Very limited!
Tasting Notes
Brought to life by none other than Philippe Melka, Spinning Plates is a nod to the never-ending pursuit of balance in winemaking and Patrice’s love of music (à la Radiohead's song). Is it too on the nose to say that this wine rocks?
Spinning Plates is our Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, often offering up flavors like ripe blue and black berries, black cherry, graphite, dark chocolate, tobacco leaf, and herbs. Complex and concentrated with abundant fine tannins, we make this to be a full bodied wine that showcases extraordinary balance, fine ripe structure, pliancy, and a long, mineral, and juicy finish.
Blend: Primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, complimented by Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc. Philippe used a mix of 85% new and 15% neutral French oak barrels for aging.
 
Inspiration
Spinning Plates is a two fold metaphor. It refers to the level of focus and attention to detail it takes for thousands of variables to fall into place to make not just good—but truly GREAT—wine. It also refers to our love of music: spinning unforgettable records to set the mood for work, for meditation, for entertaining.
Terroir
Drawn mostly from the warmer north end of the Napa Valley, this is a blend of fruit from vineyards in Oakville, Rutherford, Stags Leap District, and Calistoga. We choose a diverse blend of appellations and hillside exposures to ensure the most multifaceted, complete wine we can muster. Our winemaker partners also help us spot fantastic fruit from their consulting clients, which all but guarantees an elite standard of quality.
Vice Versa was founded by Ottawa native and entrepreneur Patrice Breton. From his youth, Patrice always sought a vocation that would combine his passions: creativity, science, art and culture, and he finally found this nexus in Vice Versa. 2024 will mark Vice Versa’s 22nd vintage in the Napa Valley. Patrice learned winemaking at the side of Paul Hobbs who produced several vintages in the early 2000s with Patrice but were never released. Patrice learned as much as he could during his time directly working with Hobbs. The first commercial release of Vice Versa was from the 2003 vintage. Paul was winemaker from 2003 through 2013. When Paul began to become busier with his own consulting clients and international projects Philippe Melka and his team including winemaker Maayan Koschitzky were brought on board to craft the wines. They made some changes in the winemaking including introducing longer fermentation times, longer maceration times and never using any pressed juice.
Today, Spencer Kelly heads a winemaking team which also includes Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky of Atelier Melka. They and every other member of our coterie are driven by passion for our shared métier.
We acquired an estate vineyard in Calistoga in 2019, and the summer of 2024 will see the launch of a new winery facility there. Our greatest wines are perpetually ahead of us.
Their labels have been designed by two of the best in the business – first by Chuck House of Icon Design Group and a more recent completely different iteration by Napa based Richard Von Saal of VonSaal Design which ties in an image relating to ‘vice versa’ using curvilinear lines while also representing the Fibonacci sequence (where each subsequent number is the addition of the two preceding ones, starting from 0 and 1).