Jessup Cellars

Jessup Cellars is downtown Yountville's most inviting tasting room, a space where wine and art intersect in a gallery setting that makes every visitor feel like a collector. Founded in 1996, the winery has built its identity around the belief that wine and art are parallel forms of creative expression, and the tasting room doubles as a working gallery featuring rotating exhibitions by local and national artists. The wines are crafted to be as expressive and individual as the art on the walls, with a portfolio that emphasizes red blends and single-vineyard bottlings.

The winery owns no vineyards, choosing instead to source from established growers across Napa Valley. This negociant approach gives winemaker Rob Lloyd access to a diversity of terroirs that no single estate could provide, from the warm benchlands of Rutherford to the cool hillsides of Coombsville. The sourcing relationships are long-term and carefully maintained, ensuring consistency of fruit quality vintage after vintage.

Rob Lloyd produces a portfolio anchored by the Juel Cabernet, a blend of lots from multiple appellations that captures the breadth of Napa Valley in a single wine. The Table for Four red blend, designed for sharing, and the Art of the Blend Merlot-Cabernet showcase Lloyd's skill at assembling wines that are more than the sum of their parts. The Petite Sirah, sourced from old vines, is a bold, concentrated wine that stands out in a portfolio of otherwise elegant bottlings.

The tasting room on Washington Street occupies a prime location in downtown Yountville, steps from The French Laundry and Bouchon. The gallery atmosphere elevates the experience beyond a typical tasting, with the art creating conversation points that enhance rather than distract from the wines. The staff are knowledgeable about both the wines and the art, and the overall experience feels curated rather than commercial. A downtown Napa satellite tasting room extends the brand's reach to a second walkable wine district.

Jessup Cellars matters because it demonstrates that a tasting room can be a cultural experience as well as a wine experience. The gallery concept attracts visitors who might not otherwise walk into a traditional tasting room, broadening the audience for Napa Valley wine. And the wines, crafted by a skilled blender from diverse sources, reward the attention that the art-filled setting encourages.