Napa Valley Grapegrowers announces new hires

The Napa Valley Grapegrowers (NVG) has completed a strategic restructuring, which resulted in the creation of two new positions.

Julie Jenanyan has been hired as the NVG program coordinator, and Mary Streblow is the new office manager. They join Executive Director Jennifer Kopp and Viticulture Fair Coordinator Jill Durfee at the NVG offices in Napa.

Prior to joining the NVG team, Jenanyan worked as a contract copywriter specializing in the food and wine trades and before that, as the sales and marketing director for Liparita Cellars. She has written several articles for local wine-related publications and is a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier.

Streblow was the office manager at Winegarden restaurant and is a Napa native.

The three partners, David Biggar, managing director, Tom Peterson, director of operations, and Teresa Sullivan, director of finance, have launched a new wine company, Vintage Point - Partners in Wine, designed to meet the sales, marketing and general management needs of small, luxury wineries, both in the U.S. and abroad.

"Above all, we want to help small, independent boutique wineries get to market.,"said Biggar. "The way wine is marketed and sold in the U.S. is changing so quickly, with consolidation happening in all parts of the business -- retail, wholesale and supplier. As a result, we see that these wineries are getting lost in the system,"

Vintage Point is located at 564 Broadway, Sonoma. It can be reached via phone (707) 939-6766, fax (707) 939-6765 or e-mail: david.biggar@vintagepoint.com The company's website is www.vintagepoint.com.

Chateau Montelena has announced the release of its 2002 estate cabernet sauvignon. This vintage marks the 25th bottling of Chateau Montelena's luxury cuve estate cabernet.

"When I first started making wine for Chateau Montelena, the vines and I were both young," said Bo Barrett, winemaker since 1982. "Though the vineyard was planted in the early '70s, it wasn't until 1978 that we made the first Montelena Estate Cabernet."

Chateau Montelena bottled approximately the same amount of the Montelena Estate Cabernet in 2002 as it did the 1978 vintage.

Jim Barrett, proprietor, said, "The key to our winemaking tradition is our well-experienced team. Our vineyard manager, Dave Vella, has been with us since 1985 and our vineyard foreman, Placido Garcia joined us in 1974. Chateau Montelena has one of the few cabernet sauvignon vineyards that is more than 30 years old, and we've done very little replanting. That plays a big role in the consistency of our wines."

Chateau Montelena's guiding philosophy is "Make the best wine. Period." Robert M. Parker Jr., in "The World's Greatest Wine Estates," writes "buying Montelena's estate cabernet sauvignon is like buying a blue chip stock. They get better with age." Parker awarded a score of 95+ points to the 2002 Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

The 2002 Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon will be available at a suggested retail price of $95 per bottle.