One of Napa’s Biggest Winemaking Consultants Has His Own Stellar Wine
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As we have written before, the two top elements for incredible wine are vineyard sourcing and winemaking talent. When we took a deep dive into the world of Napa cult wines last year, Maayan Koschitzky’s name kept popping up, and if he is not yet a household name among wine cognoscenti, his time may be here. Director of winemaking, general manager, and a partner at Atelier Melka as well as the guiding hand behind many of Napa Valley’s best wines—including Lail Vineyards, Fairchild Wines, Plinth, Vice Versa, and Tusk Estates—Koschitzky threw us a curveball when he recently let us know that he had launched his own wine brand with two partners in 2016. 2016? And we are just hearing about it now?
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The reason behind the time lapse might be that Koschitzky is a hardworking, hands-on winemaker, and his partners at La Pelle Wines, Pete Richmond and Miguel Luna, are a vineyard manager and a viticulturist. Unlike many of the high-profile winery owners out there, there’s not a PR firm, handler, or press release in sight. Even the name is a nod to the down-to-earth nature of the operation: La Pelle is French for “the shovel,” and Koschitzky tells us that it “was chosen to represent us because we are farmers, and it is about the land first and foremost.” The theme is carried through via the simple labels, which wrap around the bottle and feature a cutout or negative space in the shape of a shovel on the front.
Clever packaging aside, it’s what’s inside the bottle that really has us excited. Current releases include Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, three single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons, and two Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons. The Sauvignon Blanc and Napa Cabernet Sauvignon are from the 2022 vintage, while 2021 brought forth the single vineyard bottlings and Reserve Cabernet. Koschitzky describes the 2021 season as offering “the perfect combination of density, structure, concentration and acidity that will make them true age-worthy wines.” We poured La Pelle wines in a series of blind tastings against some of Napa’s best bottles from the same vintage, and Koschitzky’s wines were consistently our hands-down favorites.
The secret? First off, vineyard sourcing. As a vineyard-management company, Richmond and Luna’s Silverado Farming cares for the vines at wineries that don’t have the expertise, staff, or equipment to do it themselves, including several in the Atelier Melka collection, which is how the trio began working together. Among them, they have access to some of the finest sites in Napa Valley and elsewhere (La Pelle also makes Chardonnay and Syrah from the renowned Bien Nacido Vineyard in Santa Maria Valley), and their Napa wines are sourced from vineyards that they lease and farm themselves. “We want to be able to control 100 percent of the journey and the process of crafting wines,” Koschitzky says. “Of course, the process starts in the vineyard.” Nine vintages in, they still source from the four original vineyards they started with, and they just added two more.
The through line among La Pelle’s three single vineyard Cabernet Sauvignons—Saint Helena Alluvium Vineyard, Coombsville La Ceniza Vineyard, and Oak Knoll District Red Hen Vineyard—is Koschitky’s hand in the winery. The Alluvium Vineyard is an alluvial fan, spreading out from an old sedimentary riverbed in the shape of a broad triangle. Koschitzky says this site imparts the darkest fruit flavors, most intense texture, and softer, sweeter tannins. He maintains that the compact volcanic soils of La Ceniza “bring density, acidity and excellent core fruit with compacted tannins that dissolve with time,” while Red Hen Vineyard’s gravel and alluvial soil come together to create a “unique wine with brighter red fruit, good concentration, savory elements and great long finish.”
A native of Israel, where he grew up farming fruits and vegetables with his family prior to four years of military service, Koschitzky studied mechanical engineering with a focus on agriculture that included winemaking. After an internship at an Israeli winery in 2005, he returned to school to further his studies in enology and viticulture. He spent several years at Margalit, one of his home country’s top boutique producers, before heading to Napa with his wife in 2011 to explore the possibility of working overseas. A harvest internship at Screaming Eagle turned into three years as assistant winemaker before joining Philippe Melka in 2014. Working on so many different wines within the varied terroir of Napa Valley has its advantages. “Every harvest with Atelier Melka is like 10 harvests in a regular winery,” he says.
Koschitzky uses multiple small fermenters in the winery to vinify small batches of grapes that are harvested from different sections within each vineyard. “Each one of the lots will get a different oak profile based on what I feel is right for the lot and for the vintage,” he says. “After 12 months or so we blend the single vineyard wines from the different components.” Depending on the year, he makes between 1,800 and 2,400 bottles of his single vineyard wines, each of which is crafted to shine a spotlight on “a site, a specific terroir, and the diversity that Napa Valley has to offer.” In contrast, the Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon “is a showcase of a vintage,” he says. “That’s why it is an equal blend from all five red grape vineyards we manage so we can really capture the vintage and talk about vintage variation.”
It’s hard to pick a favorite, but we are especially impressed with La Pelle 2021 Coombsville La Ceniza Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. Inky violet in the glass, it has aromas of blackberry, cocoa powder, clove, and a hint of cedar block. Raspberry and pomegranate flavors open on the palate and are joined by notes of nutmeg, pencil lead, lavender, and milk chocolate that are lit up by a vein of bold acidity. Cashmere tannins settle on the tongue and gums and slowly drift away into a fruit-filled finish. While he’s not being specific, Koschitzky lets us know that he and his partners are working with a new site in Oakville and are “playing” with an additional mountain vineyard as well, so choosing favorites next time around is going to be even harder.
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