Located in beautiful El Dorado County, the heart of California's historic gold rush country, we produce very limited amounts of estate-grown, award-winning wines. Our wines are personally crafted by our experienced winemakers who are hands-on throughout the process. We employ no hired hands in our operation.

Chateau Leidigh brings together former home winemakers with over 55 years of combined experience producing award-winning wines.  As home winemakers, Chateau Leidigh's team has won hundreds of medals in competitions around California.  These include numerous Gold Medals at the California State Fair and Orange County Fair, plus multiple "Best of Show" awards.  Now these combined talents are fully focused on making top-flight, small-lot commercial wines for the enjoyment of discerning wine lovers.  Our wine-making skills have not gone unnoticed by judges in commercial competitions where we have already garnered numerous medals, despite being ineligible to enter most commercial competitions due to our very limited production levels. (Read about our Awards) You won't find these wines on your grocery store's shelves; they are available only from the winery and at selected wine shops and restaurants.

Our vineyard, Clos des Knolls, is in the rugged foothill soils of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  Situated above the valley fog and smog at 1300 feet, our vines struggle to produce their crop of grapes, providing both character and finesse.   Clos des Knolls was first planted in 1988, with a selection of varietals so that we could determine which grapes performed best on our site.  After nearly two decades of working with the fruit and selecting the best varietals, the vineyard has now produced scores of award-winning wines. We planted the vines ourselves with the help of dear friends.  We installed the trellising systems, irrigation, and have nurtured, trained, and pruned each vine to ensure the best hands-on care.  The resulting wines are true-to-character in their fruit flavors and in the bouquet of the finished wine.

Chateau Leidigh is fully solar-powered, using the sun's energy not only to develop flavors in the grapes, but also to power the pump for the vineyard irrigation and the equipment for the winery.  One reason we can do this is because we treat the wines very gently throughout the process.  Chateau Leidigh hand punches-down its fermenting red wines.  No mechanical pumping-over is employed here -- the wine is treated with care, avoiding the side-effects of mechanical moistening of the "cap" during fermentation.  Small-lot production also allows us to press lightly, thus reducing harshness in the wine. Even after fermentation is completed, gravity flow is used to move the wine from tank to barrel, from barrel to barrel, and from barrel to final processing, where a very gentle pump is utilized to filter the wine before it goes into the bottle. 

Our bottles are all hand-corked, then hand-capsuled and finally hand-labeled.  Each bottle is individually numbered, like an artist's fine-art print, so you know you are enjoying a "one-of-a-kind" experience.  We know you will enjoy tasting the fruits of our labors of love. If you are interested in learning more about our wines or to place an order or be added to our mailing list, please send an e-mail to: ChateauLeidigh@aol.com or phone us at (530) 626-1959.