Drink Wine with a Monk

Filed in archive California Wines on May 31, 2006

Now, this has got to be one of the most unusual wine get-a-ways I've seen in awhile. For many wine lovers, travel goes hand in hand with wine tasting, and that is something that the monks at the Abbey of New Clairvaux obviously picked up on.

From The Winnipeg Free Press: The men at the Abbey of New Clairvaux have opened the first Roman Catholic Cistercian winery in North America, though their vineyard has a storied place in California's wine history.

The 235-hectare spread in this tiny town north of Chico was once owned by Leland Stanford -- the railroad magnate, California governor and university founder -- who ran what was considered the world's largest winery in the late 1800s, said Aimee Sunseri, a fifth-generation winemaker hired to help the monks start the winery.

The brothers' vineyards are more modest but they hope wine sales will boost the monastery, where recruitment to the order has been hard and the monks must dig up ways to make cash.

"We need to work to keep going but we don't want or expect to get rich. But the wine has done well -- better than expected," said Father Harold Meyer, who has been at the abbey for 33 years.

While their quarters are kept private, they've opened the monastery to the public for three- and four-day retreats, tours and weekend wine-tastings.
The grounds are quiet most of the day except for the splashing of koi fish in a small fountain and the Abbot speeding by in a golf cart. At 7:35 p.m., the monks say their last prayer before the "grand silence," which lasts until morning prayers at 3:30 a.m. the next day.