William Hill Estate is renowned for crafting elegant Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot wines due to its exceptional location between Napa Valley’s Silverado Trail and Atlas Peak Road on the prestigious Silverado Bench. Once classic in style, contemporary winemaker Ralf Holdenried has successfully transitioned our wines to a more refined and sophisticated style with fruit intensity and layers of complexity. Ralf’s innovative and progressive approach to grape growing and winemaking enhances the unique style of our Napa Valley wines.

The Napa Valley Viticultural Area is renowned for its long growing season marked by sunny, warm and dry days and followed by cool evenings. These growing conditions are ideal for allowing grapes to ripen slowly and evenly. A dry winter and warm, dry spring initiated an early start to the 2007 growing season. The weather remained fairly mild through the harvest months with the only heat spike occurring in early September. Temperatures cooled throughout the remainder of September which slowed the ripening of certain varietals and set a good pace for the rest of harvest. This allowed winemakers to focus on bringing in and crushing one variety at a time. Many wineries waited until the very end of harvest to pick some of the later-ripening varieties, and were rewarded with a very high quality crop. Overall, the 2007 crop was much smaller and produced lower alcohol levels in the wines than in 2005 and 2006, but quality is exceptional.

One of the traditional classic black grape varieties approved for blending in Bordeaux, winemakers generally use the Petit Verdot grape as chefs would use seasoning. The “spice box” contribution this grape adds to wine is dense fruit, dark color, powerful flavors, and heavy tannins. Usually late-ripening, Petit Verdot vines tend to be quite vigorous and produce fruit that develops in relatively small-winged clusters, loosely filled with round, dark red-to-black, relatively thick-skinned, berries. Petit Verdot is occasionally, but rarely bottled as a stand-alone varietal. In a recent tasting panel of the Prizer Key Napa Valley guide book, the William Hill Estate Petit Verdot placed third out of 28 Petit Verdot’s from all over California. Our Estate grown Petit Verdot is not for the faint of palate! A full bodied, tannic wine, it perfectly complements grilled red meat. Winemaker Ralf Holdenreid notes: “This is a deep dark wine w/ full tannins and a pretty rose petal perfume. Unique and delicious..”

This wine pairs very well with aged cheddar, or grilled red meat sprinkled with a dash of course sea salt just before serving.