Did You Know

Sharing the pleasures of wine and food

Since its founding in 1973 by Jack and Dolores Cakebread, Cakebread Cellars has been renowned for its warm, gracious hospitality and world-class wines. What still defines the winery is the family’s commitment to Jack and Dolores’ belief—and example—that wine and food elevate each other and in turn, make any meal or occasion even better.

Cakebread is one of the few wineries with a full-time, in-house culinary department, dedicated solely to developing and executing educational programs, from wine-and-food pairing seminars and wine blending sessions, to participation cooking classes, lunches and dinners.

Tucked behind the winery is Dolores Cakebread’s vegetable garden, a 3/4-acre plot of famed Rutherford dust that she staked claim on early in the winery’s history, not for her favorite grape variety, but for growing the vegetables for feeding family and guests alike. The garden now features 40 beds, and produces year-‘round under the able green thumbs of gardener Marcy Snow and Dolores, who is a certified master gardener.

The winery also produces its own olive oil from a small grove of trees on the property, as well as organic honey from hives at one of the estate vineyards in the southern end of the Napa Valley.

Led by Culinary Director Brian Streeter, our chefs plan their menus based on what is coming out of the garden at that time, which—depending on the season—includes: heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, asparagus, artichokes, turnips, carrots, beets, chard, kale, bush beans, pole beans, cardoons and all our fresh herbs.