Our Story

As told by Côme Laguë, owner and vigneron at La Mesa Vineyards:

CÔME LAGUË, OWNER AND VIGNERON

Exploring Amador

"In the years before owning La Mesa, I used to drive through the area to stay at a summer camp in the Sierras with my family. As we headed uphill through this beautiful wine region, Amador County, I never gave much thought to the area. It took a few trips before we decided to stop and check it out. We were struck with the way Amador still felt like the "early days" of Sonoma and even Napa. You could visit a small wine tasting room, breeze through thin crowds and in many cases talk directly to the owner or winemaker. It felt a bit like discovering a well-kept secret no one in the city knew about. For the most part, the wines were fantastic, making for great storytelling.

LA MESA HILLSIDE, CIRCA 2011

A region steeped in rich history

The search for the perfect weekend getaway property in Amador County taught us about the rich winemaking history of the region, going back to the Gold Rush era. Some of California's oldest vines are located right here. Secret caves and deep mineshafts into the hillsides added to its mystique. After a year of looking, we had found the perfect spot: a former walnut farm owned by one of the earliest settlers in the area, the d’Agostini family. The home was surrounded by some of the original 75-year old walnut trees. The only scary part – it came attached to a vineyard!

Come Lague with Kirk Reuter from Ard Aven

CÔME LAGUË WITH KIRK REUTER, 2011

Our first barrel as "garagistes"

Purchasing the estate in 2011 marked the beginning of extensive renovations to the home. A local contractor, Kirk Reuter, greeted us with a bottle of wine from his vineyard, Ard Aven. We could not help but wonder, does everyone up here have a vineyard and make their own wine? Kirk completed the urgent work around the home but in the thick of it all encouraged us to take a break and savor what we had stumbled into with the vineyard. He coached us through the process of making a single barrel of Primitivo using leftover seconds from the vines. We were hooked from that moment! Making a good wine to share with others offers challenge and excitement.

BEST OF SHOW (BARBERA 2013), SAN MATEO, 2015

BEST OF SHOW

From our humble beginning as “garagistes”, under the mentorship of several exceptional winemakers including our current star winemaker Antonia de Heinrich, one thing is for certain – the combination of our high altitude, granitic red soil and small-batch artisan style produces wines of exceptional quality.

Tasting room under construction at La Mesa

TASTING ROOM UNDER CONSTRUCTION, 2020

New Tasting Room

The decision to commit to a new tasting room wasn't straightforward. For starters the entire La Mesa property is situated on a pitch slope. Under the soil lies seamless granite bedrock which does not lend well to foundations. Also, the legacy residential/ag zoning for the property meant that we had to adhere to considerably stricter operating requirements than our agriculturally-zoned neighbors. Still, we seem to have delivered a modern design that establishes a beautiful flagship tasting room at the east end of the county. The new tasting room offers impressive sightlines to Shenandoah Road and a modern "jewel box" appearance, situated thoughtfully next to an existing rock pile which adds to the beauty of the terrace and also serves to reflect audio and visual setback away from a neighboring farm.

PLANTING THE LOWER BOWL, 2020

PLANTING NEW VARIETALS

While Primitivo was the first varietal in our vineyard, we have since planted and grafted 8 additional varietals: Barbera, Grenache, Gamay Noir, Mourvedre, Roussanne, Syrah, Viognier and Petite Sirah. Our vineyard is a diverse and evolving garden with each clonal varietal carefully sourced for its unique characteristics and potential for greatness in wine blending. See more about our winemaking methods.

Our methods

NEW WINERY BUILDINGS, 2021

EVOLUTION OF THE WINERY

We've come a long way from those early days of making wine in the garage. Our newly constructed buildings provides the space we need for wine, maturation tanks and equipment. The cellaring buildings are constructed with highly insulated materials for consistent wine storage temperature, featuring high-efficiency heat pumps powered almost exclusively by our solar arrays. Buildings are painted in a sedate blue-grey palette to better blend in with the surrounding hillside. We occasionally offer private tours of the winemaking facilities for club members and their guests, check our calendar for upcoming tours.

See Calendar