How Frank Family Vineyards Made It to the Top Shelf

Mark Anthony Wines x SHARP

When Frank Family Vineyards scooped awards for best tasting room and friendliest hospitality in Napa Valley, it likely didn’t come as much of a surprise to the loyal superfans who come back as often as they can to savour this extraordinary wine experience.

Housed in a recently restored 1930s craftsman bungalow with a refurbished fireplace and a lovely view of the vineyards, the Frank Family tasting room strikes the perfect balance between casual vibes and world-class wine. Best of all, it’s full of surprises, like the welcome glass of elegant sparkling wine and those special days when the proprietors, Rich and Leslie Frank, drop by the tasting room to share a bottle with the guests.

“It’s very natural to me to walk into a room and meet a group of people I’ve never seen before and hear their stories and experience,” says Leslie Frank. “Seeing people enjoy their experience here in the tasting room is very rewarding.”

Bringing people together with delicious wine is really at the heart of everything Frank Family does, partly because sharing a bottle of wine is what brought Rich and Leslie together in the first place.

“I was at a wine bar with a girlfriend when this charming gentleman near us asked if we’d help him by sharing a bottle of wine he wanted to order,” she recalls. “It only came by the bottle, which he said he couldn’t possibly drink it all on his own.”

They were, of course, happy to lend a helping hand. Rich quips that he had no idea how great a pick-up line it was but, in truth, he and Leslie really hit it off when they realized how much they had in common. Wine, obviously. And a love for Napa Valley too, which Leslie calls “a place that gets into your soul.” It turns out it wasn’t Rich’s first time in wine country, either. In fact, he’d visited so frequently in search of breaks from his own fast-paced job in broadcasting (as president of Paramount Television Group and, later, Disney Studios), that when a historic property — built in 1884, it’s the third-oldest in Napa — became available, he decided it was time to invest in a little hobby winery.

Both also have a firm commitment to paying their good fortune forward. Thanks to relatively humble beginnings — Leslie was raised in Hamilton, Ontario, and Rich is from Bayside, New York — both feel that charity was not “taught or learned; it was simply a fact of life.” In 2018, the pair launched “Frank for a Cause,” which supports local well-being as well as national charities, funded by the vineyard.

Thirty years later, they’re up to nearly 150,000 cases per year. Scaling up hasn’t meant changing their ways or core values, though. Frank Family’s tasty bubbles are still hand-riddled and made according to the Methode Champenoise. The bright and creamy Carneros Chardonnay has the distinction of being a true expression of Napa terroir thanks to the judicious approach to oak-aging. And enjoying a rich and full red, like the complex, beautifully structured, berry-forward Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon or the rarefied RHF Cabernet Sauvignon, made with fruit from the storied Rutherford appellation, is an event in and of itself.

These are wines meant to bring people together. Expertly crafted with that goal in mind, they just might make sharing a bottle on a special occasion — or a random Tuesday — a life-changing event.

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