At the Ackerman Heritage House, you are invited to travel back in time to Napa's historic Victorian Era. A time when stately homes and elegant furnishings beckoned you to relax, converse and share life’s most memorable moments. Take in the luxuriously appointed ambiance while sipping on world class wines and indulging in a curated culinary affair.
The Bernards founded a small boutique winery in 1992 in Napa’s Coombsville sub appellation about 10 minutes from downtown Napa. Tucked away off the beaten path and boasting nothing flashy from the outside, the property and vineyards display a rich history. Ancien is known for its high quality Pinot noirs and Chardonnay’s where you can taste them in a relaxed setting under oak trees overlooking the vineyards. One of the smallest functioning winery caves in Napa is located here and a tour and tasting will include a lesson in soil vineyard sampling which has an important role in the character of their wines.
Throughout the world, the finest wines capture the soul of the vineyards and the artistry of those who craft the wine. In this private realm of winemaking, the estates are small and the proprietors hold an extraordinary commitment to excellence.
The handcrafted wines of Napa Valley’s Black Cat Vineyard are rich with fruit yet show a classic refinement. They are wines of the heart. We warmly welcome you into the intimate world of artisan winemaking, where passion and discovery abound.
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.
In 1982 a man by the name of John Caldwell established the Caldwell Vineyard & Winery in the hills just East of the city of Napa in the heart of the Coombsville AVA. This winery boasts great views of nearby vineyards, steep hillsides, rolling oak meadows, and rows of grapevines. An unusual winery and atmosphere to visit, the property is almost entirely contained within the elegant 22,000 square foot cave 90 feet under the ground and surrounded by volcanic ash. Home to their own Bordeaux varietals and red wines it also serves as a small custom crush facility for other winemakers. Eccentric in nature and full of stories, Caldwell is known in the wine industry as the person responsible for introducing the most prized Bordeaux root stock and grapevine clones to California. Come hear the story of John Caldwell and see this special boutique winery in the highly prized Coombsville AVA.
