EO Wine Tasting Featuring Raj Patel of PATEL Wines

EO brings you an exclusive wine tasting and presentation by Raj Patel, Owner, and Founder of PATEL Wines!

Patel Winery believes that great wine is made in the vineyard. Sourced from some of the finest vineyards in Atlas Peak, Coombsville, Rutherford, and Napa Valley each PATEL wine is passionately crafted to express the uniqueness of its terroir and exhibit a distinct individual personality.

Since their inception in 2007, their growth has always been determined by their ability to source fruit from sites whose singular mix of location, soils, microclimate, farming practices, clone, and rootstock offer a true expression of the vineyard and varietal in the finished wine. As such, they typically produce no more than a few dozen to a few hundred cases of any one wine.

At this wine tasting, attendees will learn and taste from their top 5 wines!

• 2018 Sauvignon Blanc
• 2016 Red Blend
• 2016 Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2016 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2016 Malbec

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

As a VP for a national financial firm, Raj Patel knows the importance of high-quality investments geared toward steady long-term growth. It’s a model that’s served him well in his finance career—and as the owner of PATEL Napa Valley. Raj was born in India’s Gujarat State and settled with his family in Northern California in the 1970s. He attended the University of California, Davis, where an internship at Robert Mondavi Winery stoked what would become a lifelong interest in fine wine. Raj entered the finance industry after college, where he has worked in private wealth management and residential mortgage sales management, with a long-term goal to own a vineyard by age 55 in order to be able to produce his own Cabernet Sauvignon.

But the advent of custom crushing—purchasing small amounts of fruit from established growers and producing the wine in other vintners’ wineries—in the early- to mid-2000s gave Raj the opportunity to realize his dream 15 years sooner. PATEL Wines’ first release was 100 cases of a 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon. Robert Parker of The Wine Advocate reviewed the wine, scoring it a 95, and The Wine Advocate has scored the subsequent vintages at 94 or above. A successful follow-up was the introduction of a Right Bank Bordeaux-style red wine in 2010. Raj’s long-term goal was to add Bordeaux varietal wines from Napa Valley’s first-growth vineyards. “Our growth was always determined by our ability to source fruit that represents the hallmark of Napa Valley’s quality and expression in these varietals,” says Raj.

After years of research and cultivating relationships with growers, Raj was able to add five limited-production wines to the brand: a Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon, a Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon, a Coombsville Cabernet Franc, a Napa Valley Malbec, and a Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. The current total production is around 1,000 cases and sells out each year. In 2017, Patel hired acclaimed consulting winemaker Julien Fayard to oversee the portfolio. Julien defined his winemaking style from working at grand chateaux in France such as Lafite Rothschild and Smith Haut Laffite and alongside renowned Napa Valley winemaker Philippe Melka, and now works with some of the most highly acclaimed and sought-after wines from Napa Valley. “Julien’s expertise in working with classic Bordeaux varietals and Napa Valley’s terroir is a perfect match for our long-term vision for PATEL wines,” says Raj.

This event is open to EO Members, SLPs, Accelerators, and SAPs.