Planting a new vineyard takes a bit of work and time. Advance planning is required to select plant material and rootstock, plot out row orientation and select a trellis system. There’s soil prep and irrigation and drainage to be dealt with. And once the vines are in the ground, you have to wait four years for the first viable crop.
So imagine what planting 200 acres would be like. Did I mention those 200 acres need to have their vines pulled out first, along with their destroyed trellis and irrigation systems? Add in the fact that the 200 acres are spread over a rugged mountainside site in Napa’s Spring Mountain District AVA, with elevations ranging from 400 feet to nearly 1,600 feet and 360 degrees of exposure. Some of the site is terraced, while other spots are sloped up to 50 degrees. Don’t forget to repair all the access roads and infrastructure while removing thousands of burned and felled trees.
That’s the to-do list at Spring Mountain Vineyard.
Spring Mountain Vineyard went dark after the 2020 wildfires ripped through, taking down 19 structures and scorching acres upon acres of both forest and vineyard. Picking up the pieces was going to be a massive undertaking for whomever decided to take it on. (LVMH recently pulled the plug on their own rebuilding project at neighboring Newton.)
“There’s so many layers here. We really had to figure out how to eat this elephant,” says Paul Goldberg of Bettinelli Vineyards, the family-owned farming company that is spearheading the historic estate’s vineyard restoration. (The Bettinellis recently partnered with Jack Bittner to buy the Accendo brand from the Araujo family.)
150 Years of History at Napa’s Spring Mountain Vineyard
Spring Mountain Vineyard has always been a puzzle, with four different estates cobbled together over its lengthy history. Part of the estate today was first planted in the late 1800s. Charles Lemme founded La Perla in 1874. He was followed by Fortune Chevalier, who established the Chevalier estate around 1884. At the same time, Tiburcio Parrott, a San Francisco financier, was building his Miravalle estate, which included an elaborate Victorian mansion. Eventually phylloxera and Prohibition wore down these properties, with some passing through the hands of multiple owners. What remained of grape production in the 1940s and 1950s was sold off.
Phase II came along in the 1960s, when Knight Michael Robbins purchased a property on Spring Mountain and planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. In 1964 he purchased an old Victorian mansion on Highway 29, north of St. Helena, and formally founded his winery. (The house went on to become St. Clement winery and is now Faust Haus.)
At the time, it was one of fewer than 20 wineries in the valley. Robbins produced his wines in cellar space at Heitz and Cuvaison, with his first release a multi-vintage blend that included fruit from Martha's Vineyard in Oakville. Robbins then bought the rights to the Spring Mountain Vineyard name from Abbey Ahern of Freemark Abbey, which was using it for a second label. Robbins' 1973 Spring Mountain Napa Valley Chardonnay, from his estate vineyard, performed admirably in the famed Judgment of Paris tasting in 1976.
Robbins then expanded the estate in 1974 by acquiring Parrot’s Miravalle property, including its Victorian mansion, which he restored. That went on to become the setting for the popular TV show Falcon Crest in the 1980s, a period when Spring Mountain produced a string of successful Cabernet vintages.
In 1992, Robbins sold the operation to Swiss banker Jacob Safra, who combined it with the original Chevalier and La Perla estates that he'd acquired. Safra then added the Streblow Vineyard in 1996, renaming it Alba.
The end result was an 847-acre estate with 225 acres of hillside vineyards comprising 135 vineyard blocks covering eight soil series. Under Safra, vineyard manager Ron Rosenbrand converted the site to organic viticulture and was planning a large replanting program, switching some of the terraced vineyards back to vertical rows to increase vine density. The 2020 wildfires cut that plan short, and Safra filed for bankruptcy in 2022.
Restoring Spring Mountain Vineyard
Phase III began in 2023, when the New York–based investment group MGG, which had been backing Safra’s ownership, acquired the distressed property after a bankruptcy proceeding. The purchase—MGG's first in the wine industry—was made at public auction with a credit bid of $43 million. (The price seems low, but MGG also had to assume Spring Mountain's debt.).
Current Spring Mountain Vineyard CEO Peter Ekman has been overseeing the extremely ambitious renovation project, working with Bettinelli Vineyards to restructure the estate and replant vines. The first 50 acres of vines went into the ground this year, with plans to complete the 200-plus acres by 2027.
“Essentially we’re working within the footprint of the previous entity,” says Goldberg. “How the property flows, roads, irrigation is being tweaked in order to bring the individual estates into a bit more logistical harmony, so we're doing some things differently, for sure. But the way the vineyard blocks and soil separations were carved up previously was done very well. That’s been a help to work off of, while at the same time we’re trying to improve.”
The project is well under way, but completion will take a few more years.
“The fires had burned out the drainage system, so water was in spots where it wasn’t supposed to be, which led to a few vineyard slips here and there. Those have to be fixed first,” says Goldberg.
“Also, we are questioning whether we keep some terraces or not. Some terraces had very wide spacing, which [can create] yield issues. If we convert some of those to vertical hillside rows, we can increase density, which brings up yields while maintaining quality,” says Goldberg. "In the end, we’re working off the footprint of the previous vineyard, but looking to make changes that make sense for quality.”
The renovation is also intended to mitigate future wildfire threats, removing dead trees and introducing grazing goats and sheep to clear ground cover in areas that need forestry managment.
What the Future Holds for Spring Mountain Vineyard
Winemaker Barrett Anderson, 53, joined Spring Mountain in 2019 and has stayed on through the ownership change. Anderson previously worked with Chris Carpenter, the mountain fruit winemaking specialist behind Jackson Family's Lokoya, La Jota and Mt. Brave labels. Anderson is being given some outside help in the form of Maayan Koschitzky, director of winemaking and partner for Atelier Melka, the consulting business founded by winemaker Philippe Melka.
With all the upheaval, Spring Mountain Vineyard didn't make any wine from 2020 to 2022. About 3,500 cases of wine were made in each of the 2023 and 2024 vintages, from vines on the estate that survived the fires. Those vines are now being pulled out, which means there won't be any 2025 estate fruit here either.
Anderson and Koschitzky are looking to source some Spring Mountain District AVA fruit in the meantime, to bridge the gap until the new plantings by the Bettinelli team come on line.
Ekman estimates the entire investment, including the $43 million for the purchase, will likely top out near $150 million. Whether MGG sees the estate as a long-term proposition to keep for itself remains to be seen.
“First and foremost, we’re going to do this renovation project the right way, from vines to facilities. Respecting the history here is among the many priorities we have. We have even been milling some of the fallen redwoods to use in repair and reconstructing some of the lost structures,” says Ekman.
“If at some point someone comes along and inquires, I’m sure MGG would listen. But one of the partners is very much interested in wine, and we are putting everything we have in this to restore the quality that we know is here. Spring Mountain Vineyard has been a sleeping beauty for a long time. We can’t wait to wake it up.”
Visiting the Spring Mountain Vineyard Tasting Room
While Spring Mountain Vineyard continues its replant, the new tasting room is open for business, and includes multiple flights of library wines going back as far as the 1979 Spring Mountain Vineyard Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. One new addition to the tasting room options includes a small bites pairing from chef Ross Melling, who previously worked with chef Thomas Keller.
Spring Mountain Vineyard
Tours and tastings daily, $85–$395
Address: 2805 Spring Mountain Road, St. Helena, Calif., 94574
Phone: (707) 967-4186
Website: springmountainvineyard.com
Read more of James Molesworth's Winery Intels, hear his interviews with leading winemakers on Wine Spectator's Straight Talk podcast, and follow him on Instagram at @jmolesworth1.
