Mount Veeder

Before Mount Veeder was known for wine, it was known for trees. This stretch of the Mayacamas Mountains, on the western wall of Napa Valley, was called the "Napa Redwoods" well into the twentieth century, logged for timber long before anyone thought seriously about planting it to grapes. The AVA that eventually took the mountain's name was established in 1990, and it remains one of the most rugged, least accessible growing areas in Napa County.

Mount Veeder's elevation runs from about 400 feet at its southern edge up to 2,677 feet at the peak itself, and its vineyards are cut into slopes that can run as steep as 30 degrees -- genuine mountainside farming, not gently rolling hills. That range in elevation produces a correspondingly wide range in growing conditions from one vineyard to the next; a block near the bottom of the AVA and one near the top can be farming in almost different climates.

The soil is residual upland loam and clay loam, weathered directly out of the mountain's bedrock rather than washed down and deposited the way valley-floor alluvial soil is. It's thin, rocky ground with poor water-holding capacity, which keeps vines stressed and yields low. At night, temperature inversion on the mountain's slopes -- warmer air rising, cooler air sinking into the valley below -- actually offers some frost protection that vineyards down on the valley floor don't get.

Cabernet Sauvignon is what Mount Veeder is known for today, though Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel are all planted here as well, a wider varietal mix than you'll find in most of Napa's more famous flatland AVAs. The wines have a reputation for firm, sometimes austere tannin in their youth -- a direct consequence of thin soil, real elevation and the physical stress of farming a genuine mountainside.

Because so much of Mount Veeder is still forested rather than planted -- its roughly 15,000 acres produce only a small fraction of Napa Valley's total wine output, by some estimates around one percent -- it has stayed one of the more untouched corners of the valley, geographically close to the city of Napa but a world away from it in character. Mount Veeder wine has never chased the roadside fame of Oakville or Rutherford; it's a mountain AVA built by people willing to farm terrain that most of the valley long ago decided was better left to redwoods.

Facts sourced from TTB AVA establishment records; Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Veeder_AVA)