Some people (mostly outside of this community) won’t understand why I’m doing this interview. And guess what? I don’t care about those people. Because when it comes to MACDONALD, those who know, know. And those who know will absolutely freak out that I got this interview. Huge thanks to Alex and Graeme for taking time away from the vines for this very special feature.
In a valley full of bold names, flashy labels, and eight-figure marketing budgets, Alex and Graeme MacDonald make perhaps the most sought-after wine in Napa with almost no public profile at all. Uncompromising and visionary are words often used when trying to describe them. The MacDonald story begins four generations back, when their great-grandparents, reluctantly, paid $400 an acre in 1954 for a parcel of land in Oakville that sat within what would become known as the historic To Kalon Vineyard. For the six decades that followed, the family quietly and expertly grew Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and sold them exclusively to Robert Mondavi (who himself called the family “the best grape-growers in the Napa Valley”) — on a handshake — fruit that became the backbone of his legendary Reserve and To Kalon bottlings. For years, nobody outside the Valley knew who the MacDonalds were, and they were fine with that.
Then, in 2010, Alex and Graeme — brothers who had grown up playing in that vineyard as children and who had to convince their own family to sell them the fruit at full price before they could begin — released their first vintage under the MACDONALD label (just 92 cases). Today, with annual production capped at around 350 to 500 cases, sourced from vines aged 50 to 70 years old, and a waiting list of over 14,000 names grown from word of mouth marketing only, MACDONALD has a reputation that places it in the same breath as (or, some would say, a whispered breath above) Screaming Eagle and Harlan. My posts featuring their bottles or visits to their vineyards have been met with a flurry of DMs from in-the-know wine collectors exclaiming “you got off the waitlist?!” or “wait you actually got to meet them?!”
I had the privilege of meeting Graeme — who holds a degree in viticulture and enology from UC Davis, manages every vine himself with meticulous GIS mapping and organic dry-farming methods — and Alex — who expertly runs the business — last summer in Napa through a mutual friend, fellow winemaker Chris Morisoli. For people of such acclaim in a notoriously (and often mistakenly) snooty industry, they’re remarkably laid back, humble, and fun. They’re the kind of people you could be sitting next to at the bar, and have no indication of who they are or what they’ve accomplished. Neither of them seems particularly interested in attention. Their wine, however, commands it absolutely. Pour a glass and pull up a bar seat!
