BOND Estate

The name’s BOND… No, not James Bond but rather the Napa Valley based winery run by Bill Harlan. He first established the Harlan Estate in 1984 which focused on emulating First Growth Bordeaux with one flagship Cabernet Sauvignon. BOND was formed as some of the Harlan Estate’s vineyards were considered distinctive enough to be bottle separately as this went against Bill’s original ethos for the Harlan Estate. The estate’s name is not only a reflection of the close relationship between winemakers and winegrowers, but it is also Harlan’s mother’s maiden name.

Established in 1997, BOND produces small quantities of their high quality, ‘Grand Cru’ level, single varietal Cabernet Sauvignon wines – between 450-600 cases of each wine per year. When starting his search for ‘Grand Cru’ level sites in 1997, 60 potential vineyards were narrowed down to 27. By 1999, only two vineyards were deemed worthy of being ‘Grand Cru’ Napa status: Vecina and Melbury. In 2001, after four years of making dozens of separate wines from various vineyards, only one more vineyard was deemed worthy of joining the line-up: St. Eden. Over the past 13 years, only two more vineyards have been added: Quella and Pluribus.

Painstaking viticultural methods are used; 55 full-time vineyard workers hand-pick perfect clusters of fruit off Napa mountainside slopes of 30 degrees and wine is made from each of them as though it were to be bottled and sold commercially. Numerous vintages produced by BOND have gone on to win a variety of accolades and awards, as well as having received rave reviews from critics and the perfect 100 points from Robert Parker for the first release of St Eden in 2001 and again in 2002. BOND has therefore gained renown for producing world-class wines which showcase the unique terroir of each carefully selected, lovingly-farmed, single, jewel-box vineyard.