Buoncristiani Family Winery
Napa Valley AVA
A collection of stunning wines from Napa Valley
Some wineries have good stories to tell, others contain great narratives that make them memorable and seemingly bigger than life. Such is the case with Buoncristiani Family Winery, a fledgling Napa Valley producer that has been making waves the size of a tsunami with its wonderful wines.
Buoncristiani Family Winery is also about as family-oriented as possible, with four Buoncristiani brothers involved in its operation. Brothers Matt, Jay, Aaron, and Nate are the winery’s founders and owners, all working together to craft their award-winning Napa Valley wines.
“We all have purple arms and purple feet,” asserted Jay Buoncristiani, the winery’s full time winemaker and informal spokesman. “When we started doing this, we all agreed to do the work ourselves to be able to insure the quality we wanted to achieve.”
It all began as a part time hobby for their father, Robert, who started making wines in his two-car Napa garage a number of years ago. When the winemaking process was completed, the equipment was moved out and the structure was returned to its original garage state. This scene was reenacted for many years and many of Robert’s wines earned high awards in wine fairs and competitions.
In 1995, the four brothers started to take an idea they had to the next level. They agreed to work together to attempt to produce a commercial wine that would carry the family name. By 1999, the family garage had become a bonded winery, among the smallest on record in either Napa or all of California.
In 2001, Buoncristiani Family Winery released its first 300 cases of O.P.C. Cabernet Sauvignon (named for the boys’ maternal grandfather Jack, Ol’ Pa’s Cuvée). While the family’s fraternal side traces back to Tuscany, there is great attention paid to blends and family preferences with regard to Buoncristiani Family wines.
Today, each of the four brothers hold a definitive role in the Buoncristiani Family Winery - Matt serves as the managing partner, Jay is the winemaker, Aaron offers his artwork for the wine labels, and Nate collaborates on marketing and sales. Since only family members touch the wines, the place can truly be called a family-only winery as opposed to a family-owned winery. What is unique about Buoncristiani is the amount of accolades and awards they have managed to garner for their efforts.
“It sort of seemed to us that we should do well with our wines,” added Jay Buoncristiani. “After all, our wines were doing well where we all worked (Jay was, at the time, winemaker for the prestigious Hess Collection and is currently a consulting winemaker to a select few other Napa wineries).”
Buoncristiani also operates an impressive cave space and winery, a 20,000 square foot facility including an underground state-of-the-art winery and tasting room. The space is known as The Caves at Soda Canyon and is shared with three other small Napa Valley wineries. Sitting atop the Vaca Mountains, above the famed Stags Leap District, the site has beautiful panoramic views from St. Helena to San Francisco, and has become a very popular destination for wine enthusiasts. After many years of planning and construction, the Buoncristianis celebrated their official opening of the cave space in September of 2013.
The business has also grown and currently produces around 5,000 cases per year, a level the Buoncristiani Family Winery is comfortable with and plans to maintain for the foreseeable future.
“We have talked it over a number of times, and at 5,000 cases, we can still control everything ourselves, and that is extremely important to all of us,” Buoncristiani continued. “That way, we can still build for the future and turn our dream into something special.”
“We want to share our passion with our friends and customers,” finalized Jay Buoncristiani. “We have a number of long term grape contracts with some of the finest small growers you can find in Napa, so we should have the correct fruit to take us to the next level. Everything we do is completely hands on, and that is simply not going to change.”
The incredible success of this small family winery is a tribute to their resoluteness and ability to work together. The brothers take pride in performing all aspects of enology, viticulture, wine production, marketing, and package design in order to share a true expression of their winemaking passion.
We hope our Platinum Wine Club members enjoy one of their latest award-winning wines, the 2016 Napa Valley Malbec. Cheers!
Map of the area
Dear Platinum Wine Club Members,
Greetings from Napa Valley! We are still in the crush season as I type this letter with purple stained fingers, and what a great vintage it has been. In fact, the intensity of our wines reminds me of the stellar 2016 vintage of which we are featuring with you.
It is with great pleasure that my brothers and I contribute our 2016 Malbec to Gold Medal Wine Club’s Platinum Wine Club. This variety is near and dear to us as it plays such an important role in our blends, and we have been showcasing it on its own since 2008. Over the years, we are proud that our Buoncristiani Malbec has become one of the quality standouts, the best of the best of Napa Valley’s great Malbecs, rarely bottled separately here.
My brothers and I were born and raised in Napa and established Buoncristiani Family Winery together in 1999. We honed our winemaking and viticultural skills in some of Napa’s top wineries and have since been producing highly sought after wines. We take pride in performing all aspects of enology, viticulture, wine production and art design in order to share a true expression of our winemaking passion. Our motto is quality not quantity our wines without compromise. Handcrafting these limited production wines, and we craft ourselves allows for the utmost attention to detail in every single drop of wine.
From our Family to Yours, Cheers!
Jay Buoncristiani
Co-Founder/Winemaker
Dear Platinum Wine Club Members,
As I write this letter, we are in the throws of harvest here at Buoncristiani Family Winery. In fact, I’m sitting on the crush pad typing away on my laptop as we speak, having just finished whole cluster pressing one of our 2018 Malbec lots that is destined for our 2018 O.P.C. Proprietary Red.
It is with great pleasure that my brothers and I contribute our flagship wine to Gold Medal Wine Club. The 2014 vintage of our Proprietary Red we call O.P.C. (Ol’ Pa’s Cuvée) is a powerhouse Napa Valley Red Blend possessing our signature depth, concentration and balance driven by our unique blend of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec and Merlot.
My brothers and I were born and raised in Napa and established Buoncristiani Family Winery together in 1999. We honed our winemaking and viticultural skills in some of Napa’s top wineries and have since been producing highly sought after wines. We take pride in performing all aspects of enology, viticulture, wine production and art design in order to share a true expression of our winemaking passion. Our motto is quality not quantity and we craft our wines without compromise. Handcrafting these limited production wines ourselves allows for the utmost attention to detail in every single drop of wine.
We hope our O.P.C. brings as much enjoyment to your life as it brought us handcrafting it.
Salute!
Jay Buoncristiani
Co-Founder/Winemaker
Dear Platinum Wine Club Members,
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It is with great pleasure that my brothers and I contribute again to the Platinum Wine Club of the Gold Medal Wine Club. Our Napa Syrah program has been in our portfolio since 2001, and the 2007 is a stunner. I encourage you to pop it open with your beloved buddies that really enjoy big and balanced red wines, especially Syrah...or even better yet, pop it open with those great pals of yours that maybe don’t usually dig Syrah and prepare to wow them with the layers of complexity and YUM FACTOR that our Buoncristiani Artistico Syrah possesses year in and year out.
Speaking of years, this particular vintage is made of the kind of stuff that rattles my happy synapses and blankets me with that warm, proud feeling of accomplishment. Bottom line, my bros and I feel very strongly that this bottle of wine showcases what really great Napa Syrah is all about. The proof’s in the pudding we like to say, so pop the cork and prepare to smile...or do what we do, lay it down for 10 years and discover how the wine continues to evolve.
By the way, a side note about the label art. We created the series “Artistico” to fuse winemaking passion with other forms of art expression. The name gives homage to the fact that wine blending is an art form, and each year is different, so we have a different art piece on the label every vintage. The ’07 label is graced with a painting by one of the brothers, Aaron Buoncristiani, titled The Gift. Hope you enjoy the full package, Cheers!
Warm Regards,
Jay Buoncristiani
Owner/Winemaker
