Juan Munoz-Oca Reveals the Secret to his Favorite Wine
Juan Muñoz-Oca is Chief Operation Officer of Vinattieri 1385, the company owned by Marchesi Antinori.
As COO, Muñoz-Oca oversees all properties in the United States, some of the most historical and influential properties in Napa Valley: the iconic Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in the heart of the Stags Leap District and Antinori Napa Valley atop Atlas Peak AVA.
Describing himself as “stupidly obsessed with wine,” Muñoz-Oca has a true passion not only for making great wine and influencing the way people experience it
Joe Winger: What’s the most important message you’d like to share with our audience today?
Juan Munoz-Oca: I would love to tell your audience the story about our wine. The stories that decorate our winemaking. We make wine in three different states in the United States, three different wineries. But behind those three different wineries and those three very different terroirs, there’s the story of an amazing family.
It has been making wine since 1385, and I think that’s a worthy story to tell.
Joe Winger: Can you give us a summary of the story?
Juan Munoz-Oca: The Antinori family based in Florence has been making wine since 1385.
We are now in the 26th generation. Actually half of the 27th generation, it’s working at the winery. 25th generation Piero Antinori I feel has been transformational for the way in which the world perceives Italian wine.
Transformational for Tuscany as he single handedly developed super Tuscans as we know him today.
So I think a very influential figure in the wine world, a very influential family. But a very transformational two generations.
25th generation, led by Piero, Marchesi Piero Gennari, and then 26th generation, led by his three daughters, who are incredible, and I love the fact that we run a very successful, historic and iconic wine business and it’s run by a female by a team of three sisters.
That family then branches out into the world led by Marquesi Piero’s curiosity, and they find themselves in the United States more specifically in Napa, and they settle in a beautiful property atop Atlas Peak.
That we call Antica Estate.
These are 550 acres of pristine vineyards atop Atlas Peak, and Marquesi Piero builds a winery, and immediately starts getting connections around the valley, and strikes a lovely friendship with Warren Winiarski, who was the founder and owner of Stags Leap Wine Cellars, the winner of the Judgment of Paris in 1976.
Iconic and historic on its own right.
When Warren was ready to retire from the day to day of running this beautiful property, his first phone call was to Marquesi Piero.
He said, Piero, could you take over the legacy of Stags Leap Cellars? Marquesi Piero was not quite ready at the time to take over, but I think he promised his friend, listen I’m going to go into a partnership right now, but then at some point, this will end up being part of our family.
The partnership started in 2007 with San Michel Wine Estate, which at the time was the importer of the Antinori wines into the U. S. and just ended last summer when Marquesi Piero fulfilled the promise to his buddy and took full ownership of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.
So now we found ourselves with two wineries in Napa, atop Atlas Peak.
This is the property that brought the Antinori family to the U. S. And then Stags Leap Wine Cellars in the valley floor. Of course, the Stags Leap District AVA, iconic and historic winery in Napa.
Because that wasn’t enough this summer in 2024, we took full ownership of the winery.
There has been a partnership between Antinori and San Michel, one of the estates up in Washington in Red Mountain, the winery is called Col Solare and sits atop Red Mountain AVA.
So those are the three estates we manage in the United States.
We also set up an importing company. Self import the Italian and Chilean portfolio of the Antinor family to some of the most beautiful wines made in Italy and Chile.
Our commercial team gets the privilege of selling imported portfolio alongside the two wineries in Napa and the winery now in Red Mountain, Washington.
Incredibly influential family and they were spending a good amount of energy and time developing just three beautiful properties in the USA.
Joe Winger:
Tremendous history. Other than being a wine lover, you call yourself “stupidly obsessed with wine.”
Juan Munoz-Oca:
Food, film, fashion, literature, whatever that you’re into, you’ll enjoy spending time learning more about it. Wine is not different.
I describe myself as stupidly obsessed with wine, just because I spend most of my waking hours thinking about wine, thinking about how I can deliver a more enjoyable experience through our winemaking. A craft that we do that has an end, and that end is the experience of opening a bottle of wine to celebrate something special or having one of our wines at a restaurant when you are taking your significant other out to celebrate an anniversary.
think in order for us to deliver a wonderful experience, we have to know every detail that goes into creating that experience from growing the grapes and making the wine all the way to articulating the storytelling that decorates the wine because that’s part of the experience.
As a young wine lover and more that I work for an Italian family, I remember hearing people tell me, “I spent some time this summer in Tuscany, and I had this very inexpensive Chianti. It was stellar. I came back home, and I bought the same wine, it just doesn’t taste the same.”
The question for a technician is, maybe those wines don’t travel well? Do they keep the good stuff in Italy? Stuff that is not great.
The answer is, you’re not in Tuscany anymore.
You are back in Toledo, Ohio now. You went to work this morning. The Tuscan sun is no longer decorating your afternoon.
We try to take care of every single detail that goes into making a bottle of wine, including the storytelling, so we can give you an experience that goes beyond just opening a bottle of wine and enjoying it.
So I think that’s the genesis of being obsessed with it.
Joe Winger:
In 2025, what are the best ways for a vineyard and a winery to support community and support social environments?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
Early on, I understood that the influence that a winery has goes beyond just the pure production of wine as food or in our case, it’s a luxury item.
That’s an enhancer of experiences.
I understood that quickly because I grew up in wine country and I grew up in a family that was involved with wine and I quickly understood that there were a lot of opportunities for people in an agricultural setting that were given to us because of the wine industry.
If I grew up in a place that wasn’t good at growing grapes and I was in an agricultural setting growing potatoes or carrots or corn I would not have had the opportunities that wine has given me. I find myself three decades later living in Napa working for an Italian based family owned company.
I find myself having lived in five different countries, in four different continents that exposure to the world is a possibility given to an agricultural area just by the wine industry.
So I love that.
It’s not only encouraging, but also makes me think about the intrinsic qualities of having wine around.
What’s good about having the wine industry around you?
Winemakers shape the landscape in the place where we are. We are great stewards of the land because our business model depends on the health of the environment where we grow our grapes. So by definition, we take care of the place where we are.
We shape the environment, we build these beautiful wineries, we bring people to visit us because people get really into wine and they want to go and see the winery and where you make your wines.
I see all of that as just great additions to a community.
It’s not lost on me that a lot of these great opportunities are given to a community just simply because grapes grow beautifully there and people that are passionate about wine.
Joe Winger:
Is most of your travel work-related?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
It’s a combination of work, fun and wine. I think the genesis of bouncing around wine regions around the world was just simply trying to understand how people, the tools that people use to express what’s unique about their terroir.
Then take that back to your unique terroir and utilize those tools in order for you to express what’s unique about yours. Experience at different techniques and different cultures was a big part of what I feel the foundational wine making training.
So early on in my career, I moved around just trying to capture that [wine training].
Those travels took me to Australia for two vintages. France and Spain. I grew up in Argentina, Northwest United States, where I found just an amazing terroir. A group of very talented people making beautiful wines.
The person who became my wife and [the place that] became home.
The genesis of all that travel was to try to understand how people are. Articulating the nuances that make their wines unique.
It was in the Northwest for the longest time. Then I moved to California. Then last year I was lucky enough for the Antinori family to invite me to be part of their US operation.
Now I use that toolbox to better express what’s unique about Napa.
And to better articulate what makes Red Mountain a unique place in Washington.
Joe Winger:
What’s the most special wine region for you?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
I love when a wine region expresses its uniqueness through the wines.
Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa, the Barossa Valley in South Australia. High altitude vineyards in Mendoza, like the Uco Valley. Priorat in Spain.
If you’re lucky enough, a winemaker gets 40 vintages in your lifetime. Every vintage is like a new opportunity to improve upon your craft.
It’s like if you’re a chef trying to perfect a dish and you have only 40 tries. A lot of what we do is based on what people did before us. We try to just do little nuances different.
The one place that was surprising to me was Tuscany. The depth and elegance.
Now working for an Italian family that has a few estates of consequence in Tuscany. It’s been easier for me to get into the details and the place is just, it’s just magic.
It’s the perfect combination of everything that makes a wine that much better. It’s the weather, it’s the people, it’s how they feel about wine, it’s the food and how the wine elevates the food and vice versa. It’s like the whole package at Tuscany. It’s dreamy.
Joe Winger:
Your education includes agricultural engineering, enology, viticulture. Can you share a lesson that you wish more vineyards would participate on?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
The answer to that question would have been very different just 10 or 15 years ago.
My formative years I was learning about agriculture, it was all about care of the plant. Nutrients, water, having a healthy crop at all times.
Over the last two decades, I have learned that if you take care of the soil, then the soil will take care of the vine. Because we’re growing grapes. The environment around the vine will be a healthier environment for the vine.
The soil will take care of it.
As an agricultural engineer you look into the inputs to go into creating a beautiful, healthy, bountiful crop. I worry less about what the vine needs and I worry more about creating a wonderful environment for that plant. That starts with the soil.
That includes soil health and animal welfare. We want animals around the vineyard. Not only sheep grazing in the winter to help us with the cover crop control, but also native species to thrive because when the environment thrives, the vines thrive and hence the grapes have a richer textural experience for wine drinkers.
Our Napa winery Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, which is iconic and historic, was just certified regenerative organic, which is the baseline of organic farming with an addition of animal welfare social responsibility.
Joe Winger:
Wineries want to do this, right? Is the biggest challenge budget based?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
I think it’s two pronged. There is a financial impact to be a lot more responsible.
But there’s also a philosophical approach to what you do. I feel strongly about those of us who spend time in the vineyard going home at the end of it. day and hugging our friends and our kids without having to worry about carrying anything on our clothes that was just sprayed in the vineyard.
I think there is a very analytical view of farming that might justify, you don’t have to worry about the stuff that we spray on the vineyard. It’s all either safe or we take the precautions needed in order for that to be safe for you.
Then there is the financial component of going the extra mile to make sure that generations to come, we get to make wine in the same pristine conditions that we do today.
That’s rooted in the philosophy behind our winemaking for the Antinori family. We’ve been making wines for 600 plus years. So we do want to make sure that those conditions remain pristine. I think there’s value in that, and so we invest and we go the extra mile.
Joe Winger:
You’ve had the privilege of tasting some of the best wines in the world. Can you walk me through one of your favorite memories?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
Great wine is memorable. It’s unrelated to where it was made, to the price, or its vintage.
You talk with people and they will tell you about this very fancy wine, fancy vintage of this very fancy estate from Napa or Bordeaux.
Because every single one of these components informs your experience, making it fabulous.
For me the greatest wines are the ones that I remember. They spark curiosity. They make me think what did this winemaker do? What did this viticulturist do? What did this grape grower do?
I want to try to understand how those techniques affect their wine and why was the wine sparking joy and curiosity?
I have a very early memory of having a wine from The Catena family in Argentina.
It was the first time that I tried a Chardonnay that was barrel fermented.
The difference between a Chardonnay that was barrel fermented and just a regular white table wine, which is what I was exposed to in my early years, was transformative.
I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t understand the textural experience .
How did this guy get these savory notes in here? How did he get these vanilla tones in this chardonnay without being oaky?
Joe Winger:
Do you have any current favorite wines that you’re exploring?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
A few have sparked a lot of curiosity.
One is the 2021 Tignanello from Tignanello Estate in Tuscany, one of the flagship wines for the family. The place is a magic combination of factors that just doesn’t happen 300 feet down the road.
It’s been in the top 10 with Wine Spectator three years in a row.
And so it speaks to the place, and then it speaks to how we are capturing that uniqueness through the winemaking process.
The other is at Stags Leap Wine Cellars, we make three wines from our estate vineyards. The estates behind the winery are SLV and Fay. Fay, named after Nathan Fay who planted the first Cabernet in the Stags Leap district in 1961.
The Stags Leap 2019 SLV is ultimately a representation of all that hard work showed that uniqueness through your winemaking.
Joe Winger:
Do you have a personal favorite wine and food pairing?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
I grew up in Argentina. Anything that you grill will make me happy.
Anything that comes out of the grill with a little bit of char and a tiny bit of a smoky flavor goes amazingly well with Cabernet Sauvignon.
I’m liking where Cabernet Franc is going these days. I am coming around to the herbal tones.
Joe Winger:
What’s the best way for the audience to learn more about you and your winery work?
Juan Munoz-Oca:
Follow our wineries or go to the website and check out our wineries,
AntinoriNapaValley.com. Stag’s Sleep Wine Cellars, which is SLWC.com, ColSolare.com, our winery in Washington.
You’ll learn tons about our commitment to sustainability, our work out in the vineyard, the work that our winemakers do in order to craft these beautiful wines.
If you want to learn a little bit more about myself personally, I think if you just find me on LinkedIn, you’ll get not only a perspective of what I’ve been and my professional profile, but also there’s some blog posts and some videos that articulate a little bit how I feel about winemaking.
