Robin Lail’s great-granduncle, Gustav Niebaum (originally Nybom), was born in Helsinki, Finland in August, 1842. The story of his early years is rich with fascination with the sea, Alaska and enterprise.
Starting with earning his Third Mate papers at 19, and culminating with the establishment of the Alaska Commercial Company in 1868, Niebaum’s endeavors were always coupled with a quest for perfection and extraordinary vision.
Niebaum had a dream to produce wines ranking among the finest of the world, and did not come to Napa Valley by chance. He knew of the 1841 Russian explorations there, and had visited valley friends after moving to San Francisco. He had made a study of the world’s great vineyards and knew exactly what he needed to pursue his dream. In 1879 he found Inglenook, set snug against Mt. St. John with rich alluvial soils. He was 37 years old.
Niebaum was at the forefront of the experimentation in California viticulture in the 1880s. He may have been the first viticulturist in California to fertilize his vineyard and maintained a mammoth compost pile. He reduced the planting space in the vineyard to meter by meter, and was far ahead of his contemporaries with the grapes he planted, importing cuttings from the finest vineyards in Europe. At harvest, grapes were carefully sorted before going to the crusher – a novelty in his time. He studied endlessly to construct the most modern winery of its time. He demanded scrupulous cleanliness at his winery and was a staunch follower of Louis Pasteur. Inglenook’s wines were the first in America to be bottled and sold in glass, instead of wood casks. Niebaum’s marketing program was the first of its kind, as he established a network of distributors across the entire United States and Europe.