Heminway Vineyard, Napa Valley

Jay Heminway lived and worked in Berkeley, California, surrounded by a tight-knit group of friends who embraced an appreciation for local food and wine. In pursuit of such treasures, Jay rode his motorcycle up to Napa and discovered a property high above the valley floor in the Vaca Mountains with not much more than a cold-water hunting cabin, a burned-down barn, and an abandoned Fleetwood Cadillac. A local contractor urged him: “these soils are fantastic—plant Zinfandel!” And, so, Jay did. (Of course, that gentleman was Italian!)

Jay established Green & Red Vineyard in the 1970s and quickly became renowned by critics and consumers alike for his Zinfandels and Petite Sirahs. Jay’s wines soon became the house wine of the acclaimed local food and wine mecca Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley. No wonder, as among that tight-knit group of friends in the ’60s was none other than Alice Waters. Jay was the winemaker of Green & Red right up to his passing in 2019. At that time, his daughter Tobin Heminway (former preschool student of aforementioned Alice Waters!) and her husband Ray Nicola Hannigan relocated from their home and successful careers in New York City to the Napa Valley. Remember that Italian contractor of the property who said the soils were great? Well, he was right, they are extraordinary. So extraordinary that Tegan Passalacqua, Winemaker at Turley Wine Cellars, thinks the hillside Green & Red vineyard sites could be an AVA of their own. Why? Because the soils are made up of California’s designated State Rock Green Serpentine and the unique Red Chert…thus the vineyard’s name. Of the three Green & Red vineyards, Biale sources its fruit from their Tip Top Vineyard, 1800-2000 feet elevation—above the fog line.