Niepoort Napoles Twisted Tinto 2022

Maître de Chai translates to cellar keeper, or the person responsible for the development and aging of wine, and, by extension, the person who manages the winery. Established in 2012, Maître de Chai — also known as MDC — is the personal project of Marty Winters and Alex Pitts who met while working at Cyprus restaurant in Sonoma. They have worked in some of California’s top kitchens — including Quince, and the French Laundry.

As with many younger winemakers in California, MDC does not own vineyards, but Alex and Marty do have close relationships with all the growers they work with and in some cases are able to farm the vineyards themselves. Their winemaking is hands-off: nothing added, nothing taken away (Alex is the assistant winemaker at Scholium Project). All fermentations are carried out by natural yeasts, sulfur is kept to a minimum, most wines are bottled without fining or filtering. Together they look to make wines of high quality in a way that best showcases the sense of place where the grapes are grown and the personality of the vineyard.