This property sits along the Silverado Trail corridor into beautiful Calistoga at the foot of the Palisade Mountains. With a clean slate of 2.25 acres to build their dream, the parcel was purchased and Brian and Arden set in to make that dream a reality. Four years later, in 2014, the winery was ready for its first harvest in the new building with state-of-the-art equipment. In May of 2015 the hospitality center was opened and the pouring began with the opening of a 2008 Cabernet Franc.
With a small team of highly educated wine lovers, three dogs and two winemakers on hand, Brian Arden Winery runs as small family business producing less than 2500 cases a year.
The scarab beetle they have adopted as part of their visual branding is an ancient Egyptian agricultural totem, a symbol of good luck and long life that in various iterations has graced their wine labels through the years. The watermark version displayed below is the de facto logo for the Brown Downtown Napa tasting room. It is an apt metaphor for Brown Estate, its overall form a relatively streamlined picture of calm whose intricate timeworn carvings tell tales that require a deeper level of engagement to tease out. The business of operating an estate winery, making wines from grapes grown on their own land, relies heavily upon forces beyond control. Mother Nature is a brilliant but fickle business partner, and the increasingly burdened planet a delicate resource from which livelihood is derived. Moving through Brown Estate's third decade, these immutable realities continue to demand and inspire their passion, humility, and gratitude.
