In October 1972, months after arriving in Napa Valley and still finding his way in English, Bernard Portet had roughly 80 percent of the fruit for Clos du Val’s first vintage in when the rain came. None of it was the winery’s own. Planted that same year, the young estate vines weren’t bearing yet, so the grapes for their first vintage had been bought from neighbors. The fruit still hanging in their vineyards when the rain arrived was soaked through. Anything made from it would have come out thin and diluted, so he did what he had been raised in Bordeaux to do: he turned it away
That was not a small call for a winery that wasn't yet a year old. Clos du Val had no cellar of its own and nothing to show for itself, so every ton of fruit mattered. Portet still let a fifth of the harvest go rather than put it in a bottle with the Clos du Val name on it.
He was not even supposed to be there that long. Only recently married, Portet had agreed to stay on for a few more weeks to help John Goelet buy equipment and see the new winery through its first harvest, and he had promised his wife he would be home soon. Instead, he stayed thirty-seven years as Clos du Val's founding winemaker. Today, as Winemaker Emeritus, he is still close by.
The wines we make on the Silverado Trail carry habits Portet learned long before he ever saw California, from a father who tasted every new vintage at one of the most storied estates in France. This is where those habits came from, and what they turned into once they took root in Stags Leap District.
Childhood in Bordeaux
Portet was born in Cognac into a family that had been growing grapes and making wine since the late 1600s. He was raised in Bordeaux, where his father, André Portet, served as régisseur, the estate's technical director, at Château Lafite Rothschild. Bernard grew up tasting each new Lafite vintage year after year, long before he had the vocabulary to describe what he was tasting.
What André passed down was less a recipe than a set of priorities. A wine should taste of the ground it came from, and it should still be in balance long after release, because a Bordeaux red is judged over decades rather than months. Bernard's younger brother Dominique grew up on the same estate and took in the same lessons; both brothers would later make wine a long way from home.
Bernard's formal training came at the agricultural schools of Toulouse and Montpellier, where he studied agronomy, viticulture, and enology. Bernard’s formal training came at the agricultural schools of Toulouse and Montpellier, where he studied agronomy, viticulture, and enology. He spent time in Morocco after that, and in 1969 he met the man who would send him much farther from home.
Finding the Cool Pocket
In 1969, Portet met John Goelet, a man with Bordeaux roots of his own. Goelet was born in Arcachon, just outside the city; his mother was a Guestier, of the Barton & Guestier wine house, and his grandfather Daniel ran the business. Goelet shared his dream with Portet and gave him a brief that was simple to say but much harder to fulfill: find land, anywhere in the world, that could make wine to stand beside the best of Bordeaux. The search took Portet to vineyards in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and South America, and he weighed Australia and Chile most seriously. Napa Valley settled the question in a single drive.
The way Portet tells it, his car's air conditioning was broken, so he drove the Silverado Trail with his hand out the window. Heading south, he felt the air turn cooler as he came into a sheltered pocket of the valley below the Stags Leap Palisades. Air drawn in off San Pablo Bay moderated this end of the valley much the way the Atlantic moderates Bordeaux, so fruit could ripen slowly and hold onto its acid.
"When I arrived in 1972, the Napa Valley was beautiful," Portet has said. "Farmer's country. Down to earth. Simple." Clos du Val was founded in 1972 on the land that became Hirondelle Vineyard, years before Stags Leap District was recognized as an appellation of its own.
What He Brought With Him
Portet harvested his Cabernet Sauvignon earlier than most of his neighbors, bringing the grapes in at lower sugar levels while their acidity was still bright. Less sugar in the grape means less alcohol in the finished wine, and more acid keeps a wine fresh as it ages. That instinct came straight from Bordeaux; at Château Lafite, his father worked with fruit grown in a cool, Atlantic-influenced climate, where grapes rarely ripened to excess and the great reds were built on acid and tannin so they could keep improving for decades. Even in its cooler corners, Napa runs warmer than Bordeaux, and fruit there could ripen well past what a Médoc summer usually allowed; Portet chose not to wait for it. At Lafite, a red was judged on how it tasted in twenty years, and he picked with that same horizon in mind.
He blended, too, at a time when many Napa winemakers were bottling single varieties and guarding their purity. To someone raised in Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon with a measure of Merlot or Cabernet Franc is simply how red wine is made, with each grape filling in what the others leave out. Portet made those wines for the table first. "Wine is made to go with food," he has said, and the restraint in his early vintages follows from that same philosophy: a wine meant to sit beside a meal has no business overpowering it.
Portet’s rain call of that first harvest in 1972 stemmed from the same ethos. A wine built to be judged in twenty years can't afford a compromised start, and he would rather make less wine than make one he would have to explain later.
Four years later, that same 1972 Cabernet was one of six California reds poured blind against celebrated Bordeaux at the Paris tasting of May 1976, now known as the Judgment of Paris. It finished eighth out of ten. In 1986, a ten-year rematch put the same wines in front of a new panel, and the 1972 Clos du Val, fourteen years old by then, placed first. This year marks fifty years since that first afternoon in Paris, and of the two verdicts, the later one tells Portet's story best. The 1972 needed time, and time was exactly what he had made it for.
Where It Shows Up Today
Portet stepped back from day-to-day winemaking in 2009, spent a few seasons making wine in Argentina, and returned to Clos du Val as a consultant in 2018. He now holds the title Winemaker Emeritus. The cellar belongs to Carmel Greenberg, who joined us in 2021 after five years at Dominus, and she works Hirondelle from the same starting point Portet did: pick for balance, and let the blend finish what a single grape cannot.
You can taste the through-line in a Bordeaux-style blend like Yettalil, in an Estate Cabernet Sauvignon that tastes almost reserved in its first few years, and most clearly in a bottle that has been given time. The Retrospective Decade Tasting at Hirondelle House pours our library wines side by side, which is about as close as an afternoon on the Silverado Trail gets to the 1986 rematch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bernard Portet? Bernard Portet is the founding winemaker of Clos du Val. A ninth-generation French winemaker raised in Bordeaux, he chose the winery's site in what is now Napa Valley's Stags Leap District and made its first vintage in 1972. He holds the title Winemaker Emeritus today.
What was Bernard Portet's connection to Château Lafite Rothschild? His father, André Portet, was régisseur, or technical director, at Château Lafite Rothschild. Bernard grew up in Bordeaux tasting Lafite vintages and learned his first lessons in winemaking from his father before training formally in Toulouse and Montpellier.
Why did Bernard Portet choose Stags Leap District? He was looking for a site cool enough to make Bordeaux-quality red wine. Driving the Silverado Trail, he noticed the air cool as he entered a sheltered pocket below the Stags Leap Palisades, where breezes from San Pablo Bay let grapes ripen slowly and keep their acidity.
Was Clos du Val in the Judgment of Paris? Yes. Clos du Val's first vintage, the 1972 Cabernet Sauvignon, was one of six California reds in the 1976 Paris tasting and finished eighth of ten. At the ten-year rematch in 1986, the same wine placed first.
What makes a Napa wine "Bordeaux-style"? It is built from the grapes traditionally blended in Bordeaux, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. Portet brought that blending tradition to Clos du Val in 1972, and our companion post on Bordeaux style in a Napa glass explains the term in full.