Montage International has officially introduced Montage Estate, a brand new private collection of wines created with winemaker Jesse Katz of Aperture Cellars. It is rare for a luxury hotel brand to build a wine program from the ground up, and even rarer for it to bring in one of the most celebrated young winemakers in the country to design it from the soil up. That spirit of innovation is exactly why NOBLEMAN flew to Montage Healdsburg to be among the very first to taste the inaugural release.
This partnership started long before Katz became Wine Enthusiast’s 2025 Winemaker of the Year. Back in 2019, before Montage Healdsburg even opened, he spent days walking the resort’s 258 acres and identifying the volcanic hillsides and hidden vineyard pockets he believed could produce something extraordinary. Instead of adapting to the land, he shaped the vineyard intentionally with Montage, creating a layout that blends beauty, precision, and potential for truly world-class wine. It was a new idea for hospitality and a bold one. A luxury resort trusts a winemaker to design part of its landscape with the future in mind.
The result is Montage Estate, a collection available only at Montage and Pendry Hotels and Resorts around the world. The first release is the 2023 Montage Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, arriving December 15. Katz poured it for us at Aperture, and even in its first moments in the glass it opened with layered aromas of crushed black cherries, roasted coffee bean, wildflowers, cedary herbs, and dark fruits. It is crafted mostly from the estate’s steepest Cabernet Sauvignon hillside vines with a touch of Malbec for lift and depth. The wine tastes like the land it came from, but also like the intention behind it. Focused, expressive, and confidently modern.
Montage Estate will expand in Spring 2026 with a Rosé and a Sauvignon Blanc, both also sourced from the Montage Healdsburg vineyard. For now, the Cabernet sets the tone for what this partnership represents: a fresh way of thinking about resort hospitality, one where the wine program is not an accessory but a signature. A collaboration rooted in place and built on vision.
It is not often you get to taste a wine before the rest of the world, and even less often that the wine marks the beginning of something entirely new. NOBLEMAN was honored to raise the first glass.
Words by Tom Burleson
