“In the end, we are working for the beauty of the wine that can come from the Cain Vineyard, we’re working for each other, and ultimately, we’re working for you, our customers.” —Chris Howell
Dear Friends of Cain,
For more than two decades, I’ve liked to welcome each harvest with a simple toast: “It takes grapes to make wine; it takes vines to make grapes; it takes people to care for the vines.” It is important to recognize all the work that goes into tending our vineyard all through the year, not only at harvest.
But recently, I’ve taken to adding more: “It takes people to make the wine, to sell the wine, and to pay the bills.” Moreover, it takes people to buy the wine and to enjoy it. In the end, we are working for the beauty of the wine that can come from the Cain Vineyard, we’re working for each other, and ultimately, we’re working for you, our customers.
This has never been more clear to me than now, looking back some two years after the Glass Fire took our homes, our winery, and much of the vineyard. It was our vineyard crew who came back to clear the roads and repair the drainage in time for the winter rains. It was the rest of the Cain team who pulled together to figure out how to run our company without an office, to keep our wines available to you. We survived thanks to all the folks with whom we work, who reached out to see how they could help. It was thanks to our friends in the wine-growing community who touched base, asking what they could do. And it was thanks to you, our customers, who immediately expressed concern and offered your support.
Thanks to everyone, Cain is alive and well.
We have been given a temporary home in which to vinify the harvest from our vines that have survived and where we can learn by working with vineyards other than our own.
We have planted tens of thousands of new vines, slowly repopulating the Cain Vineyard, applying all the lessons that we have learned over the past three decades. We know that we’ll have a better vineyard than we had, and one better adapted to the future.
We have several vintages of our wines safely aging in the bottle, so that we can offer both young and nicely aged wines. These older bottles have been a true blessing: we can be reminded of the beautiful wines that come from the Cain Vineyard and we can see the potential for the future. Moreover, it’s extremely rare to be able to offer wines with significant bottle age, placing Cain among select few wineries throughout the world.
As Covid has begun to relax its grip on our society, we’ve been able to share our wines and our story beyond the Napa Valley, and we have deeply appreciated the reception that our wines have received. We hope to do even more in 2023, so please be on the lookout for an opportunity to taste with us and learn more about Cain if we come near to you.
I once thought that our Cain wines were really about the vineyard. But now I realize that the vineyard is only part of the story. It’s also about everyone from the vineyard to the glass, and, most importantly, it’s about the experience of the wine and those who experience it – You!
From all of us at Cain, we thank you for your support of our work and we wish you a wonderfilled 2023.
—Christopher Howell, Wine Grower
2022