Julio and Amalia Palmaz have always believed that if given the proper attention and care, their land can produce excellent wine for generations. Along with their children, Florencia and Christian Gastón (and Christian’s wife, Jessica Louise), they set about creating a winery that leverages tradition and technology in the service of crafting great vintages.
The result is a 600-acre estate with 64 acres of vineyards that produce truly modern vintages, thanks to the technology harnessed in support of the art of winemaking.
Two generations of the Palmaz family have sought to bring innovation and invention to the ancient art of making wine. Their background in the sciences, passion for living life to the fullest and years of backbreaking work have resulted in a unique winery situated inside an 18-story cave that combines cutting-edge technology with a respect for winemaking tradition.
At Palmaz, we believe in farming the individual vine, not the vineyard. Tradition and technology seamlessly come together to give us insights into the needs of each vine.
While nothing replaces the knowledge gained from walking through the vineyard, personally touching each vine, technologies such as advanced Geographic Informational Systems (GIS) give the winemaking team an understanding of what vines need both above- and below-ground. The lowest set of vineyards is 400 feet above sea level, in the hills around the estate; the second set is found midway up Mount George, at 1,200 feet; the third resides at the top of the mountain, at 1,400 feet.
By combining farming techniques from the organic, biodynamic and erosion-control philosophies, the Palmaz family has created a truly sustainable farm that will produce great wine for generations to come. From diverse cover crops in the winter to a deficit-irrigation program in the summer, tending to the land is a year-round program.
Palmaz Vineyards' gravity-flow and gravity-finish subterranean winery, the Cave, is a remarkable feat of engineering, harmoniously fusing tradition and technology to produce world-class vintages. Take a step-by-step tour of this unique underground world.
Love the land, know the grape, and make a wine that honors both.
Palmaz Vineyards
4029 Hagen Road
Napa, CA 94558
(707) 226-5587