At the 2000 Napa Valley Wine Auction, a 6-liter bottle of the cult Cabernet Sauvignon blend Screaming Eagle set a world record for the highest price ever paid for a single bottle of wine: half a million dollars. Heidi Peterson Barrett made that wine. Today, you can taste Barrett’s offerings at much more down-to-earth prices at her first tasting room in downtown Calistoga.
The story
Barrett grew up in the vineyards and cellars of Napa Valley, working alongside her father Dick Peterson, a legendary innovator in California’s post-Prohibition wine industry. She became one of the region’s most sought-after winemakers in the late ’80s and ’90s, making top-scoring wines for Dalla Valle, Screaming Eagle, Grace Family and other cult producers.
The winemaker founded her own brand in 1994 somewhat on a spur of the moment. She had been hired to make a Sangiovese for a client who suddenly needed to abandon the project. Instead of letting the client sell the wine on the bulk market, Barrett decided to buy it herself and start a winery. She called it La Sirena, inspired by the mermaid on Mexican Lotería cards and a nod to her love of scuba diving and the ocean.
In April, after a decade-long search for just the right spot, Barrett opened her debut tasting room in Calistoga.
“I would either be priced out of the market, or it was way too big of a place, or it came with a large home or more vineyard land,” she said. “I was really just in need of a tasting room, and this place has a little barrel cellar with the potential to make some of the wine here. It was a perfect fit.”…