“Heidi and I work in this classic chemistry,” says Bo, “Fourteen percent alcohol, not 16, and good balance. It’s not about those big, showy, giant, ponderous wines. We made crisp, lean, white Burgundy Chardonnay for 30 years when Americans didn’t want it. So we’re paddling upstream,” he says, laughing and making swimming motions with his arms. “We’re paddling upstream, and the river of Chardonnay is flowing against us. But we’re still paddling along, making crisp, lean, bright Chardonnay. Then, all of a sudden, the tide turns. And people say, ‘Wow! This white Burgundy’s good,’ or ‘Wow! Chardonnay that tastes like grapes rather than wood!’”

They both believe that when it’s all good, you can afford to trust your own taste. Explore. Drink it. Enjoy it. “When you see it, you know it,” says Heidi. “That’s what we’re all looking for.”

While Bo and Heidi grew up in the wine business, Bo makes it clear that he isn’t a second-generation winemaker, as Heidi is. “I’m a second-generation vintner, but I’m a first-generation winemaker,” he says. “My father, if you told him to get a pump and fill a barrel, to his dying day, would’ve never been able to fill a barrel, drive a tractor or prune a vine. My father was an attorney. He was our philosopher king. He was the team builder.”

“He had a dream and a vision,” Heidi says.

“Very much,” says Bo. “He said, ‘This is my vision. This is the grape. This is what we want to do. All you people: Make it happen!’ For the Paris tasting, he picked a vineyard manager, a winemaker and some cellar workers, and they made some amazing wine.”

Jim was tough to work for, especially for someone with the same last name, Bo offers. “I have four brothers and sisters who also worked with Chateau Montelena,” says Bo, “but didn’t find it in their skill set to be able to work for my father. He was a tough guy. Like most successful winery owners, in general, they’re visionaries but they’re tough. You had to be pretty tough, too. I actually quit working for him in 1981. I went to Paso Robles. Then I was recruited back.”

In the movie, “Bottle Shock,” Bo and his dad are always taking out their anger at each other in a boxing ring on the property. That, he says, laughing and shaking his head, didn’t happen. There was no boxing ring and, “They never punched each other,” Heidi laughs. “They had mental battles, but they didn’t duke it out!” She smiles at the thought. “One of my favorite phrases of [Jim’s] was, ‘I’m firm but unreasonable!’ He said it tongue in cheek, but he knew it was true!”

Time worked in favor for father and son. “We became friends over the years,” says Bo. “I became a trusted confidant and a professional. When I came back to work for him in 1982, we negotiated a deal where he’d never treat me as his son and I’d never treat him as my father while at work. Going hunting or fishing, skiing or goofing around, flying airplanes—that’s the time we’re father and son.

A few years ago, in 2008, word got out that Jim Barrett was selling Chateau Montelena to a French concern. The news was shocking, even to people not in the business. The storied Chateau Montelena was a Napa Valley institution. How could it be sold? Bo and Heidi decided to adapt and created their own brand that they could make together, even though they’d no longer own the winery. The idea was to create something they could pass on to their children, and that would be a harmonious blending of their talents. “Both of our styles come into play there a little bit,” says Heidi.” They call it Barrett & Barrett. The name, to them, is an honest reflection of all they do together as a team, working and playing, independently and together. “His mom summed it up really well,” says Heidi. “She said, ‘You guys are pulling on the same rope.’”

As it turned out, the winery’s sale—happily for Heidi and Bo— fell through. Jim, who was getting tired, decided to step aside and let Bo do some replanting, retrofit the cellar and modernize Montelena to, as Heidi says, “become the true wine estate that it is.” So Montelena is again going strong, and Barrett & Barrett is producing about 300 cases of what Heidi calls, “really serious, beautiful Cabernet that we both work on.” She loves the Barrett & Barrett logo—an ancient coin with the figure of a winged horse and a fishtail—on the back, it says, “Land, Sea, Sky,” which seems to sum up what they do as pilots (she flies an R-44 helicopter and he flies both the helicopter and fixed-wing planes), skiers and scuba divers. “We exist in all three planes,” she says. “It’s also everything you need to make fine wine: land—the Napa Valley, the best terroir; sea—enough rainfall, water; and sky—proper climate and all of that. It’s really what you need to make fine wine.”

Heidi says that people who come here realize what a special place it is and feel a sense of stewardship of the little jewel that is Napa Valley. “We all feel very protective of it,” she says, “and people are aware of that.” It helps that the character of the place, and the potential dangers to that character, were recognized early on. “The Ag Preserve was brilliant,” she says. “Our forefathers set that up and realized we needed it to protect the valley. They’re not making any more Napa Valleys.”

She sees the future for the valley and the business as strong. “If we continue to keep our integrity, guard our brand and keep making better and better wines, we’ll secure our place in or near the top in the world of wine going forward. That’s in our future. That’s what we’re working on.”

“Guard the brand?” I ask, “Do all the billionaires moving in dilute the culture?”

Bo laughs. “Chateau Montelena was built by a tycoon!” he says. “Alfred Tubbs was a guy from outside of Napa Valley. He didn’t know anything about growing grapes or making wine. He came up here and built this fancy-pants winery. He put in all these fancy vineyards instead of forests. Others, like Krug and Schramsberg, were just struggling along, trying to make an honest living, and here comes this bazillionaire—to use modern terms—and he builds this winery. That was 1882! So should I be mad because a tycoon puts a winery somewhere and will never make his money back? No! Maybe in 100 years, that will be an epic, world-class place.”

The “millennial” Barrett daughters laugh. Remi and Chelsea both graduated from UC Davis, as did Heidi (Bo is a Fresno State alum), and are following their parents into the business—Remi, who lives in San Francisco, works for her mother predominantly in sales and assisting with some marketing for La Sirena and Barrett & Barrett. Chelsea, who’s on the path to become a winemaker, is currently working for Joel Gott wines. (Heidi and Bo’s son, Seamus, is finishing law school in New York, following in grandfather Jim’s footsteps.)

Both daughters share their parents’ passion for the valley, its culture, its beauty and all they can enjoy there. They decline to identify as a generation, preferring to acknowledge many individual tastes, all participating in a more open wine culture than perhaps that of their parents, and one more dedicated to enjoyment of wine as part of life.“We believe anybody can enjoy wine, and there are lots of great wines at affordable prices. You don’t have to spend a crazy amount of money to have a great wine,” says Remi.