Email this page
Print this page
del.icio.us
digg
yahoo!
CommentsVinum, cantus, amor
Ceja Vineyards' motto marries the past and present
Ceja Vineyards
It’s the American dream: Start from scratch, work hard and find success. But as the Ceja family of CEJA VINEYARDS continues to prove, true success means never resting on your grape leaves.
This dream began in the late 1960s when the Ceja and Fuentes families emigrated from Mexico and began working in the Napa Valley vineyards. “It was so hard to come here [when] we didn’t speak the language,” says Ceja Vineyards President AMELIA CEJA (née Fuentes), who is the first Mexican-American woman in the world to head a wine production company. “But why do people come here? To do something bigger than themselves.”
In 1983, Ceja and husband Pedro, Pedro’s brother Armando and their parents bought 15 acres in the Carneros region and, under the company name Viña del Sol, began harvesting and selling pinot noir grapes. “We made wine from the first harvest, but just for us,” Ceja recalls. Ceja Vineyards incorporated in 1999 and released its first commercial wine two years later, with one simple aspiration. “We want to produce wines that are great with foods from all over the world,” Ceja says. “When you find that perfect culinary marriage, it triggers new sensations.”
With her co-producer, son Ariel, Ceja plans to explore some of those perfect culinary marriages on Salud Napa Valley (saludnapavalley.tv), a weekly, Web-based cooking show premiering in the fall. Segments will highlight such unexpected combinations as legumes and cabernet and the team plans to routinely “shatter preconceived notions about food and wine.” In keeping with the adventurous spirit of the show, the wine list will “make viewers want to try wines they can’t even pronounce!”
The desire to do something bigger is also where past and present unite for Ceja. Her love and knowledge of food dates back to when she was just 3 years old, helping her grandmother in the kitchen. “Life in Mexico revolves around the kitchen—the most important room in the house,” she says. “All the ingredients came from our own backyard.” Mexican cuisine, she feels, is “the most sophisticated of cuisines. It’s not cheesy, not fried. It is subtle, balanced; layered, like a fine wine.”
By design, Ceja Vineyards’ 2008 harvest produced just 12,000 cases; about 80 percent of the grapes grown on the 113 acres are still sold by Viña del Sol. “We could sell more [wine],” Ceja explains, “but we want to make sure that every wine is site specific—that you can feel the wind that flows through San Pablo Bay.” That dedication to quality and uniqueness mirrors the atmosphere of the kitchens of her childhood, where—thanks to the backyards of each home—the food “was so different from the food in a village just 10 kilometers away.”
Ceja’s wines are offered at acclaimed restaurants such as the French Laundry and Mustards Grill. The Cejas recently opened a new wine tasting salon, lounge and art gallery in downtown Napa. In July, the family won Most Inspiring American Latino Family in the American Latino TV’s viewer-based Second Annual Awards—an accolade that especially thrills Ceja because of its focus on the contributions of immigrants. This year Ceja herself received a Women in Business Award from the North Bay Business Journal, and was honored as Business Woman of the Year by the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. But her triumphs embrace the entire Ceja team—the extended network of family and friends that work alongside each other. “I’m just an ordinary person,” she says. “Our business is successful because we’re building this community. My grandmother once said, ‘Mija, it doesn’t matter what you do in life, whether a street sweeper or president, you have to do it with conviction and love, and you will be very successful.’ I take her advice very seriously.”
Do you like what you read? Subscribe to Solano Magazine »
