Daryl Sattui

Two miles south of Calistoga, Castello di Amorosa features a half-dozen stone towers, a chapel, piazza, grand loggia, and even a dungeon and moat.

The closest most people come to building a castle is on a beach, and it's made of sand. This is not the case, however, for Napa Valley vintner Daryl Sattui. After almost 14 years of labor, dozens of design revisions and accompanying county approvals, the drawbridge is now down on his castle and winery on Diamond Mountain. The 121,000 square foot medieval village-fortress, Castello di Amorosa, is ready for the 21st century, ready for visitors and ready for the wine business.

"Frankly, I was always afraid. Can we really pull it off? I wondered about that, a lot," Sattui said. "And there were times when I was afraid we'd blow it. But you know, because we had so much research, I think we did it. I've been working my tail off on this, day after day, 12-hour days. I'm very proud of what we've done."

The project began as the restoration of an old Victorian "fixer-upper" off Highway 29, and resulted in the now 121,000 square foot, Italian-style castle and winery. "The property had a beautiful, old home, a wonderful creek and was loaded with history," Sattui continued. "I was very lucky to buy it. I really just wanted to restore the home, but along the way, I somehow added a castle." Then, after he discovered that the property had one of the last permits for a winery that allowed visitors, Sattui said he decided to include a winery.

Winery Features

Two miles south of Calistoga, Castello di Amorosa features a half-dozen stone towers, a chapel, piazza, grand loggia, and even a dungeon and moat. The complex also contains an up-to-date winemaking facility and lab, and wine cellars four floors deep. Surrounding the 171-acre site is a 30-acre vineyard. "I knew I wanted to make Italian-style wines here as well as super-premiums from this unique appellation," Sattui said.

Built using techniques dating back to medieval times, the property also features a visitor's center, offices and a grand banquet hall with hand-painted frescoes on the walls and ceiling. Visitors can view an authentic iron maiden and rack while sampling Napa Valley ultra-premium wine.

Sattui said his concern from the beginning was an authentic appearance. "Nobody [in the U.S.] really knew how to put up stone the way they do in Europe to make it look real. It's a lost art here," he said.

Construction and Design

Sattui designed, and often redesigned, the whole complex, with trips to Italy influencing new ideas. The project was engineered by the Lail Design Group of St. Helena. "I designed it and told them where to draw the lines," Sattui said. "They did the figures I didn't know how to do. My first architect wanted to design it for me, so I fired him. I wanted to design it because I knew what I wanted it to be." Sattui was reluctant to cite construction costs, but figure estimates run between $25 and $30 million.

The castle, built from original materials quarried in Napa as well as some crafted in Italy and then reassembled on the property, employed up to 65 people.

The castle was built from original materials quarried in Napa while some were crafted in Italy and then reassembled on the property. The building techniques used have existed in Europe for centuries, such as double and triple arches over doorways to account for the stairs to a lower level. The cross-vaulted ceilings are formed by brick buttressed against brick, which medieval architects used without the benefit of steel framing.

There is considerable wood and metal work and authentically reproduced doorways and window shutters, and ornate wrought-iron hinges, locks and gates which were made in Italy to appear centuries old, but were actually made within the past few years and even months.

While he began with European craftsmen, local workers were trained to complete the project. His on-site manager is engineer Paolo Ardito, who was born and trained in Bologna, and has restored numerous medieval buildings in Europe. The project employed up to 65 people.

"I tried to stay as close to the building methods of the period as Napa County would allow," he said. The only deviations have been the miles of rebar added to make the project seismically safe, plus electrical wiring and temperature and venting systems. "I also had to install a $1.5 million sprinkler system in case of fire to a structure made of stone."

When asked why he began such a massive, unparalleled and unconventional undertaking, Sattui shrugged. "At the time, I thought I needed a breather. V. Sattui was doing so well, I think I got a little bored with it. It wasn't a challenge to me. It was too easy. And so, at first, I thought I was going to be semi-retired and live in Europe four months a year. When I took on this project, it started out much smaller. That was 14 years ago."

The Wines

Sattui said he emphasized quality in the construction of the new winery, and he's doing the same with the wines. "I guess I wanted to bring a slice of Italy to the Napa Valley and use it as a backdrop to hopefully craft top quality wines," he said. "Right now we're producing about 10,000 cases, and I don't plan on producing more than 25,000, but that's a ways off. We're keeping it small." He said the red wines will come off the property, with the whites from his vineyard in Anderson Valley.

Tours of the property will be given in small groups of 12 and will include tasting. "We want people to try our wines and not just visit the buildings," Sattui said. "A six-wine tasting is $10. The tour costs $25 and includes a reserve tasting, including Il Barone, a 100 percent Diamond Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon that retails for $68, and a 'Super Tuscan' made from Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It sells for $52." A barrel tasting is also included in the tour.

History of the Site

The historic property was part of the estate owned by early settler, Dr. Edward Turner Bale, who was given extensive land by the Mexican government in 1846. Bale built the still functioning Grist Mill in what is now Bothe State Park. The first winery in Calistoga was on the property as well as the first school in the Upper Valley. Evidence also shows that the Wappo tribe used the land as a winter encampment.

Future Plans

What does a person do who just built an Italian village in the Napa Valley? On the one hand, Sattui said he needs a rest; on the other, he is already conceiving new plans.

"I want to live my life; I want to enjoy it," he said. "But I think I'd be interested in doing more of this, perhaps for other wineries. We know where to get the materials, and we have the experience and know how."

Sattui said he is leaving this decision to his construction manager Ardito. "Paolo is the builder," Sattui said. "Without Paolo, I couldn't do this alone." Ardito said he is interested in working on other projects in California but misses his family, having to be away for long periods. "It has been difficult for me," he said. "I have my daughter; I have my life in Italy. It's all the traveling back and forth." Because of commitments in Italy, he was not at the castle for the opening. However, he said he is leaving the possibility open for additional projects.

Meanwhile, Sattui is making plans to restore a Medici palace, which he recently bought in southern Tuscany.

"We bought this old hunting palace from Fernando Medici," he said. "It was built in 1587, has 108 rooms, four stories high. We're going to restore it into a grand hotel. First I want to rest, and then I want to see how much energy I have. I truly enjoy this. If I wasn't a winemaker, I'd probably be an architect."

Background

Sattui has been a controversial figure since he arrived in the Napa Valley from San Francisco in the mid-1970s.

Starting out on a figurative shoestring, Sattui made his fortune by offering food as well as wine, plus picnic tables for both. Arriving in 1973, he lived in his VW bus and worked as a BV tour guide while he pursued his goal of rebuilding his great-grandfather's winery. "Back then, they said you needed a million dollars to start a winery; I only had $5,000," he said. He built his St. Helena winery in the 1980s to honor his great-grandfather, Vittorio Sattui, an Italian immigrant who started a winery in San Francisco in 1885.

The Upper Valley is an area known for high-priced restaurants with few places to accommodate children or wine lovers on a budget. His idea to provide food as well as wine is a feature now "grandfathered" only to his V. Sattui winery because Napa County officials have outlawed the practice. The fact that Sattui sells his wines only at the winery brings all the profit to him. He does little advertising, and word-of-mouth continues to make his winery a success. It is estimated that he brings in between $25 to $30 million yearly with his wine and food operations.

Still resigned and elated by this unparalleled project, Sattui concluded, "This project has consumed me. It really changed my life. It consumed all my money. It consumed all my energy and all my passion. Thousands and thousands of hours. It absolutely changed my life. I suppose I've been seduced by this goal like one can be seduced by a beautiful woman."

Sattui's castle is in exceptional company, being situated between three of Calistoga's most famous wine landmarks: Schramsberg Vineyards to the South, Diamond Creek Vineyards to the North and Sterling Vineyards to the East--perhaps an appropriate frame for his castle since these wineries were pioneers too and have contributed to bringing back fame to Diamond Mountain, one of the original wine regions of Napa Valley; and from which an ardent visitor to the valley, Robert Louis Stevenson, referred to its wines as "bottled poetry." wbm

Sidebar: The Castello di Amorosa Winery Plant

Brooks Painter, director of winemaking for Castello di Amorosa winery, said the winery has been in operation for the past two vintages. They have been crushing approximately 600 tons at the facility each year, including 450 tons used to produce wines, which are sold at the V. Sattui winery in St. Helena. The wine cellars are four stories deep. They began with a cave cut into Diamond Mountain, which was then connected to cellars three stories below ground. There are presently 4,000 barrels stored on-site with a capacity for slightly more than that number.

The new winery features two tank rooms, containing 30 open- and closed-top stainless steel tanks, ranging from 1,500 to 5,220 gallons. These include 12 open-top fermentors for red wine, which are made by Italian manufacturer, Sirio Aliberti of the Della Toffla group. They are triple jacketed, two for cooling and one for heating. The new winery has a pneumatic punch-down device installed on a traveling boom to attend to the open-top tanks. The punch-down unit, manufactured by R.S. Randall & Company of Brisbane, California, was installed by P&L Specialties and can be moved from tank to tank by radio control.

Painter said one advantage of open-tops is that they allow the easy and gentle transfer of the red must to the tanks. They can de-stem into half-ton bins and then, with a forklift, dump the must directly into the tank. This avoids having to pump the more delicate varieties, such as Sangiovese and Merlot, where they want to keep the berries whole during fermentation. The innovative punch-down device, according to Painter, promotes a better mixing and extraction during maceration than would typically occur with pumping-over. The method keeps the tannins down by concealing the seeds in the berries until later in the fermentation; and during the pressing, the whole berries may still have some residual sugar, which helps to extend the fermentation as well.

There are also several tanks used for racking and storage. Most of them are from Santa Rosa Stainless Steel of Santa Rosa, California, with a few from JV Northwest of Canby, Oregon. They use Acrolon Technologies' Tanknet Controllers. The winery also has a Transtore, porta-tank storage system from Custom Metalcraft of Missouri.

The conveyer-sorter and crusher is from P&L Specialties in Sebastopol, and the de-stemmer is a Kappa 15 from Diemme. The two presses are also manufactured by Diemme, with the AR80 tank press used for the whites and the AR50 used for the reds.

Painter added that the winery recently added a new bottling line. The filler monobloc was manufactured by Kosme, an Italian equipment company recently purchased by Krones of Germany. The Kosme consists of a rinser, filler and corker, which has the capacity to bottle sparkling as well as still wine under a zero oxygen environment. "We're hoping to produce some soft sparkling wines, which are in product development right now," Painter said.

Their other equipment includes a Norton spinner with a capsule dispenser, and a Kosme three-station rotary labeler, which can provide neck, face and back labels. While only tin is presently being used, the spinner has heat shrink capabilities for PVC capsules as well.

Another aspect of the bottling line, according to Painter, is their very sophisticated CIP (clean-in-place) system. It is designed specifically for cleaning the counter pressure filler, which is much more complex than a standard low pressure gravity or low vacuum filler. The bottling line can handle up to 12 different bottle formats. wbm