Colgin Cellars was founded in the year 1992 by
Ann Colgin, a true renaissance woman, who originally began her career in fine arts. Her aim with the winery was to produce small quantities of artisanal wines through a kind of Burgundy approach to winemaking, from the hillside vineyards of
St. Helena in
Napa Valley,
California. Throughout the decades that followed, Ann Colgin and her husband Joe Wender purchased a series of hand-picked vineyards, including the Tychson estate and the IX Estate, which is today where the Colgin Cellars winery can be found.
Colgin Cellars currently produces wine from three principle areas of the St. Helena AVA - the IX Estate, Tychson Hill and Cariad Vineyards. At the 20-acre
IX Estate Vineyard, referred to as "wine nirvana," vines of
Cabernet Sauvignon,
Merlot,
Cabernet Franc,
Syrah and
Petit Verdot grow in volcanic and gravel soils, producing a
Bordeaux style blend, as well as an excellent
single-varietal Syrah in the style of the Northern Rhone. At
Cariad Vineyards, the team produces a Bordeaux style red blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, named "Cariad." And in the Tychson Hill Vineyard, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot grow in Aiken Very Stone Loam soils, which give the wines from here
unique earthy, floral aromas.
Colgin Cellars produces a range of red wines which have earned the estate a cult following. These Napa Valley wines have received
100-point ratings from Robert Parker for 5 different vintages. As the production remains quite low (around the same as that of Petus, or roughly
50,000 bottles per year) and the demand is always high, these wines are extremely rare and difficult to find.
In 2017, the
LVMH luxury giant and owner of Château d'Yquem, Dom Pérignon, Cloudy Bay and Château Cheval Blanc to name a few, bought 60% of the shares in the domain and became majority shareholder in the estate.
