About
Our Winery
Welcome to Herzog Wine Cellars
Let’s be honest. Many people produce wine. Some companies make good wine. A select few create a great wine experience.Welcome to Herzog Wine Cellars where we make great California wine.
We say that confidently, because our family has been making wine for 150 years. We’re proud of what we do and what we put in every bottle. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t put our name on the label. Our grapes have a story to tell and our job is to get out of the way and let the grapes speak for themselves.
A winemaking tradition,
nine generations in the making
Herzog family winemaking is a story of innovation. The Austro-Hungarian Empire of the late 19th century was known for its progressive culture and innovative manufacturing. Emperor Franz Joseph, familiar with the Herzog family’s wines, made Phillip Herzog a baron and asked him to produce wine for the royal court. So began the story of winemakers who fled the Nazis, sailed an ocean, and then crossed a continent.
In 1985, eight generations after the Herzog family began making wine, David Herzog moved the operation from New York to California’s finest terroirs in Napa Valley, Lodi, and Clarksburg. In tribute to their founder, the Herzog family started the ‘Baron Herzog’ wine label.
For the Herzog family, making wine is not just a business. It is a privilege that enables them to honor their ancestors with each varietal, each style, each bottle.
You go to where
the grapes are
To watch proprietor Joseph Herzog in a vineyard is to watch what happens when viticulture meets alchemy. He smells the air. Lets the soil sift through his fingers. Feels the sunlight on his face. Measures the temperature. Examines the place where the roots of the vine seek the nutrition that produces the grape.
That grape comes home to a state-of-the-art winery in Ventura County, California.
Custom building your own winery has its advantages. Herzog Wine Cellars was carefully designed as a perfect environment for both “boutique” and “large lot” wine making. It’s like having two wineries in one.
Each grape entering our tank room is treated gently. A de-stemming machine separates every grape from its rachis (stem) to ensure that every flavor in the grape is preserved—just as it was fresh from the vine. This is crucial in preserving the tannins that reside between the skin and pulp of the grape.
Artisans know that some grapes lend themselves to large lots and others to exclusive boutique blends. At Herzog, our tank room and barrel cellar are designed for both. The Herzog Barrel Cellar is the nursery where up to 2,500 barrels of our reserve wines “sleep” at the ideal temperature and humidity.
It is a modern facility that belies the century and a half of history that brought us here to the place where we make wine. We make great experiences. And we make those who came before us so proud.