Napa off the mapBeyond the corporate players and cult hits is a side of the valley few people know
Jon Bonné, Chronicle Wine Editor
Friday, September 7, 2007
(excerpts)
On the face of it, Sky Vineyards shouldn't even be in Napa Valley. Its mailing address is in Sonoma County. So is the turnoff to its long dirt driveway. Only as you climb near the summit of Mount Veeder and cross the precipitous ranch trail that divides the two counties, do you finally reach Sky's 14 acres of gnarled vines.
This is Napa.
No manicured estates up here. Just a couple of weather-worn buildings filled with nubby rugs, a wood stove, bare-bones kitchen and reams of paintings and sketches, one of which graces Sky's labels each year. The owner, Lore Olds, sits on the porch of his unpainted cabin, describing life above the fog line.
"This is probably Napa's s- chateau," he remarks, "and I say that proudly."
There is the Public Napa. Its established names sit imperiously on Highway 29 and Silverado Trail, courting visitors who come for a picture-perfect glimpse of where American wine came of age. Many began as modest family establishments in the late 1960s and early '70s, often growing to huge proportions as their fame spread.
Increasingly, they are now corporate affairs. When Warren Winiarski sold Stag's Leap Wine Cellars to Antinori and Ste. Michelle Wine Estates in July, he joined a long list of preeminent names who have turned over the keys to big concerns: such wineries as Beringer, Beaulieu Vineyard and of course, the template-setting Robert Mondavi Winery.
Then, there is the Private Napa. These are cult names like Colgin Cellars, Bryant Family and Dalla Valle, an elite tier with just the opposite goal: Keep the public away from the gates, and welcome a select few to worship at the altar of $200 Cabernets. This second wave began in the 1970s but hit high gear in the booming '90s, when the model for a Napa winery went from public to private (in part, after walk-in tasting permits were frozen by a 1990 ordinance). Most newcomers now aspire to follow in the model of Screaming Eagle, whose very location is a closely kept secret to ward off supplicants begging for a place on its waiting list.
These two Napas share some common goals: preserve the valley's image as idyllic wine-fueled paradise, where the legend of the small family winery lives on, where all wine is wonderful and all vintages, like the children of Lake Wobegon, are above average. Without this buffed-up version of reality, Napa's rarefied image and high prices would be at risk.
Then there is a third Napa: wineries that stayed small without grasping for cult status. Call it the Alternative Napa. No single thread binds them, but their wines are well regarded enough to attract distributors and regular customers.
While not cheap, the bottles are usually reasonable, at least by Napa standards. Most vintners arrived early enough to buy wineries before land prices went stratospheric. Typically, they have been out working in the fields as Napa matured around them into a playground for the rich.
These scattered holdouts occupy an increasingly rare place. Here's a side of Napa Valley that's largely been obscured from view.
Mount Veeder
Spring Mountain's contradictions seem mild compared to those on Mount Veeder. There you'll find large, prestigious wineries like the Hess Collection, owned by Swiss businessman Donald Hess, and Mount Veeder Winery, now owned by Constellation Brands, the world's largest wine company.
There may be fewer than 20 wineries in the sprawling Mount Veeder appellation, which covers 15,000 acres, but it's more than Bob Travers recalls being in all of Napa County when he arrived in 1968. Travers, owner of Mayacamas Vineyards, continues to make one of the long-lived Cabernets that helped establish Napa's reputation; in 1976, it was one of those chosen for the Judgment of Paris tasting.
Now Travers remains away from the tourist fray, still making the same 4,000 or so cases per year he did 30 years ago. At 2,400 feet, his dry-farmed vines yield just a ton or two an acre. But the wines are amazingly durable; Travers just re-released the 1991 Cabernet. "It's still a young wine," he insists.
Just down the road lies Sky Vineyards, where Lore Olds and his daughter, Mayacamas (call her Maya), grow mountaintop Zin and Syrah at 2,100 feet in the heart of Cabernet country.
In the early 1900s, this patch of the Mayacamas was a resort. By late 1972, when Lore Olds showed up, the site was long deserted. He had been working throughout Napa and Sonoma, including on a commune at Sonoma's Old Hill Ranch. He'd also been hunting for a vineyard, one high in the hills with an eastern slope so grapes could ripen in the morning sun's softer rays. This was perfect. Olds bonded the winery in 1979, the same year he went to work for Bob Travers as assistant winemaker.
Maya grew up atop Mount Veeder, then attended Davis and worked in Australia before settling in downtown Sonoma two years ago and taking a job with Phil Coturri's Enterprise Vineyards management company. Now she farms many of the same plots from her dad's hippie days, with one big difference: "I can't even comprehend the amount of money that a lot of my clients have," she says.
Sky may be off the map, but it's hardly cut off from the world. Lore Olds, 61, grew up in Berkeley, where his mother, Betty, is still a city councilwoman. His girlfriend, Amy Dencler, works at Chez Panisse, which gets the fruit from his century-old quince tree.
Obscurity has its challenges. Sales are slow; if they improve, Olds will buy new barrels, enough for 15 percent of his wine. (It used to be 50 percent.) The family harvests virtually all the grapes themselves, hauling some 15 tons to a low barn filled with barrels, cases and a prosciutto Maya is curing.
The grapes go into an old hand press bought from Conrad Viano, whose family planted its Martinez vineyard in 1888. "The wine gets pressed however hard the local teenager can press it," says Lore.
"There's not many of us teenagers around here anymore," Maya replies. She's 32.
2004 Sky Vineyards Mt. Veeder Syrah ($40) The Syrah up atop Mt. Veeder is a newcomer, arriving in just 2000. But it's a curious beast - intensely floral, with the same vibrant, florid fruit that dominates Sky's Zinfandel (pictured above). That Zin can be light, almost Beaujolais-like, at times, but the Syrah has a pleasing weight. Built around a core of gray mineral flavors, it's got a juiciness that offsets its slightly tannic, if refined, texture. A bit rustic, but the texture, and bright purple fruit flavors, give it a nuance lacking in many Napa Valley Syrahs.
