INTERVIEW


American entrepreneur Barbara Banke divides her time between overseeing the creation of some of the finest red wine ever produced in the USA and studying the General Stud Book in a bid to keep winning on racecourses around the world


WORDS: DIANA BUTLER IMAGES: JACKSON FAMILY WINES B


arbara Banke is probably best known in the UK as a successful racehorse owner and breeder.


Under her Stonestreet Stable name, Barbara’s racehorse Curlin won racing’s richest prize, the Dubai World Cup, in 2008, while her filly Lady Aurelia took two great races at Royal Ascot in 2016 and 2017. However, Barbara is about to become better known at Smith’s Lawn as the owner of Vérité, the official red wine of Guards Polo Club. Vérite’s highly acclaimed red blends are now featured on Mosimann’s wine list in the Royal Box and Clubhouse, hailing from Sonoma County in California. Vérité is, in fact, three wines – La Muse, La Joie and Le Désir, all Bordeaux blends – created in 1998 by vigneron and Bordelais, Pierre Seillan. “Sonoma County is closer to the ocean so it’s a little bit cooler and the conditions are more like Bordeaux,” explained Barbara. “It gives the wines a different taste Our concept is to showcase the diverse climates – or micro-crus as Pierre would call it – within Sonoma County. “Many wine enthusiasts


think great wines from California come from the Napa Valley, but Vérité wines are from Sonoma, and in our opinion, stands among the best wines in the world. Its pedigree may be short but the wines have earned 100 points [ the traditional wine scoring system] 15 times, which is tremendous.”


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“The Sonoma county is closer to the ocean so it’s a little bit cooler so the


conditions are more like Bordeaux”


This interview took place late last year in London, just before Barbara and Pierre introduced the 2015 vintage from both Vérité and Cardinale, one of the family’s prestigious wineries based in the Napa Valley, to Britain’s wine connoisseurs and collectors. Barbara was upbeat about how the wines would be received by her British audience. “The UK has always had a lot of good wine collectors and wine connoisseurs who are mainly focused on French wines. I think Vérité will naturally appeal because it has more of that sensibility,” she said. “Pierre is very diligent about harvesting on the fresh side of the spectrum for the grapes so they have a little bit less alcohol and more complex flavours, not as fruity,” she continued, before


adding that “Vérité is meant to be aged. It is attractive when young but gets better with time!” Barbara has not always been


involved with the wine trade; she is a property lawyer by profession. Jackson Family Wines, of which Vérité is one winery, was founded by Barbara and her late husband Jess Stonestreet


Jackson, also a lawyer, in 1982. “Jess started the first winery in the early 1980s and retired from practising law in 1987 to be in the wine business full time. I was still practising law at that time, but Jess was having a great time making wines. The law wasn’t nearly as much fun so I retired from


GUARDS POLO CLUB OFFICIAL YEARBOOK 2019


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