Our Roots

The Madrigal family originally came to California via Numarin Mexico in 1932. My grandparents boarded a train bound, or so they thought, for California. On a cold and snowy day the conductor told them it was time to get off and that they were in California. They were actually in Kansas and it was the middle of a cold and windy winter. My grandfather ended up having to work for the railroad for a few years until they saved enough money to continue on to California. When they arrived in California, they originally stopped in Azusa, a suburb of Los Angeles. My grandfather, not satisfied with his prospects in Azusa in '37, traveled north to join a cousin in a town called Calistoga. Convinced that a better life could be had here, he sent for his family and settled in a cabin that's a stone's throw from what is now Madrigal Estate.

When my father was a boy, our family worked the apple harvest in Sebastapol, followed by wine grapes and prunes in Napa Valley and then the walnut harvest. The whole family worked. Dad always started the school year in Calistoga late, after the work was done. These were humble beginnings. After Dad graduated from High School, he entered the Navy and spent 3 years at sea. Lonely, he planned to return to Calistoga. Once finished with his Navy time, he bought the Trailhead Bar back home in Calistoga and as proprietor he proceeded to give away more than he sold! That experience lead to a full 17 year career in the Army that included a tour in Vietnam. We lived in Tennessee, Iowa, Nebraska and Kentucky. My Dad said many times during my childhood that he wanted to go back and live in Calistoga. Fortunately, our last four years of military life were spent at Hamilton Air Force Base in nearby Novato. Dad spent weekends up in Cyril Saviez' vineyard, learning everything he could about grape growing. When he retired from the Army, he and my Mom bought my Grandparents house in Calistoga, coming full circle. With a single pair of pruning shears he started his vineyard company.

Today the vineyard company has grown to manage 500 acres in the Napa Valley, 300 acres in Anderson Valley and 15 acres of our own estate vineyard. We manage and grow grapes for wineries like Duckhorn, Chateau Montelena, Clos Pegase, Stags Leap, Shafer and Fife. There is great satisfaction in developing and growing world-class grapes but something was missing. We wanted to take the next step and show what kind of wines could be made with the incredible grapes that we were growing.

In 1995 this dream became a reality and we crushed our first 10 tons of grapes. We had a lot of experience with vineyards and new a little about how a winery works so we jumped in. We chose an obscure variety, Petite Sirah, to be our first wine. There are very few acres of this variety left in the Napa Valley. Most of the vineyards of this variety are old, dry farmed and head trained. We secured two of these vineyards, the Peterson Vineyard (my uncle John's Vineyard) and the Barberis Vineyard (my dad's childhood friend). Both vineyards are more than 50 years old. Since that first Vintage we have added Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel to our line up. The 2002 Harvest was the first Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from the Madrigal Estate and will go into our Reserve(Estate) wines.