Louis M. Martini Winery
"One of the Napa Valley's original rocks."
Louis M. Martini
Buy wines from Louis M. Martini
The winery was founded during Prohibition. Subsequently, Martini's simple red wines were appreciated throughout the country. Since 2002, top wines have been produced, which were honoured with a full 100 Parker points for the first time in 2017.
The history of the Louis M. Martini Winery began in Genoa at the beginning of the 20th century. Like so many wineries on the west coast - just think of Gallo or Mondavi - it was founded by Italian emigrants. Louis M. Martini was born in Genoa and followed his father alone to San Francisco in 1899 at the age of 12, where he produced his first wine with him in 1906. As neither of them knew much about wine, his father sent him back to Italy at the age of 18 to learn how to make wine. Back in the USA, they founded the L. M. Martini Grape Production Company, which mainly produced grapes and mass wine.
Martini acquired his first vineyard near St Helena in the Napa Valley. After the end of Prohibition, the first wines were produced for free sale from 1933. In this decade, Martini also acquired a vineyard in Sonoma County, whose grapes he greatly appreciated and had been buying for years. He liked the relatively cool character of the high-altitude vineyards and the red terra rossa soils and named the wines that came from there Monte Rosso.
in 1946, his son Louis P. Martini joined the company, followed later by his son Mike. Over the years, the family mainly produced affordable red wines and mid-range wines. In the 1980s and 1990s, they missed the trend towards higher-quality wines and white wines, especially Chardonnay. The generation after Mike Martini was no longer interested in winegrowing and so the company was sold in 2002 to the Gallo family, who had been buying grapes from the Martinis for decades.
With the Gallos, Louis M. Martini's range changed fundamentally. In 2003, Cellar No. 254 was opened, where top-quality handmade wines were finally pressed from the company's best vineyards - and there were quite a few of them. At the same time, Martini's portfolio was consistently streamlined and raised to a new level. in 2013, Mike Martini handed over the baton to Michael Eddy, the first oenologist not from the Martini family. He promptly produced the 2013 "Lot No. 1 Cabernet Sauvignon", which was honoured with 100 points by Robert Parker's the Wine Advocate in 2017. The "Lot No. 1", as well as the Cabernet Sauvignons from Alexander Valley and the Stage Coach Vineyard, are among the best wines in California today.
photos: Louis M. Martini Winery