Northern Exposure: Fess Parker Winery opens tasting room in Napa

The newest wine experience in Napa is giving guests a taste of Santa Barbara.

Fess Parker Winery, the well-known brand along Foxen Canyon Road that’s celebrating its 35^th anniversary this year, opened the doors to its brand-new tasting room earlier this month. It’s located right in the heart of downtown Napa, along popular First Street, right across from the chic Archer Hotel. The sleek space features the full Fess Parker portfolio, which company president Tim Snider says will give the area’s well-heeled oenophile visitors “a wide range of Santa Barbara County wines that don’t know they love – yet!”

It’s a unique opportunity, to be sure – not only to showcase the comprehensive lineup of the third-generation Parker family’s wines, with labels like Fess Parker, Epiphany and Fesstivity, but also to elevate the appeal of the entire Santa Barbara County wine region.

“We’re promoting the region as a whole, captivating palates that may have otherwise ignored Santa Barbara,” continues Snider. “They’re in Napa now, maybe on their next trip, they’ll come to Santa Barbara, visit the region, and get to know it better.”

The NorCal connection is personal for Snider and his family – he’s married to Ashley Parker, founder Fess Parker’s daughter. Snider grew up in Knights Valley, where his family grew grapes, and he spent many high school and college summers working harvest in the northern stretches of Napa Valley. His work with Gallo, early on in his career, involved various Northern California wine projects. As a family, the Snider-Parkers, including kids and company employees Greer and Spencer, regularly vacation in the area; Calistoga is a family fave visit.

There’s a very close Napa connection for the wine brand, too, with Addendum, a boutique line of cabernet sauvignon wines launched 10 years ago, made with fruit sourced from several premium Napa-area vineyards, such as Stagecoach and Skellenger Lane. Each harvest, grapes are picked overnight, loaded into refrigerated trucks and driven south to the Santa Ynez Valley, where winemaker Blair Fox and his team work their magic. Adds Snider, “It’s our way of showing the potential of Napa, but with a Santa Barbara flair.”

Adding Addendum to their portfolio, and now, offering a visitor experience in Napa, is “part of our family’s intrinsic interest in different regions, in different styles of wine,” says Snider.

“The idea of expanding what we’re doing from a creative standpoint was definitely interesting, including to Ashley and [her brother] Eli. Some of the most iconic winemaking families in our business are multi-generational – they branch out, looking at making wines in other parts of the world. For us, inspiration is drawn from those types of families, too.

“We don’t want to mimic what people in Napa do, but rather, give it a spin. It’s our Santa Barbara-centric team’s interpretation of Napa fruit and the Napa experience, and that helps differentiate us.”

The architectural design of the new Napa tasting room boasts an airy ambiance, with high ceilings with ample natural light, and plenty of table and bar seating. The visitor experience will include flights and tastings of the entire Fess Parker portfolio, including the Addendum wines, along with Sta. Rita Hills pinot noir and chardonnay on the Fess Parker label, Santa Barbara County Rhone wines – like syrah and grenache – on the Epiphany label, and the Fesstivity line of bubblies. The Napa tasting room joins Fess Parker tasting venues in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, in Los Olivos and at the 700-acre home ranch, which the late actor and developer Fess Parker founded in 1989.

Aside from the new Northern California outpost for the brand, Fess Parker’s 35^th anniversary celebration also includes the recent release of a new wine, the Home Ranch Cuvée ($56). Inspired by the family’s visit to Chateauneuf-du-Pape in France last year, the SIP-certified wine is a grenache-based blend that also features Mourvedre and Counoise. The fruit is sourced from Rodney’s, the home ranch’s estate vineyard, and the wine is medium-bodied, with a splashy mouth feel, red cherry and cocoa flavors, and a long, flavorful finish.

Find out more at fessparker.com.