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WINEMAKING While the lab, office and temporary tasting room operate out of a new building, there are plans for a more sophisticated tasting room area. The Cave Co. of St. Helena dug the caves at Hunnicutt Winery, which owner Justin Hunnicutt Stephens says cost half the price of an aboveground facility. Rather than a mansion, the prop- erty is home to a 1950s-era Sears Roe- buck fabricated house kit and the new, 2,400-square-foot office building. It also is modest as it only contains offices, the lab and a temporary tasting room. Stephens plans to build a proper tasting room in the future and has allotted space for a 900-square-foot building. Unusual approach Perhaps the reason for the unusual ap- proach to constructing a winery is that Justin Hunnicutt Stephens knows his way around the valley and the wine busi- ness. The son of Don Stephens, owner of boutique wine brand D.R. Stephens, Justin Stephens didn't intend to go into the wine business—at least not initially. He studied business at the University of California, Berkeley, and then went into commercial real estate thinking that, like his father, he'd work for 40 years and then get into wine. Unfortunately, he found the work boring. "After six months, I found my- self waiting for weekends." He started taking wine classes at Napa Valley College, spending more and more time hanging around his long-time friend, winemaker Kirk Venge, as well as D.R. Stephens' founding winemaker, Cary Gott. He also worked part-time at Miner Family Winery and Saddleback Cellars, then Seavey Vineyard before joining his father at D.R. Stephens. Meanwhile, he made his first Hunnicutt wine in 2004 at Seavey. Wines & Vines DeCeMBeR 2011 29