Article content It has been seven years since we last spoke with West Vancouver’s Ray Signorello Jr., the owner of Signorello Estate Winery in Napa Valley. Not long after, his winery burned to the ground in minutes during the infamous Atlas Wildfire of 2017, which destroyed 783 structures, damaged 120 structures and caused six fatalities.
Since then, Signorello has endured the indignities of dealing with tone-deaf insurance companies, a worldwide pandemic, and the strictest building codes on the continent, only to come out stronger on the other side of a reconstruction project that has resulted in the next iteration of Signorello Estate Winery, a facility he thinks is Napa Valley’s first 100 per cent fireproof property. Ultimately, the insurance companies involved only covered 25 per cent of Signorello’s losses. Still, he is back in the game with a high-tech winery, albeit invisible to anyone driving along the Silverado Trail.
Signorello has gone underground, constructing a cave winery that, unlike typical Napa caves, will house his wines at the perfect temperature and accommodate a state-of-the-art, fully functional underground production facility. As you head up the long driveway toward the former winery, there is no trace of the reconstruction save for a pair of “cellar” doors carved into the same hillside the fire raged down, wiping out the family estate in little more than moments. The new design is eerily futuristic, featuring automated air intake louvres desi.
