CordeValle Winery Isn’t What I Thought It Was New

Standing on the crescent-shaped lawn behind CordeValle's tasting room, looking across vineyards and the golf course toward the golden hills, I had the distinct feeling I'd been magically relocated to Napa. I was actually about 10 minutes from my house, which is next to a Trader Joe's.

Wide view, rows of vines, golden hills going soft in the late light. The whole deal. Then someone mentioned they had just bought an ice cream bike to park on the grass. For the kids. [Insert record scratch sound here]

That combination is the whole story of CordeValle Winery right now, and it's why I wanted to give it a post of its own rather than a paragraph in a roundup. A luxury resort property with Napa caliber views, and a team working hard to convince Morgan Hill locals that they're more than welcome. CordeValle has a section in my guide to the best wineries in Morgan Hill, but there was far more to say than fit there.

Wait, Isn't CordeValle Private?

Yes. And also no, and this is the part worth understanding before you drive up.

The CordeValle Resort is private. Members and overnight hotel guests allowed only, and it has always been that way. That's a perfectly reasonable thing for a resort to be, and it's where the local assumption comes from.

The winery is the exception. It's a separate operation in the same area, and it is open to anyone. That's the entire point of it. The two sides feed each other: the resort stays exclusive, the winery is for the community.

Their tagline is “more than wine, more than what you see,” and the person who said it to me meant it literally. The goal is that someone who doesn't drink wine, or doesn't drink at all, can come out, eat well, sit on the grass, and go home glad they did.

The Part Everyone Gets Wrong

If you've lived in the South Valley a while, you knew this property as Clos LaChance, which made wine here for 25 years. Clos LaChance is gone. Not rebranded. Gone.

CordeValle Winery is a new, separate entity owned by Hasso Plattner, co-founder of the software giant SAP and majority owner of the San Jose Sharks. (To get all technical: the SAP Center carries his company's name. The arena itself belongs to the City of San Jose.)

Here's where visitors get confused, and I was one of them: the bottle they pour you might still say Clos LaChance. When Plattner bought the winery, he could take on the finished library or let it go elsewhere. He took it, which means those wines get poured properly, by people who can tell you about them, instead of disappearing onto a discount shelf. It also gives the new winery something lovely to serve while its own vintages come of age.

The staff told me this is the single hardest thing to explain to guests. Someone walks into a beautiful new tasting room, then looks down at a label from a winery that doesn't exist anymore. You're not at a rebranded Clos LaChance. You're at a new winery politely finishing someone else's cellar.

The Winemaker Was Already Here

Here's the detail that reframed the whole handover for me. Steve Driscoll, the winemaker, isn't new.

He arrived before the 2009 harvest, back when this was Clos LaChance, and he's still here. Ownership changed, the name on the gate changed, the entire program changed. The person making the calls in the cellar has been walking these rows for more than 15 years.

He studied Wine and Viticulture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, traveled for a while, and came back to the Central Coast. That's a common enough story right up until the part where he stayed put and kept getting promoted.

What he's been handed is permission to be picky. The new program runs at about 3,000 cases a year, down from more than 12,000, with new barrels and a new bottling line. They farm 70 acres and use fruit from roughly 20 of them. The rest gets dropped on the ground, because it costs more to pick and process fruit you have no use for than to walk away from it. Not many winemakers get told to make less.

Yes, the Grounds Really Are That Pretty

You walk in past heavy wooden door trims to a wooden tasting bar and pale tile underfoot, original wood paired with tile brought from Italy. The room is open and airy with room to breathe, and a ballroom sits off to the side.

Both open onto a deck with umbrella covered tables, which is where the pizza oven will eventually live. Past the deck is the crescent lawn from the top of this post, which doubles as the concert venue and the wedding ceremony site.

To the right is Mulberry Grove, with a fountain straight out of an Italian piazza, more umbrella tables, and a bocce ball court. Weddings move down here for the cocktail reception, with bars set up through the grove pouring different varietals. Just beyond it is a demonstration vineyard showing the grape varieties they've planted and the growing methods they're using.

The whole property sits on 1,700 acres of protected land.

The Dungeon and the Bride's Suite

Inside, past the barrel room and its rows of enormous barrels, is a room they call the Dungeon. Big conference table, comfortable chairs, one job: giving a groom and his groomsmen somewhere cool (in a Fonzie and temperature way) to relax until it's time for the big event.

Upstairs is the bride's answer to it, and the bride wins. A large suite with a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, plus a room lined with mirrored makeup stations, all of it overlooking the crescent courtyard where the ceremony happens below. Getting ready with your friends in that room, watching the courtyard fill up beneath you, would be hard to beat.

When there's no wedding, the suite is the green room for performers.

Concerts Under the Stars

That lawn is a concert venue, and the summer shows are a blast. Tribute bands, mostly. Recent concerts have featured Neil Diamond, Kenny Chesney and Creedence Clearwater tributes. Sun going down over the vineyards, then stars. Excellent wine and food. What's not to like?

The same space hosts corporate groups and private events, but the concerts are open to anyone who buys a ticket, be sure to check out the schedule here.

There's more coming. Comedy nights. A winter wonderland. And an ice cream bike, which they have already bought and which is going out on that grass, for the kids. I have thought about that ice cream bike more than is probably normal for an adult woman who was ostensibly there to research wine. It tells you exactly who they're hoping shows up.

The Tomato Salad That Only Exists Right Now

The full kitchen is slated to open around September. Until then it's pizza on weekends, with vegan cheese and gluten free crust available. I had the prosciutto, arugula, and parmesan.

I also had a heirloom tomato, avocado, and cucumber salad finished with olive oil, balsamic, and salt, and it deserves its own paragraph. The tomatoes come from a farm they've worked with for two years that grows tomatoes and nothing but tomatoes. The salad exists during tomato season and then disappears until next year, because they won't put tomatoes on the menu when tomatoes aren't good. A radical concept that I would like several restaurants to hear about.

That's the plan, not an accident. The kitchen is building around what grows nearby, on the logic that the salad bowl of America is basically their backyard. Strawberries, produce, whatever is actually in season a few miles away. They sell honey from their own bees, plus fig jam and honeycomb, and one of their members produces olive oil down the road.

The Best Story of the Day Wasn't on the Menu

The CordeVale Winery Executive Chef Tom Esparza grew up right here. Born in Santa Clara, now living a few minutes away on Dunne Avenue.

He started in a kitchen washing dishes, watching the cooks, waiting for a shot. He worked his way up over years, four of them at one restaurant where the guy above him wasn't going anywhere, until he landed here and kept climbing.

Now he's building his own kitchen and his own brand, with a CEO and a hotel manager behind him. His CEO's advice when he was worrying about the career part: stop worrying, just make good food. This is excellent career advice if you happen to be a chef. Less useful in accounting.

What he wants is for the people who assume this place isn't for them to come anyway. His words, roughly: there's a whole group nobody has reached, and he wants them to know they can come up here and have a good time. He's also proud that most of the cooks under him are early in their careers, which is not a thing every chef thinks to mention.

Why This Matters for Morgan Hill

Here's the thing. This used to be a place locals, me included, assumed was off limits, and for the resort itself that's still true. But the winery is the open door, and the team told me directly that reaching Morgan Hill residents is a big part of their mission.

Tastings can be made by appointment, though they made a point of saying walk-ins get the same care and the same welcome.

While I was there, someone mentioned a man who had lived in Morgan Hill for 60 years and had never once been up the hill. If that's you, go. Order the pizza. Play some bocce. Sit on that lawn and look at the view. You are welcome there.

And when the ice cream bike arrives, save me one.

Plan Your Visit to CordeValle Winery

Disclosure: Visit Morgan Hill helped arrange a complimentary tastings at for me at CordeValle Winery. As always, all of the opinions and observations here are my own.

CordeValle is one stop on a much longer list. If you're building a wine day in the South Valley, I've written up the rest of them in my guide to the best wineries in Morgan Hill, sorted by the kind of afternoon you're in the mood for.