Napa Wineries (on tour itinerary):
V. Sattui - Napa Valley
V. Sattui Winery offers a unique Napa Valley experience with beautiful picnic grounds, tasting rooms, Marketplace, European style deli and boutique gift store. In the Marketplace alone nearly two hundred artisanal cheeses are offered, including our homemade mozzarella, a variety of hand-carved charcuterie, a selection of specialty salads and gourmet foods prepared by our Napolitano Executive Chef, Gerardo Sainato.
It’s about the wine ... V. Sattui is a family-owned winery, founded in 1885. Making over forty different wines V. Sattui has been named "Winery of the Year" by the California State Fair three times in the past four years.
V. Sattui wines are sold exclusively from the winery. Our business has always been direct from our family to your family! We have always been affordable and yet continue to be recognized with gold medals, high wine scores and accolades.
Founded in 1885 in San Francisco by Vittorio Sattui, an Italian immigrant, V. Sattui was re–established in St. Helena in 1975 by his great-grandson Dario Sattui.
V. Sattui wines are directly sold from our Winery or through the internet and are not sold in stores or restaurants.
V. Sattui was awarded "Winery of the Year" 2007, 2006 and 2004 at the California State Fair.
Upon entering V. Sattui, you will be greeted with complimentary cheese and food samples in our European-Style Marketplace. Shop our gourmet market & deli before venturing into our newly-remodeled Tasting Room where you can taste our award-winning wines. You are then welcome to take a complimentary self-guided tour of our Winery's stone building, underground aging cellars and museum.
Taste in our Main Tasting Room
Classic Tasting: $5 sample six wines from a cross-section of our offerings
Premium Tasting: $10 – sample six single-vineyard & limited-production wines.
Open 9-6pm daily (9-5pm winter hours)
Closed Christmas.
Taste in the Cellar Club
Cellar Club members can avoid the crowds and sample our full portfolio of wines in a more intimate setting. Become a member by joining our Wine of the Month Club or purchasing your first case of V. Sattui wines.
Open daily through the Fall from 11:00 to 5:00.
Cellar Club members may bring up to 3 guests without an appointment.
Contact the Cellar Club at 707-286-7233 or cellar@vsattui.com
Marketplace & Deli
200 cheeses, meats, salads, sandwiches, panini & prepared foods.
Everything you need for a Wine Country picnic.
Open 9-6 daily (9-5 in winter). Closed Christmas.
Barbecue, Wood-fired Pizzas & Mozzarella Bar
Grilled prawns, tri-tip steak, salmon, BBQ Ribs, Italian sausages, homemade thin-crust pizzas, twice-daily pulled mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes, grilled bread & basil
Serving 11:30- 3pm weekends & holidays
(Spring, Summer & Fall)
Picnic Grounds
2 ½ acres of tree-shaded grounds for picnicking.
Please note: Our grounds are exclusively for our guests purchasing V. Sattui wines & foods from our Marketplace.
Weddings, Corporate Events, Group Picnics, Group Tours & Tastings
The best setting for private events in the Napa Valley!
Up to 250 guests can be accommodated.
Contact our Hospitality Department for availability & pricing (hospitality@vsattui.com).
V. Sattui Winery is located on a 38-acre vineyard in the center of the Napa Valley, along Highway 29 about 1˝ miles south of downtown St. Helena at White Lane.
For more information please call 707-963-7774 or visit us online at www.vsattui.com
"Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world…and one of the natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection. It offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than possibly any other purely sensory thing... ." –Ernest Hemingway
V. Sattui wines are sold exclusively from the Winery in St. Helena, California and never sold in stores or restaurants. We produce just over 40,000 cases each year and specialize in a number of different wines which include several single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandels, Rieslings, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Merlot.
V. Sattui is in the heart of Napa Valley's "red wine country" where some of the region's greatest Cabernets are made. No less than four vineyard-designated Cabernets are produced each year, including the always-spectacular Preston Vineyard and Morisoli Vineyard Cabernets from the nearby Rutherford Bench.
Our other estate properties, up and down the valley (Henry Ranch, Carsi Vineyard and our adjacent Vittorio's Vineyard), are also great vineyards and provide us with more than 80% all of our fruit.
Long before the popularity of White Zinfandel, V. Sattui has made a rosé from the Napa Gamay grape. Every year Gamay Rouge continues to be our single best selling wine.
V. Sattui also makes delicious dessert wines which include our venerable California Madeira, a fine Vintage Port, Muscat, Moscato and our elegant Angelica.
Accolades:
V. Sattui was named the top winery in the State of California for the second time in 3 years. California State Fair recognizes V. Sattui Winery as “TOP WINERY IN CALIFORNIA,” for 2006, an award that V. Sattui won in 2004 as well. Small (40,000+ case) V. Sattui, whose wines are sold only at the winery or through mail order, takes top prize at State Fair Wine Competition Awards Ceremony. Sacramento , July 14, 2006: The California State Fair yesterday presented Dario Sattui with the Golden Winery Award, recognizing V. Sattui Winery as THE TOP WINERY IN CALIFORNIA FOR 2006! This award is presented annually to the winery which has the greatest number of wines winning the highest number of awards. The top awards included eight wines selected "BEST OF CLASS," one wine voted "BEST OF REGION," and nine GOLD MEDAL winners, including one DOUBLE GOLD. The California State Fair is the largest state wine competition in California. This year, 651 wineries entered nearly 3,000 wines from around the state.
V. Sattui Cheese Bar
One of their exclusive tasting rooms
V. Sattui Winery offers a unique opportunity to our tour customers with their beautiful picnic grounds, Tasting Room, Deli & Cheese Shop and Gift Store. In the Deli alone they offer nearly two hundred cheeses, a variety of meats and a selection of unique salads and gour met foods specially prepared in their own kitchens by their executive chef.
At V.Sattui we will have our own picnic table setup for us by your Tour Guide, where we will be able to enjoy a lovely lunch and beautiful surroundings and lush grounds of the V.Sattui estate. Please note that If we arrive late or if V.Sattui is having a special function on the day of your tour, we will have our picnic lunch on picnic blankets on the grass.
Italian winemaker Vittorio Sattui arrived in San Francisco in 1882 with his new bride, Kattarina, to begin their life in America. Born in Genoa, Vittorio, like his father before him, was by trade a baker from the small hilltown of Carsi. At first, Vittorio indeed worked as a baker and made wine in his spare time while Kattarina took in washing. Soon the industrious Sattui family had saved enough money to start a boarding house in the Italian colony of North Beach.
Vittorio continued to make wine, serving it to his patrons at the boarding house; and, by 1885, the reputation of Vittorio’s wines allowed him to quit the bakery and devote himself full-time to his real passion, winemaking. Vittorio quickly established a thriving com mercial venture (located at 722 Montgo mery, now Columbus Avenue) called the St. Helena Wine Cellars, taking the na me of the small, bucolic, Napa Valley town were he obtained his grapes. Vittorio always said, “There is nothing like St. Helena grapes.” He would personally select the grapes during the harvest and then haul them by horse-drawn wagon to Napa for transfer to San Francisco by ferry. When Vittorio moved his expanding winemaking business and family (Kattarina and Vittorio eventually had six children), to the Mission district at 2507 Bryant Ave. near the corner of 23rd Street, he adopted the new name V. Sattui Wine Company. Vittorio continued to ferry his grapes to the city from St. Helena, crushing them at his new winery. The V. Sattui Wine Company’s high quality wines were sold directly to its customers and delivered to their houses in barrels and demijohns (one to 25 gallon sizes) throughout the Bay Area by horse-drawn wagon. Eventually, Vittorio’s clients reached as far north as Oregon and Washington. The family business thrived.
In 1920, Prohibition sounded the death knell for Vittorio Sattui’s family business. “I’ll do nothing against the law,” Vittorio said, and V. Sattui Wine Company lay dormant for the next sixty years, a dream deferred and half-forgotten.
Napa Valley:
Dario Sattui remembers visiting Vittorio, his great-grandfather, who continued to live upstairs at the long-closed Bryant Street winery until his death at age 94. “As a small child, my first recollection was the aroma of wine emanating from the old building as soon as I entered,” Dario says. He played among the barrels and ovals in the cellars, stories of the old family wine business ringing in his ears. It was then, Dario believes, that the dream of reopening the winery began. In 1972, after two years in Europe beyond college, Dario began his apprenticeship at various Napa Valley wineries. He still had his dream, the same dream he’d had as a child, that he “would reestablish V. Sattui Winery to its former glory.”But just how to do this was the problem. Dario had almost no capital and little practical knowledge of the wine industry. So he dedicated himself to developing the tools and skills he’d need to make the dream become a reality. Soon he had a business plan and began looking for prospective investors. Later, he found a parcel of land for sale that had a small walnut orchard with an old house on it. Dario remembers bringing prospective investors to the property telling them, “’Here is where we will build our Winery,’ all the while being afraid that the people living on the property would throw me off for trespassing.” Since he couldn’t afford to purchase the property outright, he managed to get a lease-option for $500 a month. “The house was in such bad condition we lived in my VW bus for more than a month while making it suitable enough to live in.”Time passed as Dario continued to look for investors, but there were no takers. He’d only raised half the capital he needed to begin the Winery. With his last $500, he paid for one more month on the property. He managed during that “last” month to talk a Napa real estate broker into buying the property, building a small winery on it, and then leasing it to Dario with an option to purchase it back so meti me in the future. Still short of funds, Dario took investors with skill, but no money who helped him create the Winery building. They began the building in the summer of 1975 and it was finished in early 1976. Renting the winemaking equip ment he needed, and using his great-grandfather’s hand-corking machine and Vittorio’s original design for the wine bottle labels, the Winery was open for business.
When Dario was living in Europe, he’d seen small, family-run neighborhood delis filled with freshly made foods and wonderful selections of cheese. He was able to convert this memory into what was to become the perfect match for great wine, the now-famous Cheese Shop and Deli. Years passed and the struggle continued. Slowly, the winemaking process improved and success came. In those first few years, times were hard and Dario lived frugally, sometimes spending his nights sleeping on the floor of the Winery so he could put what money he had into the new business. This original Winery building is now the main tasting room. As the business grew, Dario began to be able to accumulate the best equipment available. By 1985, V. Sattui Winery was able to build, amid 300-year-old oak trees, a beautiful stone Winery, reminiscent of late 19 th century wineries in Italy and France. With its two stories, tower, wine caves and underground aging cellars, it was a fitting tribute to help celebrate the centennial of Vittorio Sattui’s dream. That same year, the 34-acre vineyard adjacent to the Winery became available. Renamed Suzanne’s Vineyard after his wife, it was soon joined by 30-acre Carsi Vineyard in Yountville. Then, in 1994, the Winery was able to acquire the 556-acre Henry Ranch property in the Carneros grape-growing region. And in 1998, the purchase of a 128-acre ranch in Solano County secured Napa Gamay grapes for its most popular wine. These, along with other acquisitions, will in the near future allow V. Sattui Winery to supply over 85% of its grape needs from five very distinct microclimates.
From the very beginning, Dario refused to compromise on the quality of the wine. The production and retailing concept offers insight into the reason for V. Sattui Winery’s success. Dario’s vision has always been to fully integrate the process of winemaking from the grape to the consu mer. This vertical control over all aspects of viticulture and winemaking is the future for V. Sattui Winery. It is because of Dario Sattui’s dream that V. Sattui Winery has been able to provide the finest wines possible while continuing to sell them at a fair price directly to the consumer.
Dario’s enthusiasm and passion for the venture that Vittorio began so many years ago has contributed to the renaissance of the small family business of today. The traditional, family-business approach remains the Winery’s commitment to the highest-possible quality wines and foods for its customers. This shared vision, stretching over four generations of the Sattui family, is a fitting tribute to the success and continuing possibilities of the American dream.
Visit V. Sattui's winery website - click here
Buy V.Sattui's wines direct - click here