A Brief History of the Napa Valley
The Napa Valley could be a metaphor for America. It’s a land that has been built by the dreams of those willing to take chances and reach for greatness. And greatness it has achieved. From a relatively unknown valley in California making unremarkable wine to a global behemoth that smashed the legendary houses of France and became the premier destination for wine in America. Napa has completely changed the way the world views and enjoys wine, showing wine lovers that there is greatness outside of the storied vineyards of Europe. So let’s take a quick look at how it all started and where it might be going.
The Early Days: 1830s-1880s
It would be hard to talk about Napa without first mentioning that wine production in California actually started closer to LA and San Diego. Missionaries for the Catholic Church (under Spanish rule) were the first to produce wine in California, often surrounding their Missions with vines. After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821 the Mexican government took the Church’s land and divided it among their Generals as a reward for their hard work and as a punishment to the Church for siding with Spain in the conflict. It was due to this arrangement that General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, for whom the town of Vallejo is named, awarded a nearly 12,000-acre stretch of land that included much of what is now southern Napa Valley—to his former employee George Calvert Yount (for which Yountville is named) in 1836. Shortly after this grant was given, Yount would plant the first European grapevines in Napa.
For the next decade there was relatively little growth in Napa and then in 1848 gold was discovered about 100 miles east in the American River. This discovery would ignite a stampede of European arrivals to Northern California all in search of their fortune and a new life. Many of these European immigrants’ claims did not pan out leaving them with no money and no way to get home so they planted roots in Napa Valley, starting the first official wine movement in the United States.
Immigrants of Italian, Swiss, and especially German descent, played important roles, establishing such foundational wineries as Inglenook, Fisher (now Mayacamas), Beringer, Italian Swiss Colony, and Schramsberg. In fact, Charles Krug, a German native who started Napa’s first commercial winery in 1861, was one of the most important figures in Napa Valley at this time. Krug was always very active in assisting many of his local homesteaders, helping them grow the Napa Valley wine industry to over 140 wineries and 15,000 acres under vine by the end of the 1880s. Yet the initial success of Napa Valley was about to hit a rough patch.
The Bad Times: 1890s-1940s
Many people don’t realize, but the vast majority of wines that we drink come from a very specific species of grapevine called vitis vinifera that is native to Europe. There are a number of grapevine species that are native to America such as vitis californica or vitis riparia, however, the many attempts to make them into wine have often ended with poor results. It’s for this reason that the European immigrants that settled in Napa planted varietals like Riesling, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon all grapes that are vitis vinifera. Unfortunately, the vitis vinifera grapevine doesn’t have the same heartiness that many of the American species have so when an aphid native to the Mississippi river valley (Phylloxera) was accidentally exported to Napa Valley, the vitis vinifera vines were completely at the mercy of its voracious appetite with most of the vineyards dying and having to be replanted. The Valley lost millions of dollars and years worth of production due to Phylloxera, but they eventually recovered when they discovered that they could graft on the vitis vinifera vines to American grapevine rootstock, making wines of high quality, but with a resistance to the bug. Napa Valley was saved, at least for the time being.
The blight of phylloxera was defeated, but that was just the beginning of an absolutely miserable series of decades for Napa Valley. The next 40 years saw recession, war, prohibition and depression that wiped away a devastating amount of the progress that had been made since George Yount planted his first vineyard.
The biggest destroyer of Napa Valley ended up being the temperance movement, which in 1919 accomplished their goal of a National Prohibition. While many Americans found ways to drink in secret or using loopholes in the legal system, most of those methods involved beverages that were much easier to produce than wine. Unfortunately wine relied on two very long, drawn out processes to come into existence, the yearly growth cycle and the aging process. Because small, illegal stills could produce alcohol quickly the United States saw a boom in the consumption of cocktails, a relatively new invention that helped mask the flavor of often low quality spirits. Bartenders would take to blending in fruit juice and other tinctures, giving them creative names like Aviation or Last Word. Even though the cocktail revolution led most Americans to abandon wine consumption there were still a few ways that some of Napa was able to survive. There were allowances made for sacramental wine and medicinal alcohol which kept Larkmead, Beaulieu Vineyards, Beringer Bros, Charles Krug, Freemark Abbey and Louis M. Martini in business. Some wineries like Schramsberg actually survived by selling wine illegally. Lastly, vineyard owners were able to sell their fruit directly to consumers by taking advantage of a loophole that allowed each household in America to produce up to 200 gallons of fruit juice a year. This led to a boom in a home winemaking movement and kept those vineyards afloat, but it also led to a drastic restructuring of vineyard spaces in Napa. The major challenge of having to ship grapes across the country is that it required varietals that were sturdy enough to make the journey. Most of the grapes in Napa at that time (Cabernet Sauvignon, Charbono and Riesling to name a few) were not durable enough for such a long trip, often fermenting early or oxidizing too soon. So many growers replanted with sturdier grapes and the vineyards of Napa shifted wildly. Alicante Bouschet, Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Carignan now dominated the landscape and Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc wouldn’t really be seen again until the 1960s.
A New Hope: 1940s-1970s
By the time Prohibition ended in 1933, all the best winemakers had left the Valley so the comeback of the wine industry in Napa was notable because of such a large drop in quality. Producers had not kept up with the technological innovations that winemakers in the rest of the world had discovered and they continued to use poorly cleaned redwood and concrete fermentation vessels, all of which led to wines of varying quality and weak flavor.
It was in this climate of low quality winemaking that Georges de Latour of Beaulieu Vineyards went to France to find a winemaker with proper scientific training. This decision ended up being one of Napa Valley’s most important historical events. In France, Georges met and hired André Tchelistcheff (often called the Maestro or the Dean of American Winemaking), a Russian exile who loved French winemaking and had a passion for cleanliness and control over the entire process. Among the many changes he affected, he was one of the first to explore the notion of terroir in Napa, suggesting that Pinot Noir and white grapes would fare better in the cooler southern end of the valley, and red grapes up north. However, even more, important than his technical expertise was his willingness to share his knowledge with others. Tchelistcheff mentored some of the top winemakers in Napa Valley history including Robert Mondavi, Louis Martini and Rob Davis of Jordan Vineyard & Winery, and Rick Sayre of Rodney Strong Wine Estates, among others. In 1947 he opened the Napa Valley Enological Research Laboratory and Napa Valley Enological Center in St. Helena whose members included Peter and Robert Mondavi, Louis P. Martini, August Sebastiani, John Daniel, Lee Stewart and several others. Perhaps most notable is that he trained both winemakers (Mike Grgich of Chateau Montelena and Warren Winiarski of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars) that made the first place winning wines in the Judgment of Paris Tasting. Tchelistcheff’s philosophy of collaboration changed Napa Valley into what it is today, and if it wasn’t for his influence Napa Valley wine might just be another jug on the shelf in your grocery store.
Tchelistcheff was just one piece of the quickly evolving puzzle that Napa Valley was becoming. Around this time UC Davis started to stand out, not only training the next generation of winemakers but introducing a number of modern techniques that helped them succeed. The state of California finally established basic quality standards for wine producers which led to more consistency and the counterculture movement of the late 60s led to new growers who were as devoted to the land as they were to the wine in the bottle. Yet even though the wine in Napa Valley was better than it had ever been, the American public was not on the same page about what wine should be. During the 1940s and 50s American’s tastes shifted to favor soda pop, fast food, and sweets. Sugar was king and sweet wine was the taste du jour. Many American producers followed the dollar and made sweet, low-quality wine falsely labeled as Burgundy or Claret. It wasn’t until 1967 that dry wine finally overtook sweet wine as the more popular choice for American consumers, and this was only due to the determination and bravado of individuals like Robert Mondavi, who used the power of marketing and the sheer force of will to convince the consumer that California wine should be dry, silky and nuanced and that it was of historical and cultural significance.
Mondavi had opened his eponymous winery in 1966 which proved to be a monumental moment as it was technically the first new winery built after Prohibition. Mondavi made a name for himself and his wine by dedicating the winery to relying on new technologies and production methods that would produce wines of consistently high quality. He also believed in the value of visibility and proved to be an incredible spokesman for Napa Valley, traveling widely and promoting its wines all over the world. Shortly after the opening of Robert Mondavi, there followed a spike in new development, with wineries such as Chappellet, Sterling, Diamond Creek, and Spring Mountain Vineyard all opening in the final years of the 60s. Napa wine producers were on the verge of greatness and would get a chance to prove themselves on the world stage very soon, in what eventually became the most seismic event for wine in the last century. The world of wine would never be the same.
1976 Judgment of Paris
In the early 70s there was a burst of growth in Napa Valley birthing producers like Chateau Montelena, Clos du Val and others. The hippie movement had inspired a generation of lawyers, accountants and doctors to abandon the cities in favor of rural lifestyles and hands-on pursuits. Suddenly there was a lot of wine being made in Napa Valley and most of it was incredible.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Steven Spurrier (the British proprietor of a wine shop and wine school in Paris) was being introduced to some of these new Napa wines, which contrary to popular opinion, were incredibly well made and on par with their French counterparts. The French, however, didn’t agree with this sentiment and in most cases didn’t realize that America made wine at all. So Spurrier decided to show the French what they were missing. To celebrate America’s bicentennial, he and his business partner, Patricia Gallagher, organized a blind tasting in Paris that presented the best wines of California to some of the most famous wine tasters in France. By itself, this event was already strange to all those who participated, but a last-minute decision would make it revolutionary. Spurrier decided it would be far more exciting if the California wines were presented side by side with legendary producers from France in a blind tasting to see who would place in the top ten. For the first time in history, Napa Valley was measured against the most respected and expensive wines in the world and every wine expert on the globe would be shocked by the results.
Obviously, the French tasters balked at the idea that American wines would even be placed side by side with such great houses as Château Mouton Rothschild and Domaine Roulot, but they were incensed when they themselves chose Chateau Montelena Chardonnay as the first place white wine. An American producer had displaced the best of France, what a truly shocking turn of events. What was even more shocking is that American producers also took the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th and 10th place spots in the white tasting. While the few Americans that were actually present at the event were ecstatic, the French judges were not quite so elated, and they still had the red wines to taste. Spurrier recalls believing that they were determined to pick a French winner from among the reds. However, even with their guard up they chose Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars S.L.V. as their first choice! The French had been dislodged and disheartened, the wine world had been changed, and Napa Valley had been crowned the most famous wine region outside of Europe. Napa’s victory that day didn’t just raise the prestige of Napa Valley, it also gave other non-European countries the confidence to make the great wine that today we probably take for granted.
Napa Rising: 1980-2000
By the mid-70s things started to change quickly in Napa Valley. The 1970s and early 1980s saw the first wave of European (specifically, French) investment. Clos Du Val formed in 1972, Domaine Chandon in 1973, Opus One in 1979, and Domaine Carneros in 1987. Opus One, a combined effort of Robert Mondavi and Château Mouton-Rothschild, would have been a fantasy prior to the 1976 tasting, but now even the French saw the potential in Napa. A formal appellation system for the wine regions of the United States was established in 1980, and in 1981 Napa Valley AVA was officially born. It would eventually spawn 16 different sub-appellations within its borders with perhaps more on the way.
The magazines The Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator both launched at the end of the 70’s and, while they differed in some ways, they both employed the 100-point scale, which simplified the mysteries of fine wine for a relatively unsophisticated wine-drinking public. Many don’t realize how much this affected the wine industry, but if not for Robert Parker then Screaming Eagle and other “cult” wineries would not be as renowned as they are today. Every 100 point score awarded meant millions of dollars in sales for the producers, plus bragging rights and countless opportunities for the winemakers.
Two major events shaped the wines of the 90s and early 2000s more than any others. The first was a massive flood during the winter of 1986 that spread phylloxera valley-wide. Many of the new vineyards planted during the 1980s had used AXR1 (a hybrid rootstock developed by UC Davis and touted as ‘phylloxera resistant’) which proved incapable of standing up to the blight. Signs of decline appeared toward the end of the decade, and by the early 1990s, much of Napa Valley had to be replanted. This not only tarnished the reputation of UC Davis, it also cost the Valley millions of dollars in lost revenue. The debacle did have one major upside to it though, the vintners were given the opportunity to fully realize many of the lessons that had been learned about viticulture in the last 80 years and replant all of their vineyards in a way that guaranteed the highest quality grapes possible for the terroir. Prior to this, Cabernet Sauvignon was only one of several varieties planted around the Valley, and it was hardly the dominant one. Yet the desire to make more Bordeaux style wines meant that Cabernet vines were suddenly everywhere with other varieties like Chardonnay pushed to Carneros and other cooler areas of the Valley, and Petite Sirah, which had been one of the main varietals planted in Napa Valley, becoming more of a blending grape.
The second major event in Napa is what led to the giant Napa reds of the late 90s and early 2000s. When the vineyard owners replanted they changed how the vines were arranged, both in the vineyard and on the trellis which led to a surge in ripeness and alcohol levels in the resulting wines. This was only pushed further when in 1997 there was so much fruit on the vines that most wineries simply did not have the tank space to process everything at once. They ended up having to harvest the first wave at “normal” ripeness levels and left the remaining crop out to hang until the initial batches finished fermentation, not expecting that the extra-ripe fruit would make good wine. When they finally harvested and vinified the second wave, they found the results to be pleasantly concentrated, with lower acid and smoother tannins. Many blended the two lots together, and when the wines hit the market in 1999 and 2000, the critical and consumer response was extremely enthusiastic. And so, extended hang time became the new normal in Napa Valley. The legendary big Napa Red wine was born.
With great wine came great interest and the curious started venturing to Napa Valley in droves. By the year 2000, the number of people visiting each year had multiplied well beyond what anyone had expected. The days of wine lovers dropping in for a tasting with whoever happened to be around that day were over. There was no way they could handle the number of people pouring into Napa without having to create an entire experience around the visit itself. A multi-million dollar tourist industry was born, built around the wineries and other experiences in Napa (spas, golf courses, restaurants, etc). Many wineries invested huge sums of money into state-of-the-art tasting facilities staffed with highly educated and experienced staff as well as cottages and event spaces for the many weddings that Napa now sees every year. Napa had officially become one of the most visited wine regions in the world, and things would only continue to grow.
The Present and Future of Napa Valley: 2010 - the Future
In the last decade, two things have happened simultaneously. First, Nationally and internationally, palettes are evolving as new generations join the wine buying community and embrace their own tastes. Millennial wine drinkers are seeking the novel, the restrained, and the weird. The big Napa reds of the 90s and early 2000s are not high on their list to drink, however, unlike previous periods in time, there are still wine drinkers in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s that love those wines. There needs to be something for everyone so the Napa we see now is more diverse than it has ever been. On one end of the spectrum, there are newer producers like Matthiason and Robert Sinksey who are experimenting with styles and varietals outside the Cabernet/Pinot/Chardonnay paradigm of the last 40 years to make novel wines that challenge and intrigue. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Rombauer is still producing a Chardonnay that can only be described as bold, extravagant, and flamboyantly oaky and their fans continue to buy them by the caseload. Plus there are many more wineries that float somewhere between the two extremes making wine at a variety of price levels. There truly is something for everyone.
The second thing that has happened in Napa Valley was an explosion of high-quality restaurants and hotels catering to a wide variety of visitors with a desire for great ambiance and even better wine. Napa Valley is home to weddings, bachelorette parties, golf tournaments, and even an annual music festival, Bottle Rock. The Culinary Institute of America has a campus in St. Helena, as well as a restaurant and event space in the town of Napa. You can take balloon rides in the morning, bike rides in the afternoon, and helicopter rides in the evening. Lay by the pool, get a massage, or winery hop. There are a lot of options to choose from in Napa Valley. The vintners of the 1800s would be amazed to see the Napa of 20oos.
Conclusion
Napa Valley is more than just a name on a bottle of wine from your local restaurant or grocery store, it’s a beautiful land filled with dreamers and doers, making some of the best wines the world has to offer. In understanding its history we are able to understand the significance of what it is now, a global powerhouse of wine, and a picturesque setting that continues to lure those who want the best and the visionaries who produce what they seek.