Castello di Amorosa

Nearly twenty years ago, I purchased the spectacular property upon which I built Castello di Amorosa. It sat on a hundred-seventy beautiful acres of forest and hills with a stream, a lake, one of the first houses built in Napa County and a great Victorian home where I chose to live. It was my dream property, culminating a search of many years. The purchase also came with a great building permit for a large winery building which had taken the previous owner thirteen years to obtain. At first, I had no intention of starting another winery- I already had V.Sattui. My plan was only to replant historic vineyards there. However, throughout my adult life, I had been fascinated with Italian medieval architecture; and, because of my passion- some would say obsession- I had already bought a handful of ancient properties in Italy, including a small castle near Florence (now sold), a medieval monastery near Siena (now being refurbished) and a Medici palace in southern Tuscany, which we are remodeling into a period hotel. You get the picture- it's an incurable malady. I was naive enough to think I was ready to begin. My plan was to incorporate all the ideas and details that I had assembled from my first trip to Italy in 1965 in my 8,500 square-foot winery. I would create a fantasy, a maze where every room and space opened into a new and different adventure as one traveled throughout the building. I would include all the elements of a true medieval castle- a moat and drawbridge, high walls and towers on a hillside, a great hall, courtyards and loggias, an apartment for the nobles, a big kitchen, an outdoor brick oven for baking bread, a church, a horse stables, secret passage ways and, of course, a prison and torture chamber.

Castello di Amorosa produces primarily Italian style wines while reflecting California's unique climate, soil and growing conditions. The majority of our red wine grapes are grown in the Napa Valley, while our white grapes are grown in the Carneros district of the Napa Valley or in the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, as both of these cool areas are ideal for white wine grapes. Some grapes are also purchased from select growers. Castello di Amorosa is a Certified Napa Green winery, and our estate vineyards are in the heart of the Diamond Mountain District, a nested American Viticultural Area (AVA) within the Napa Valley. Located east of highway 29 and just 3 miles south of the city of Calistoga, our 30 acres of vineyards surrounding the Castello are planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sangiovese and Primitivo.