Quintessa

The Free Bacchus Story

Around 110 acres of Quintessa are deliberately not planted. The property runs to some two hundred and eighty acres in Rutherford and only about a hundred and seventy carry vines; the rest is woodland, a lake and pasture. At Napa land values that is an expensive decision, renewed every year.

It is also what makes the biodynamic system function. Compost, cover crops and habitat all need somewhere to happen, and an estate planted wall to wall has nowhere to put them. The unplanted land is not a landscaping choice or a view from the tasting room — it is the working part of the farm that the vines depend on.

Agustin and Valeria Huneeus bought the land unplanted in 1989 and farmed it organically from the start, biodynamically from 1996. Certification came decades after the practice, and published accounts differ on which year each certificate was issued, so we print no year.

There is one wine. Everything is either selected into the single estate bottling or sold off, with no second label to absorb the fruit that did not make it.

Most estates this size keep one as an escape valve. Removing it means every decision taken in the vineyard has exactly one place to end up, which is a far more exposed way to farm than the price tag suggests.