It is arguably Napa’s most famous winery. Yet Screaming Eagle is notoriously discreet, unmarked on maps, and rarely grants interviews or tastings. JEANNIE CHO LEE gains exclusive access to the revered estate and its unassuming winemaker Nick Gislason.

The first time I set eyes on Nick Gislason, I gave him a cursory nod and quickly looked away to seek out my real target. Seeing no one else around, I was about to ask this scruffy young man where I could find the winemaker. Fortunately, before I did so, he held out his hand. “Hi there. I’m Nick Gislason. Nice to meet you.” With his shaggy brown hair, 1970s sideburns, black-rimmed glasses and youthful grin, Gislason looks more like a nerdy science undergraduate than the craftsman behind the most expensive and sought-after wine in America.

Sure enough, he boasts a Master of Science degree – in viticulture and enology – gained at the University of California, Davis (UCD). But his path to the world of winemaking can be traced back further, through his quirky childhood. While his peers were playing baseball or chasing girls, Gislason’s focus lay on less predictable pursuits. As a precocious 12-year-old, he convinced his father to support his interest in pyrotechnics by allowing him to apprentice with two experienced firework-makers on Lopez Island in Washington state. By the age of 21, Gislason had taken over as lead pyrotechnician for the Lopez Island Fourth of July celebrations, complete with the only Japanese-style fireworks show on the West Coast.

Pyrotechnics was a pursuit typical of his creative instinct, a love of working with his hands. At 15, Gislason began brewing his own beer, and went on to receive a diploma in brewing science, engineering and packaging technology. Then, while still a teenager, he laid drainpipes, picked grapes and cleaned barrels at a friend’s winery.

As he describes his childhood, I get the impression the child is still very much alive in him. “When I started brewing beer, I got a good sense of flavor and balance and how raw ingredients play an important role in that,” he says. “I was fascinated by the process of ingredients transforming into a beverage.”

The childlike enthusiasm remains evident as he describes the wines under his care. “I am looking for electric cassis and freshness,” he explains with a big smile. “When I first tasted the 2007, it was energy and electricity – and that ozone, electric-cassis character – love it! That’s the attribute in all the [Screaming Eagle] vintages, this sense of vibrancy and connection.” Even as he becomes excited, Gislason speaks slowly, in measured terms. No matter that he uses obscure, curious descriptions like “ozone” and “electric cassis”. What is apparent is that while he allows the wine to move him and is attuned to its energy, he has a well-defined vision of its makeup.

With such a clear focus, and a chemistry degree from Western Washington University to go with his Masters from UCD, is he more scientist than craftsman? Gislason doesn’t answer directly, merely saying that he is more comfortable gathering and understanding wines from empirical evidence rather than technical analysis. Assessing the acidity of young wines, for example, is important, but not through a pH meter. “I look for a bluish tint; it means the pH is low [and the wine has high acidity] and you will have freshness.” When I question him about common winemaking practices such as adding tartaric acid for freshness, he shakes his head. “No, no. Adding acidity would be a Band-Aid for a mistake.”

Science in itself is insufficient to be a good winemaker, he says. “The link between phenolics [in red wine] and analytics and mouthfeel is a weak link. I’ve published papers on it, but we still don’t know enough. The most important aspect is the human factor – the taste and mouthfeel. Flavor is first and foremost – we make decisions based on tasting and tannins. We taste a lot.”

It was in 1986, when Gislason was a toddler, that Jean Phillips, a former real-estate agent, purchased the 23-hectare (about 57-acre) prime Oakville vineyard, mostly as an investment. There was a mixture of varieties planted at the time and the grapes were sold to local wineries. Then, in 1992, Phillips decided to make her own wine using the best Cabernet Sauvignon plot in the heart of the vineyard, and called it Screaming Eagle. The volume was small – for the first several vintages, fewer than 200 cases were produced.

After Robert Parker gave this unknown wine 99 points in 1995, Phillips realised she had something special. She hired Heidi Peterson Barrett (see The Women Who Rule Napa, page 70) and the vineyard was replanted with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. By 1997, Screaming Eagle was on all serious collectors’ must-have lists. The problem was, there was not enough to go around. From the mid-1990s to 2003, production rose, but only to about 500 cases. Demand shot up and so did the price, and Screaming Eagle was catapulted to the top of the list of the world’s most expensive young wines.

In 2006, 20 years after Phillips purchased the vineyard, she sold it to Charles Banks and Stan Kroenke. With new owners came a new era and new talent, some of the best in the business: Andy Erickson as winemaker and David Abreu as vineyard manager. In 2009, however, the partnership broke up, leaving Kroenke as the sole owner. Just a year later, Erickson left, leaving the then 29-year-old Gislason in charge of winemaking. Armand de Maigret, a transported Frenchman formerly with Jonata, Kroenke’s other wine venture, joined in the same year and runs the estate as discreetly and precisely as his predecessors.

One of the changes being slowly implemented today is the expansion of the vineyard. The move started with the replanting of 22 acres under Abreu in 2006, along with the introduction of Second Flight, made from young vines, a good proportion of Merlot, and grapes that are good but not quite good enough for Screaming Eagle. The approach is similar to that of Bordeaux, where stricter selection is possible because of the existence of a second wine. As new plantings mature and as vines produce higher quality grapes, the theory is that the quantity of Screaming Eagle can rise without any noticeable effect on quality.

“Eventually we would like to make at least 1,000 cases,” says de Maigret. “But we are not in a rush. We know quality winemaking takes time.” Roughly 900 cases of Screaming Eagle are made in each vintage, and about the same amount for Second Flight, though this varies each year. Even with the two labels, not all the grapes in the vineyard are used. “We sell quite a bit to the bulk market,” explains de Maigret. “Anonymously, of course.”

The vineyard at Screaming Eagle is an indication of the ongoing change: vines are continually being replanted and 46 percent are still too young to be used for either wine. I walk around the site with de Maigret and Gislason and they point out the different trellises and soil types. “We have so many soil types, mostly consisting of cobbly, gravelly loams originating from igneous alluvium, with an unusually high content of gravel and cobbles,” notes Gislason. “Some blocks are cobbly, gravelly loam; others gray volcanic ash. We have so much diversity that we don’t believe one trellis system works for the entire site; it really depends.”

The vineyard is indeed varied, with the soil color changing from deep brown to an intense red in iron-rich areas. De Maigret explains how even the slight inclines, the direction of the rows, and their aspect to the afternoon sun, makes a big difference in the microclimate. “We have a special climate here that is unique.” De Maigret gestures for me to stand still. “Do you feel that?” I can feel my hair gently being blown by the cool breeze. “That makes our vineyard a few degrees cooler than even our next-door neighbor’s. It is like this every day, even the hottest days. We get this cool breeze in the afternoons that comes from San Pablo Bay and wraps around the hill to our south to provide an enhanced cooling effect.”

There is still a sense of discovery and experimentation at Screaming Eagle, despite the fame and success. “We are taking things further, like using different cover crops and seeing where that takes us,” says Gislason. “We are still learning about young vines, finding the best soil-site-variety combinations . . . we are fine-tuning all the time.”

Walking around the vineyard, I can see that Gislason knows it like the back of his hand. With the mind of a scientist and the heart of an artist, he has a clear vision of where he wants to go and the humility to look to improve and learn constantly along the way. Winemaking is like making fireworks, he says. “The thing that I like about fireworks is the blend of the artistic and the technical. With fireworks, you need to close your eyes and picture what you want in the sky, and you need the chemistry to get you there.” His eyes light up. “I appreciate the subtlety and nuance of fireworks. It’s the same with wine – you have to think about where you want to go and you have to know how you are going to get there.”

Gislason continues to be the lead pyro-technician for the Lopez Island Fourth of July celebrations, returning to Washington every summer to teach others about this special craft. Little do they know that they are learning from a master.