Bouchaine Vineyards

Since 2015, the vineyard and cellar as one station

Picking for flavor comes before the cellar move. Chris Kajani, President and Winemaker at Bouchaine Vineyards in Napa, keeps that decision close to the bench and the block. Since 2015 she has held the work at Bouchaine as one joined role, winemaker and General Manager, with stewardship, site, hospitality, and production treated as parts of the same discipline. Her route to this station runs through University of California, Davis, then Pahlmeyer from 2004, then Saintsbury in Carneros until 2015. The through line is local as much as technical. Kajani grew up in Napa, with vineyard life close enough to be household landscape rather than distant profession, and her language around the work stays plain: pick for flavor, get serious about the details, do not take shortcuts. At Bouchaine, that means the estate does not read as a backdrop to the wines. It is the material she has to answer to.

A Carneros cellar built around estate variation

Bouchaine works as a small estate of 104 acres in Los Carneros AVA, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at the center and Pinot Gris, Riesling, Pinot Meunier, Syrah, and Gewurztraminer also in the house range. Kajani’s signature set makes the breadth visible without turning it into noise: Bouchaine Estate Chardonnay 2020, Bouchaine Estate Calera Clone Pinot Noir, Bouchaine Estate Riesling, Bouchaine Estate Mt. Eden Clone Pinot Noir, and Bouchaine Estate Syrah. The point is not a single register repeated bottle by bottle, but a cellar that lets each wine carry its own shape while keeping the estate line intact. The production philosophy is sustainable, and Kajani has described the reason in terms of dirt, air, water, and the imprint left for later generations. That sentence matters because it locates the method before the marketing language can get to it. The hands choose fruit, the cellar receives it, and the finished wine has to justify the sequence.

Redwood, fireplace, bay air

The place gives the work a quiet frame. Bouchaine is the oldest continuously operating winery in Carneros, set in rolling hills with vineyard views and San Pablo Bay close enough to shape the sense of the site. Historic buildings carry siding from repurposed redwood tanks, a material memory that keeps the cellar’s past in the wall rather than under glass. Inside, the tasting room has a reclaimed wood bar, art, and a fireplace; outside, the terrace opens toward vines and bay light. The room is relaxed, not slack. It suits a seated tasting, a private tasting, or a barrel tasting because the pace stays close to the wine rather than the performance around it.

The next bottle stays with the block

Kajani’s work here is easiest to follow through the estate bottlings, where the choices made in the vineyard still have their edges in the glass. Bouchaine Estate Riesling shows that the house is not only a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay address, even in Carneros.