tasting and conversing together instead of being separated by a few miles and a lot of Houston traffic, they soon would have been finishing each other’s sentences. Kindred spirits, these two.
Passion isn’t a function of longevity. Knowledge definitely is, of course, but Apter Castro, by all accounts, was a quick study.
The two couldn’t be in more different places in their lives and careers. Stambor, 58, has grown children, and his long tenure at Beaulieu, a winery that dates to the early 20th century, is drawing to a close. He has decided it’s time to explore something new and fresh in wine. Recently married, Apter Castro hasn’t been on the job with fledgling Metzker Family Estates for even a year yet and only a tart, vibrant rosé of syrah (with a little pinot noir blended in) can truly be claimed as her own creation.
The business is owned by Houston’s Mike Metzer, a genetic researcher by profession — among the multiple hats he wears in the medical world is serving as an adjunct professor at the Baylor College of Medicine — and an entrepreneur by personality who, while attending the University of California, Davis back in the early 1980s, found himself mingling with the campus’ wine community. Vintners, after all, are scientists at heart, and UC Davis is most well known for being the home of America’s most prestigious school of enology.
Stambor is a Davis man, too, but he originally enrolled there intending to become a veterinarian. Hailing from Youngtown, Ohio, he didn’t have anything approaching fine wine on the dinner table growing up. Davis’ wine scene intrigued him, though, and one thing led to another. Apter Castro, for her part, grew up in a wine-loving Bay Area family that routinely visited California’s Napa-Sonoma neighborhood for tasting adventures.
She originally chose premed at Davis, majoring in neurobiology, physiology and behavior — with, fortuitously, a minor in Italian. A magical fall semester of her junior year spent in Tuscany, contrasted against the in-the-trenches experience she gained working in the UC-Davis Medical Center’s emergency room, convinced her winemaking might be a better option.
“The way wine brought strangers and friends together and created an atmosphere for stories and memories to be shared,” she said, “made me realize I should pursue wine as a career.”
She graduated from Davis with an enology degree in 2011 and, five years later, after becoming a member of the Antinori wine team at the Tuscan wine family’s Antica property on Atlas Peak, was named one of Napa’s “7 Most Exciting Winemakers” for 2016 by Napa.com.
Apter Castro’s path crossed with Metzker’s when his son, Cameron, having graduated from college in Texas, landed an internship at Antica. Cameron is now the director of business development for Metzker Family Estates. He and Apter Castro made their first “team” visit to Houston last week and were successful in landing multiple placements for their 2016 Sonoma Coast Rosé of Syrah, the 2014 Russian River Valley Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay and the 2014 Fort Ross Vineyard (Sonoma Coast) Pinot Noir.
Total production of the above is less than 500 cases — Beaulieu probably moves that much in a matter of weeks, if not days — but you have to start somewhere. A Spring Mountain cabernet sauvignon is coming with the 2018 vintage.
“Our mission is to produce exceptional single-vineyard wines that are true to their terroir,” said Metzker, who acknowledges he won’t soon be giving up his multiple day jobs (one of them as an expert witness in courtroom trials involving medical issues). “And it’s always going to be a family business.”
It could be exactly the kind of boutique project Stambor embraces in his next incarnation. But first, he’s taking a final “victory lap” to showcase the latest release, the 2013 vintage, of Beaulieu’s ultra-premium Rarity Cabernet Sauvignon.
The legendary André Tchelistcheff, who mentored Stambor at the outset of his career, created the original Rarity in 1968 to showcase the distinctive, opulent style Beaulieu is capable of in exceptional vintages, using only the “best-of-the-best” barrel lots. The hard-to-find 2013 is available in magnums only, for $1,000. Only 10 barrels were produced. But Stambor’s 2013 Georges De Latour ($145 from bvwines.com) is an excellent consolation prize.
He has had a memorable run at Beaulieu. If he were to have a conversation with Apter Castro, and serendipity suggests they likely will at some juncture, he’d congratulate her for having chosen a marvelous life for herself.