Westwood Estate Wine
Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky make the wine, the cave runs 17,000 square feet, and three wines with the house rosemary chips cost $35.
Why go
Westwood farms its Annadel Gap estate fruit biodynamic and organic, and pours it beside Napa Cabernet in three formats that step up in size rather than in kind.1 The Portfolio Tasting is three wines for $35, picked by the winemakers as a comparison.1 The Private Seated Tasting adds the cave walk and four limited-production wines for $75, with cheese, charcuterie and the rosemary potato chips the winery makes in house.1 At $150 the VIP starts in front of the estate Cabernet vines and finishes with a menu the executive chef pairs to the reserves.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Private Seated Tasting. It is the one with the cave and the four limited releases.1
- Order: the Portfolio at $35 if you are three wineries into the day. It is free to club members.1
- Avoid: believing the reviews the winery quotes on its own visit page. They are TripAdvisor, Google and Yelp, and they tell you nothing.
What locals & experts say
The winery publishes no line from a critic, a magazine or another winemaker, so I have no outside judgment on these bottles to hand you.
Good to know
- Booking: by appointment only, daily between 10:00am and 5:00pm. Reservations are required for all three formats.1
- Where: 3111 St Helena Highway, in the Brasswood complex north of town.1
- Hygiene: not established. No inspection instrument for this county is on file here.
Verdict
could-visit — Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky make the wine, the estate fruit is farmed biodynamic and organic at Annadel Gap, and the middle tasting walks you through 17,000 square feet of cave for $75 before it pours four limited releases. That is a real proposition, and $35 for three wines makes it cheap to test. Everything above comes from the winery's own visit page: the only outside voices it publishes are TripAdvisor, Google and Yelp reviews, which are not sources here, so nobody credible has been read on these bottles. The rung is what a well-run tasting room earns before anyone has judged the wine.