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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 28 WINES&VINES November 2018 T V sitcoms and Broadway musicals aren't the only out- lets celebrating the art of the revival. As you drive up to the Ashes & Diamonds winery, tucked nearly out of sight from Highway 29 in Napa, Calif., the building itself emits a simultaneous call to modernism and retro throw- back. In fact, this time-warp sensation is woven throughout the winery, the winemaking and even the wines themselves. In 2013, Kashy Khaledi, founder and owner of Ashes & Dia- monds, left his 20-plus-year career as a creative executive in the music industry in Los Angeles to pursue a latent desire to make his impact in the world of wine. "Working in such an iconic midcentury building (at Capitol Records) gave me considerable inspiration to draw from that era," Khaledi said in an interview with Wines & Vines. "I started to read books like 'Great Winemakers of California' by Robert Benson, who interviewed icons who'd made their imprint in the '50s, '60s and '70s," he said, referring to Robert Mondavi, Bob Travers, André Tchelistcheff and John Daniel Jr., among many others who "made Napa Valley what it is today." With a piqued interest in the era, Khaledi became immersed in studying — and tasting — wines of the post-Prohibition period in Napa Valley. "When you drink a glass of wine ... it teleports you to that place," said Khaledi, who noted it was a glass of 1968 Beaulieu Vineyard Georges de Latour Cabernet Sauvignon that truly sparked his vision of what Napa wine once was, and, in his mind, what Napa wine could be again. "The frontier of modern California wine, alongside the cultural and political upheaval of the era — that sense of unbridled idealism that anything is possible, that was just the right amount of romance to intoxicate me." So in 2014, just a few months after he left his position as a creative executive at Capitol Records, Khaledi purchased the Napa Valley estate that would become Ashes & Diamonds win- ery. He bought the land from his father Darioush Khaledi, owner of Darioush Winery, who, in 2015, planned, permitted, but never built his intended second business, Carevan Serai Winery. The land was already planted to 38 acres of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, which is used exclusively for the estate wine, Grand Vin. There are also mixed plantings of Syrah and Chardonnay on the estate, but Khaledi said these varieties do not fit the Ashes & Diamonds program. "Nor do I think they particularly excel in our vineyard — so I sell those off," he said. Architectural artistry The Ashes & Diamonds winery, which totals 22,750 square feet, includes a 5,500-square-foot hospitality space and a 17,250-square-foot production area. Though designed to sup- port up to 10,000 cases in production, the winery currently makes only 6,000 cases, 90% of which is sold direct-to-con- sumer (DtC) via the tasting room, wine club and website. The winery was a completely new project, and a type that neither Khaledi nor architect Barbara Bestor of Bestor Archi- tecture in Los Angeles had taken on before. "I had zero experi- ence building a winery," Khaledi said. "I imagine this was the case for many of the early wineries in Napa, and why they were equally as unique." Khaledi calls the opportunity to work with Bestor "seren- dipitous." It was a former colleague from his days working on the Beastie Boys' label and "fanzine," Grand Royal, who reminded him that she had helped design portions of the studio and office. "Barbara's equally influenced by classic California," Khaledi said. "If you're going to make classic California wines, you may as well be in classic California architecture, right?" The goal Khaledi and Bestor set for the new winery was to construct what Bestor calls a winery that is truly "of California" and not one that is hanging on the tails of European design, which Bestor observed most wineries are. "I wanted to create a contemporary winery that looks at some of the architectural modern history of California as a sort of terroir of architecture," she said in an interview with Wines & Vines. There are nods to some of the "greats" of mid-20th century modernist architecture: the iconic portholes of Albert Frey; the folded plate roofs of Donald Wexler; the floor-to-ceiling win- Ashes & Diamonds Former music executive celebrates Napa's greatest hits, bringing 'old school' winemaking at a new winery designed to evoke the past By Stacy Briscoe TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT BRUCE DAMONTE Ashes & Diamonds winery was designed in a midcentury modern theme by Barbara Bestor of Bestor Architecture.