We are excited and honored to share that Stony Hill Vineyard has begun a
bright journey under new ownership. The Lawrence Family and I are humbled to have the opportunity to continue Stony Hill’s legacy while preserving and developing this estate’s great history and heritage.
It is with great pride that we introduce Stony Hill’s new Winemaker, Jaimee Motley, who will have the honor of continuing the legacy of creating outstanding wines from these legendary vineyards. Jaimee’s deep passion and love for the land will shine through in Stony Hill’s elegant wines.
Our goal is to preserve this great land and offer our guests the best wines and experiences Napa Valley has to offer. To do so, we are also honored to introduce Laurie Taboulet as Estate Director who will be tasked with sharing the great story of Stony Hill Vineyard and will help develop the estate’s sales and hospitality programs.
To offer our guests the highest level of experience possible, we will be closing the estate for the coming months to ensure we are prepared and ready to welcome you back. At this time, we will pause reservations and web sales as we work on improving our site to better serve you.
In the meantime, we wish you health and happiness and will provide exciting updates in the New Year.
Everybody? There are a wealth of styles out there. I hope Stony Hill remains Stony Hill as well, but to imply that all other Napa Chardonnay is of a single style is just dead wrong.
I’m sure Gaylon Lawrence will waste no time in ruining what was once a great winery. I’ll probably follow the same plan as he executed at Burgess, namely purging most of the existing staff. Shame on Long Meadow Ranch.
Jaimee worked under Pax Mahle for quite some time - and still may do so - along with having her own label. Her style is far from ‘butterball’ but I guess we’ll see what happens . . .
I think they realize what’s at stake here, and therefore the only thing most people have to worry about is the money that someone felt was being left on the table. I’m guessing it’s not going to be better (on balance), but I’m thinking it is going to be more expensive; same for all other ‘touch points’.
I love this term that keeps popping up, Estate Director. It is so wonderfully ambiguous. In charge of mowing the lawn??
I am sure the Estate Director will make sure the wines proffered for tasting will be properly curated.
This is exactly what it seems like they’ve done with Heitz.
I visited Heitz over the summer for the first time in a few years and was shocked by how much they’d raised prices on everything. Trailside is now something like $125/bottle. Also, they’d obviously gotten rid of the free tasting in lieu of a $75 tasting of 4 wines.
It certainly seems to me like these folks MO is buying wineries with heritage/“authenticity” that may be under-marketed and polishing them by getting a better web/social media presence and PR. I was also quite surprised to see that they were changing the Heitz label that’d been around all of these years.
I visited Heitz over the summer for the first time in a few years and was shocked by how much they’d raised prices on everything. Trailside is now something like $125/bottle. Also, they’d obviously gotten rid of the free tasting in lieu of a $75 tasting of 4 wines.
Based on the Cellar Tracker notes (other post) their Chardonnay is always hovering around 90 points. I liked the one 2013 at a 92 and paid around $45. These are certainly not your Rombauer style Chards and hopefully they don’t go that direction.