History
Christian Moueix, whose family firm Etablissements Jean-Pierre Moueix farms and distributes for Trotanoy, Hosanna and La Fleur-Petrus, and who directed the viticulture at Petrus for decades, first saw Napa as a student at UC Davis in 1968. In 1982 he entered a partnership with Robin Lail and Marcia Smith, daughters of the Inglenook figure John Daniel Jr., to farm their family's Napanook vineyard. He bought out their shares in 1995 to take sole ownership and founded Dominus Estate on the site. Tod Mostero directs the property now.
The Site
A 134-acre estate on the far western bench of Yountville, at the base of the Mayacamas wall, with roughly 102 acres planted. It lies mostly flat at 100 to 200 feet, with its western edge climbing into the mountain ravines, which gives it afternoon heat off the valley floor and draining mountain air overnight. The soils are Bale gravelly loam and Cole silt loam: surface gravel that drains instantly over deep clay subsoils that hold enough moisture to sustain vines without irrigation. The estate is entirely dry-farmed at two to two and a half tons per acre, and farmed organically and biodynamically.
Vines and Blocks
Cabernet Sauvignon takes about eighty-three per cent of the planting, on the deepest and most gravelly stretches of the fan. Cabernet Franc, around twelve per cent, sits on the higher, rock-strewn western slopes near the tree line. Petit Verdot, roughly five per cent, occupies the lowest clay-rich swales. The winery, completed in 1997, is the Herzog and de Meuron building of gabion cages filled with local basalt, whose porous stone walls temper the cellar without refrigeration.
The Wines
Dominus comes from the oldest and most gravelly blocks and is built to need ten to fifteen years: black currant, cedar smoke, iron and tobacco over fine tannin. Napanook, from the younger vines and heavier ground, is the same hand in an earlier-drinking form.