Napa Valley winery headed to France to create its latest brand.
HALL Wines of Napa Valley introduced its latest brand, Michel Foch Champagne, at a June 2025 party atop a Rutherford hill. Vintner Kathryn Walt Hall and HALL Wines president Mike Reynolds spearheaded the foray into producing wines in France.
Earlier in his career, Reynolds, HALL’s founding winemaker, was the lead winemaker at Schramsberg, the august Napa Valley producer of méthode champenoise (aka méthode traditionelle) sparkling wines. “So this is arguably a return to my roots,” he said at the party. Later, Kathryn Hall described how her goal to craft “wines that speak to the places they come from” and her affinity for things French eventually led to the focus on Champagne itself.
Our hosts poured two of their initial five bottlings, the Michel Foch Brut and the Michel Foch Blanc de Blancs 2011 Late Disgorged. The wines aged in bottle for five and 13 years, respectively. The other three wines — a 2015 Blanc de Blancs, a 2013 Brut, and a multi-vintage rosé — will debut throughout Summer 2025. The “Foch” in the brand’s name originates from Avenue Foch, the street where Kathryn and her husband, Craig, reside in Paris. “Michel” is a nod to Reynolds.
The Halls make Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs under their WALT Wines label. You can test drive the Michel Foch wines at the WALT tasting rooms in Napa (across from Oxbow Public Market) and Sonoma (just off Sonoma Plaza) and at the HALL Palm Springs tasting room in the Thompson Palm Springs hotel.