Storybook Mountain Vineyards

Storybook Mountain Vineyards is Napa Valley's premier Zinfandel estate, a property that has been producing elegant, age-worthy examples of the variety since 1976 from a hidden vineyard in the mountains above Calistoga. Founded by Jerry Seps, a former history professor who left academia for agriculture, the estate takes its name from the Grimm brothers fairy tale feel of the wooded mountain setting. The 42-acre vineyard, carved into a hillside at 1,400 feet, produces Zinfandel of a character that shatters every stereotype about the variety.

The vineyard is planted on the steep, rocky slopes of the Mayacamas Range in a narrow valley that channels cool air down from the ridgetop. This unusual microclimate, combined with the thin volcanic soils and the age of the vines (some dating to the original 1976 planting), produces Zinfandel of remarkable restraint and structure. These are not the overripe, jammy, high-alcohol Zinfandels that give the variety a mixed reputation; they are mountain-grown wines of moderate alcohol, vibrant acidity, and genuine complexity that age as gracefully as fine Cabernet.

Jerry Seps makes multiple bottlings of Zinfandel from different blocks on the property, each showing a distinct expression of the mountain terroir. The Mayacamas Range Zinfandel is the most widely available, a benchmark of the variety at its most balanced. The Eastern Exposures bottling, from vines facing the morning sun, shows brighter fruit and firmer structure. A small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon and Viognier round out the portfolio, but Zinfandel is the estate's identity, and every other wine exists in its shadow.

The drive to Storybook Mountain is part of the experience: a winding road through dense forest that dead-ends at the vineyard. Tastings are by appointment and conducted in the caves that Jerry dug into the hillside, where the barrels rest in cool, damp tunnels lined with volcanic rock. The setting is genuinely magical, with the forested slopes, the cave entrance, and the terraced vineyards creating the fairy tale atmosphere that the winery's name promises. At $40, the tasting is a remarkable value.

Storybook Mountain matters because it proves that Zinfandel, when grown in the right place and treated with respect, can produce wines of world-class quality and aging potential. Jerry Seps' mountain Zinfandels have outlasted every fashion cycle that has swept through the California wine industry, and they continue to reward collectors who have the patience to cellar them for a decade or more. For visitors who think they know what Zinfandel tastes like, Storybook Mountain is the place to be proven wrong.