How the Barons Take a Family Approach to Cultivating Vines and Wines

“To come at wine from the lens of a seasoned vet when you're young is really, really powerful,” says Sam Baron, of his relationship with this father Daniel Baron, both of Napa’s Complant Wine. “I learned a lot about about ‘human terroir’ from him. The way that I think about terroir is not only geologic, biologic, and environmental, but also human.”

Before delving into the Baron family terroir, you’re going to want to look at “Complant” and adjust your mindset to French, because your brain might try to make it “complaint” or “compliant,” neither of which very accurately summarizes the relationship between father and son winemakers Daniel and Sam Baron. “Complement” would certainly work, but “complant” is ideal: an old French term meaning a “cultivated vine,” which nods to this human intervention component of terroir; how the humanity and decision making of the winemaker is also reflected in the vines and their resulting wine. Complant, then, is also an extremely fitting metaphor for a winemaking duo whose junior member’s own interest in the craft was equal parts nature and nurture.

“I came into the picture during my dad’s Dominus days,” says Sam. “There are a bunch of photos of me actually swimming in macro bins of crushed grapes.” A baptism by wine if ever there was one.

California Winemaking with Old World Sensibility

Daniel Baron, Complant’s patriarch, had spent decades in wine before the birth of his oldest child, Sam. After stints at such legendary California wineries as Chateau Montelena and Navarro Vineyards he decamped to France to work for Château Pétrus. Returning to California two years later with a “no-doubt annoying habit of dressing like a French peasant,” (according to Complant’s website,) he worked over a decade at Dominus Estate before ultimately spending the bulk of his career at Silver Oak Cellars. 

Sam Baron grew up among the vineyards and started working vineyard jobs in many wineries with his father’s encouragement from the age of 15 or 16. Naturally his father’s expertise had a profound impact on Sam, but Daniel made sure that his own philosophy and style wasn’t the only influence that Sam would have in his own winemaking development. “I always had this person who I knew was a master, who I knew really understood California terroir, but who was pushing me to seek out the world of wine,” says Sam. “And that’s so huge; I always had this person who was pushing me to the old world.”

Sam also spent time in France, but also New Zealand, meeting other young winemakers and learning techniques that would represent a departure from his father’s style, but that would be beneficial when it came to the different perspectives they each brought to Complant.  “I'm much more of the artist, he's much more of a scientist, so we kind of make this perfect blend,” says Sam. Together, they produce three highly allocated wines: a cabernet sauvignon, primarily helmed by Daniel, a chardonnay, primarily helmed by Sam, and a pinot noir, which is a complete collaboration between the two.

The Complant Brand

The major commonality between father and son, according to Sam, is the belief that the work begins in the vineyard. The Baron family has never owned a vineyard, and Complant wines are assembled from several single-vineyard properties where they have developed relationships with estate owners which allow them to be present among the vines.

“I think both of us have learned how to be very involved in the farming without owning vineyards,” says Sam. “It's something that's really important to us, and I think you're as involved as you want to be.” This is a critical piece of the human terroir that makes up Complant’s particular brand point of view.

Another element of Sam’s own approach to winemaking that was perhaps inevitable, given his lineage, was the Old World sensibility that Daniel insisted Sam gain an understanding of up close. “My father always pushed me to make lower alcohol wines, more restrained wines, and to seek the old world for mentorship. It was something that was so ingrained in his relationship with winemaking,” says Sam.

A Family Approach

But the beauty in the familial relationship, and the trust between Daniel and Sam, is that the cultivation and influence goes both ways. Because Daniel encouraged Sam early on to explore the world of wine beyond his father’s own operation, he naturally came back to the table with certain ideas of his own, which Daniel was open to exploring, even if he was initially dubious.

One of Sam’s most important contributions to Complant was the insistence on natural fermentation: “Before we started Complant, (my father) hadn't made an uninoculated wine. And I didn’t want to make any wines that are inoculated. A really big part of my philosophy is that I want to have relationship with nature,” says Sam. “And he trusted it the first year, and now he just gets it.” Conversely, it’s Daniel’s oak philosophy that ultimately governed that aspect of their wines. “I didn't think we should use oak on cabernet,” says Sam. “And my dad insisted that just 20% new wood would make a huge difference. And when you taste them side by side, he's totally right.”

Despite the occasional divergent point of view, their father son working relationship is a harmonious one, which must be true, since Complant’s website insists, all evidence to the contrary, that Daniel is retired, having left Silver Oak in 2016. “He’s never going to retire,” jokes Sam. “That guy dies pumping over tanks.”