Accendo Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley 2019

 Accendo ~ To illuminate, inspire, and arouse. 

To illuminate: Shine a light on what’s behind the bottle – great vineyards, enlightened and sustainable farming, artisanal winemaking and the art of the blend. Wines that build on what came before, generation to generation. 

To inspire: Produce and promote classically styled wines that express their terroir with balance, purity and nobility; revisit the iconic Napa Valley Cabernets of the 1950s – 1970s, sourced from multiple vineyards and showing perfectly 50 – 70 years later. Great wines don’t answer all the questions at the first sip. Great wines inspire a dialog about what makes them great 

To arouse: great, a conversation that burns on, generation after generation; participate in the passion of our efforts to produce singular wines and sustain our industry, our environment and our community. 

Accendo Cellars is the Araujo Family’s latest venture made by two generations working together with their longstanding team to honor the winemaking and family heritage of Napa Valley. Much like their iconic Cabernet Sauvignon, Accendo Sauvignon Blanc is the product of careful fruit sourcing and conscientious, diligent farming. The wine is powerful, yet it possesses a delicacy and artfulness that can only come with a winemaking philosophy that honors the integrity of the fruit and the vineyard’s terroir. They give this wine extra time in barrel and bottle prior to each release, resulting in an exquisitely balanced Sauvignon Blanc that is aromatically complex, concentrated in flavor and richly textured – a wine influenced by both a Graves from Bordeaux and a Sauvignon Blanc from the New World. 

Made by the highly acclaimed winemaker, Françoise Peschon who has worked alongside Daphne and Bart Araujo since 1993 when they were proprietors of Araujo Estate and the celebrated Eisele Vineyard. Today at Accendo Cellars, she oversees the winemaking for the Sauvignon Blanc and consults with Nigel Kinsman on their Cabernet. In her thirty-year career, she’s worked at some of the best brands Napa Valley has ever seen ~ Cornell, Araujo Estate, Viader Vineyards and Vine Hill Ranch—quietly crafting some of Napa Valley’s most acclaimed Cabernet Sauvignons of the last three decades. She is quick to credit her mentors, wine industry luminaries Michel Rolland and Tony Soter, whose sensitivity, intellect and sense of aesthetics have clearly inspired her. 

The 2019 Accendo is a careful blend of Sauvignon Blanc with a touch of Semillon and Sauvignon Musque, fermented in new and used French oak barrels, concrete eggs and stainless-steel drums, then aged sur lie before bottling. Heady floral fragrances of jasmine and honeysuckle add exotic notes to the fruit aromas of guava, green apple, white nectarine and kiwi, nuanced by touches of Kafir lime, lemongrass and marzipan. In the mouth, the fleshy, supple and succulent texture is brightened by fresh acidity, with a lingering minerality prolonging the finish. A blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Musque and Semillon, the wine is intense, bright, creamy and gorgeous. A firm and fine line of acidity provides brightness to the fleshy mid palate, while a lingering minerality, reminiscent of the sea, extends the long finish. A truly sensational Napa Valley expression of Sauvignon Blanc.