Thank you for visiting our website. Currently, we are still under construction (pardon our dust!), but wanted to let you know what to expect from us in the near future.  

Who are we? 

I am a local resident and healthcare practitioner in the Napa/Sonoma region, and have noted an interesting problem for many of the small, local family wine-crafters. Many make exceptional wines, from brilliant grapes. But, as the old adage goes…only for sale to their family and their wealthy friends, picking it up cases at a time for the holidays. 

Seekers of great wine come from the around the world to taste and buy in the Napa and Sonoma areas. The large production wineries gather their business from heavy advertising, drive-by’s, and from contact management with hotels, spas, and country clubs. Meanwhile, the really stellar local family wines go untouted to the very would-be buyers who would love to thrill in the pleasures of small batch issues, crafted with care and love by sincere hobbyists, most of whom have grown up submerged in the culture of wine.  

My profession finds me visiting other states often, and marveling at how hard it is to find good Wine Country bottles at a reasonable price. A bottle of wine that would sell at a local winery or retail outlet for a pittance is hawked far from home for 10 times the price. So I ask myself, “What if?” What if someone endeavored to go wine tasting and rooting about for hidden family treasures, blogged the results, and made the wine available through club or large purchase to consumers? To people who don’t look out on Wine Country as the back yard in which they ride their bikes, take their hikes by the Russian and Napa Rivers, and run their dogs in the vineyards of the Carneros? 

Life is made up of the moments that are in it, and wine helps us craft the context of a moment. Once all the ducks are in a row, we will be providing wine buyers with tasting notes, reviews, and deals on local, small batch wines, crafted by winemakers native to the soil. The notes that are their passion, can then be passed on to you; crafted wine, not corporate wine.  

If you would like more information, or an email notification once we are up and running, please feel free to email me at dave@secretwinetreasures.com. 

A story of Hidden Gold: 

To learn more about wine and the industry, shortly after moving to wine country, I took a job as a host at a local award-winning winery. Among the “lowly” and underpaid wine hosts were some diamond winemakers in the rough. One had a thing for zinfandels, and had made friends with one of the local growers who contracted with several of the more famous wineries in the valley. His new friend introduced him to growers in prime AVA’s, who invited him to pick grapes from their vineyards once ready for harvest (not a lot of variance in drinking buddies around here…you have a 50/50 chance they might be growers, and of they like you…). He made his own wine from this collection of multi-vineyard, from second hand, reconditioned barrels. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, until you learn the lineage of the rootstock and clones that went into his blended Zin, the stellar quality of the barrels, the winery from which they were picked up second-hand, and the winemaking master who walked him through the project until finally taking it under his own wing, in a climate-controlled garage. 

The wine remains one of the best Zinfandels I have tasted to date, all from head-trained vines in Howell Mountain area. He only made a couple dozen cases, and couldn’t sell it. Meanwhile, the winemaker who aided him was serving his share in shiners to all his visiting wine dignitary friends, with justifiable pride. The host was willing to sell it for less than 10 dollars a bottle once labeled. Finally, one of the winemakers friends, absolutely amazed at the stellar quality of this zinfandel, bought up the entire available stock, offering 40 bucks a pop. He drove over with a pickup truck from his own winery, and loaded it by hand for his private collection. 

Another One: A friend of mine in Carneros grows 10 acres of Merlot along Duhig Rd. A legend in winemaking used to pay top dollar for his grapes, and use them in his flagship blend, as well as in single-vineyard issues. My friend had a falling out with the wine legend (he can be a surly old cuss…my friend, not the wine legend), and was stuck with his own grapes. Unable to bulk them out and recoup his costs, he decided to make his own wine, instead. Schlepped the grapes to a local winery, crushed and micro-binned them according to the standards of the wine guru he used to work with, and crafted his own wine. 500 cases. 

His 2003 is still an amazing mouthful of some of the best hearty Napa merlot I’ve ever put lips to (and I’ve put lips to quite a bit). I think he only just finally sold it this year.  

The region is rife with shining examples of great wines, made in small batches by “amateur” crafters (or more typically, as a side project of a local winemaker looking for a particular effect), sitting in storage waiting for buyers. I have lunch with these folks; they come into my practice for treatment; I teach their kids karate lessons; we meet for BBQ’s on warm summer nights, looking out over the vineyards.  My goal is to bring you their wine. But only when it’s absolutely amazing. 

Best Regards, 

Dave

	Discover some of the wine world's best-kept secrets!
Learn to unlock the secrets to great wine. The Napa valley is rich with outstanding, exceptional wines. Their only problem is that nobody knows about them. Every month, you will hear about a new winery, their best wines, and how you can have them for yourself.