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Storybook Mountain has established a world-wide reputation
for the consistently high quality of its wines. The
Zinfandel tradition began at Storybook Mountain in
the early 1880s when its red clay-loam hillsides in
the Mayacamas Range were first planted to this varietal.
Here, an ideal match of terroir and grape allows Zinfandel
to show its true potential.
Storybook
Mountain's sought-after estate wines are carefully
hand-crafted from choice grapes grown without the
use of insecticides or herbicides. They are aged at
least 12 months in the best French, Hungarian and
American oak barrels, inside century-old caves dug
deep into the mineral-rich volcanic rock underlying
the hand-tended vineyard.
Proprietors
Jerry and Sigrid Seps’ wines are famed for intensity
and longevity. Raspberries, black cherries and spice
are the essence of their complex, well balanced and
elegant wines
Our
location at the top of the Valley further moderates
our temperature. The Russian River to our west funnels
in cooling ocean breezes on warm afternoons. The path
of these breezes to the hot interior leads over the
low point in the ridge separating the valley systems,
i.e. Storybook Mountain. As a result, we are usually
10 degrees cooler than the valley just below us.
The
rain pattern, too, contributes to the uniqueness of
our site. Because of the winter storms that come off
the Pacific and in from the north, and our proximity
to 4344-foot Mount St. Helena, our corner of Napa
is the rainiest in the county, receiving twice the
rain of Carneros at the south end of the Valley. This
moisture - given our clay soil and relative coolness
- means most of our mature vines do not need irrigation.
In the crucial summer and fall months, however, we
receive less rain than the rest of the Valley, protected
as we are by our ridges and northerly location from
the summer and fall storms that usually come up from
Mexico. This relative dryness is an especially wonderful
boon if the weather at harvest is less than ideal.
The
land and the weather come together in unique ways
at Storybook Mountain, assuring you who drink our
wines of all the advantages of estate grapes grown
on one of Napa Valley's best vineyard sites as well
as its most beautiful.
Exorcising
the Ghosts
The century-old wine caves on the Storybook
Mountain Vineyards property were dug by Adam Grimm,
who with his brother Jacob, founded the Grimm Vineyards
and Wine Vaults. The Grimm brothers came from a German
wine producing family which has been involved in this
business since 1540 and continues to be to this day.
We
found the earliest reference to our wine caves in
the Viticulturist of July 8, 1889: “..Mr. Grimm
is now engaged in driving two tunnels 10 x 100 feet
into the mountain side for a cellar, where he intends
to store and age his wines.” At a later date
a third cave was added and the three connected across
the back. A round room was dug out between the center
and the right hand cave, which the winery used as
a riddling room in sparkling wine production. Nowadays,
visitors are invited to taste Storybook Mountain Zinfandel
in these unique surroundings.
The
rock into which the caves were dug is rhyolite, volcanic
in origin. The temperature in the caves is between
55 and 60 degrees F, winter through summer, with high
humidity, making an ideal environment for barrel aging
without energy consumption.
Storybook
Mountain presently ages its Zinfandel in about 400
French, American and Hungarian oak barrels tucked
away in these caves. |
