Trois Noix Wine in Napa Valley

As the daughter of one of the most acclaimed wine families in the Napa Valley, owners of the famed Eisele Vineyard, Jaime Araujo easily could have parlayed her family name into a comfortable career and life. But as a young woman, Araujo had other ideas. After graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in language and linguistics, she left for Europe, where she continued her studies. She spent 24 years overseas, working in academia, acting in London theater and television roles and working with Moët Hennessy in London and Paris, since she’s fluent in French.

Even while she was in Europe, Araujo began laying the foundation of her return to the Napa Valley. She started working with her parents Bart and Daphne at Araujo Estate in Calistoga. When they sold the vineyard to French businessman François-Henri Pinault of Artemis Domaines in July 2013, the Araujos founded a new pair of wine brands including Accendo Cellars and Wheeler Farms, (now owned by Suzanne Deal Booth). 

That same year, Jaime and her brother Greg started a side wine project called Trois Noix. The name means three nuts in French, and it’s an homage to Jaime and Greg’s kids, the next generation of Araujos. When Araujo moved to Napa fulltime in 2016, she was juggling work with her two family wine brands, and building Trois Noix.

Araujo is emerging as a leader as Napa Valley enters a new generation. She’s the first openly gay board chair of the Napa Valley Vintners’ board of directors. And Trois Noix, her fast-growing wine brand, stands out for doing things a bit differently. It’s B Corp, which Araujo uses as a catalyst to create community and invite the underrepresented into the Napa Valley wine world. Her brand’s tasting experiences start at $40, and most of the wines are accessibly priced between $40 and $90.

And though the Cabs from Muir-Hanna Vineyards are age-worthy, Araujo wants her wines to be enjoyed and shared rather than sequestered in a cellar purely as an investment. We spoke with Araujo recently about her Trois Noix and how she’s using the brand as a way to spark change and bring people together. 

Can you share the story of your winery?

Trois Noix Wine Vintner and Founder Jaime Araujo: When I came back from Europe, I was working with the family and doing all of that and I had an opportunity with a little tiny lot of Cabernet juice that was totally delicious, but nobody else could figure out what to do with. I thought I’ll just do a little something on my own, with all my copious time off.  And it sort of started there and kind of grew and blossomed.

My brother Greg started Trois Noix with me, but now I’m the sole owner.  I added Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. At the same time, I got really excited about ideas around running a business as a force for good in the community and that’s when I discovered B Corp. It just took off into the stratosphere, so it was super exciting. We went from 300 cases to over 3,000 in a matter of a few years.

What type of wine do you specialize in?  

Jaime Araujo: We make a range of wines including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and the newest is Chenin Blanc. Stylistically, we’re sort of the bridge between established Napa and new Napa. I either say we’re very classic and precise with a lighter fresher touch or we make serious wines that don’t take themselves too seriously.

What makes your wine unique?

Jaime Araujo: I guess the kismet and serendipity that I’ve been blessed with finding these incredible sites and being able to work with incredible families and being able to make wine that I really love to drink honestly in that fresher, brighter style.

And being able to build a company that is at its very core about taking care of people and being accessible as much as we can be and focusing on some intentionally ignored populations in the Napa wine world either at the winery or as consumers. I think our combination of being social justice minded and making beautiful bright wines and taking advantage of the potential.

What’s one of your popular tasting experiences?

Jaime Araujo: We have a beautiful new tasting space in Calistoga at Museion Napa.  So we’re able to do a lot more differentiated tastings. So we’ll be able to do a tasting specifically for people who love white wine, or a tasting for people who want old library vintages and then we’re also gonna be doing an offering called Lunch with Jaime, which is just what it says.

I’ll bring a couple things out of my cellar and we’ll have lunch with the winery and talk through the wines and just enjoy a little fun afternoon together. It’s the old Calistoga Water Factory and the amazing Hernandez family has bought it and turned it into a custom crush but also a really beautiful collective. They make their own olive oil called Grove 45 and they also make their own wine called Museion. We have this sort of wonderful little family up there. We all work together and refer people to each other and it’s a really, really lovely spot.

What’s one thing you wish that more people knew about your winery?

Jaime Araujo: I wish that more people knew that California can make some of the most delicious Chardonnay and Merlot that is not oaky and buttery or sweet, but bright and beautiful and aromatic and light on its feet and totally delicious.

How did you get started in the wine industry?

Jaime Araujo: My family has been making wine in Napa Valley since 1990. I lived in London and France for 24 years, and part of that time I worked for Moët Hennessy. When I came back to the United States in 2016, I worked with my family at Araujo Estate and Accendo before founding Trois Noix in 2013.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the wine business?

Jaime Araujo: Oh my gosh, there’s so many. It’s a very humbling business. I would say that the biggest lesson I’ve learned through everything is that no matter how scary it may seem, honesty and transparency are always the right approach. Always. I guess it must’ve been over a year ago, we were going through some super, super tough times. I feel like for whatever reason, we hit those hard moments  a year before everyone else.  We’d grown really really fast and we hadn’t really kept pace on the sales side and it was just really hard financially.

I had to have some tough conversations with people that we worked with. I needed to tell them that this is really bad right now and it’s gonna get better. And you know honestly, every single partner that we have was so thoughtful and kind, and just really supportive. We managed to get everybody paid and we managed to get out of the hole and touch wood this year actually seems to be on a roll.

Do you recall the first time you fell in love with wine?

Jaime Araujo: I think I was 18. My parents had taken us on a trip to France and we were in Burgundy at some restaurant for lunch and it was quite fancy. We had a bottle of Meursault. I had one sip of it and it was what is this and how do I get more?? So much so I remembered the name. I was like whoa. The second one when I worked in wine at Moët Hennessy in London, in the days where they used to take the entire company to France for an educational weekend.

It was early spring and we went over to Champagne and we had lunch at Hautvillers where they make Dom Perignon. We had 1990 Dom on this terrace overlooking the Côtes des Blancs and I was like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. 

Share your winemaking approach.

Jaime Araujo: Mike Tracy has been our winemaker since 2022, so he and I work together on all the winemaking decisions. I think my winemaking philosophy and approach is that I love being as non-interventionist as possible while still maintaining control and clean, perfect, beautiful wines. So take our Chardonnay.

We don’t inoculate (add extra yeast to start fermentation), it’s a native ferment. We don’t do any malolactic fermentation (secondary fermentation to add a creamier mouthfeel), so we do use sulfur.  We just let it do its thing, but within specific parameters.

So we really focus on making sure that it’s the right temperature. If we’ve been very, very careful in our winemaking, and it’s super clean and clear and we can do the (lab) panels and show there’s no bacteriological risk, then don’t touch it. 

Do you have any traditions with your team?

Jaime Araujo: One is that at the end of every year we have “We Love You” leave. It’s basically leave that the whole company goes on and it’s not counted as part of vacation or anything. It’s usually from mid-December to a couple days after the first of the year. Everybody is meant to disconnect, put on out of office and just take a break.

The other thing I really value are our grower tastings that we do every year with our key vineyard growers and vineyard managers. So we will do a tasting of all the barrel samples from the wines from their vineyard and then the finished wines that we’ve made from their vineyard, since we do all vineyard designated wines now.

It’s a really nice way to give a perspective for them on what the grapes are doing after they leave them. And it’s a wonderful way for us to talk about farming practices and to really be good partners. Of course they get to leave with some bottles as well because that’s part of the deal.