Staglin Family Vineyard

Staglin Festival for Brain Health raises $5.6 million

The Staglin Family celebrated advances in science and a new financial milestone at the 22nd annual Music Festival for Brain Health on Sept. 17 in the Napa Valley. This year’s efforts raised $5.6 million to benefit the IMHRO/One Mind Institute and One Mind.

The Staglin family and the One Mind board announced that the 22-year cumulative total, including direct contributions to One Mind, and leveraged funds provided to scientists as a result of IMHRO’s initial research funding from festival proceeds, has surpassed $256 million since 1995.

IMHRO and One Mind together have become the nation’s leading private-public mental health organizations dedicated to curing brain-related diseases, including depression, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury and bi-polar illness, focusing on issues including funding, research, advocacy, open science principles and anti-stigma.

Co-hosts Shari and Garen Staglin, along with their children Brandon and Shannon, co-chairman Patrick Kennedy, and Pete Chiarelli, CEO of One Mind welcomed more than 500 supporters, scientists, and friends to to the annual event that works to raise awareness of the causes and cures for physiological brain disorders.

The event began with a scientific symposium, featuring keynote speaker Steven McCarroll, Ph.D., of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and of Harvard Medical School. Dr. McCarroll spoke on how new technologies are enabling scientists to understand the causes of brain illness by analyzing gene expression in vast numbers of individual brain cells, as demonstrated in his team’s news-making discovery of the C4 gene’s role in schizophrenia.

Also featured was David. O. Okonkwo, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Okonkwo reported on how the collaborative research conducted through TRACK-TBI, a national longitudinal study to help victims of traumatic brain injury has already yielded breakthrough results. TRACK-TBI, with support from One Mind, has already achieved early successes including novel brain imaging modalities to improve diagnosis as well as the blood test that can identify patients at risk after any level of brain injury.

A symposium highlight was the announcement of the 2016 Rising Star Awards. IMHRO’s Scientific Advisory Board has chosen Dr. Mazen Kheirbek, Ph.D., and Dr. Mary Kay Lobo, Ph.D., to receive the 2016 IMHRO/Janssen Rising Star Translational Research Awards, and Dr. Kate Fitzgerald, MD, to receive the 2016 IMHRO/AIM Sullivan Family Foundation Rising Star Award.

A wine tasting in the Staglin Family Vineyard winery caves followed the symposium. The party continued when musician, filmmaker and humanitarian Michael Franti & Spearhead took the stage for a concert. The post-concert VIP dinner featured the cuisine of James Beard Award- winning Chef Gerard Craft of Niche in St. Louis and Nashville with Staglin Family wines.

Donations to the Music Festival for Brain Health may be made at www.imhro.org, or by sending a check to IMHRO, a 501 © (3) nonprofit organization that sponsors the Music Festival.Mail donations to: P.O. Box 680, Rutherford, CA, 94573. The date for the 2017 Music Festival for Brain Health has been set for Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017.

In 1868, 47 year-old John Steckter, and his wife Mary E. Harris Steckter, purchased a 367 acre parcel for $34 an acre from Serranus Clinton Hastings, one of the wealthiest pioneers and capitalists of early California. They cleared the land and built a large wood frame residence and several barns on their new farm where they propagated 60 acres of grapes surrounding the home dedicating the remaining acreage for cattle and wheat. In 1877 a local newspaper described their Rutherford property as, “a fine dwelling upon the rising ground near the foothills..” In this home John and Mary raised their six children, four daughters and two sons.

After the death of John Steckter in 1904, Mary was forced to sell the property due to litigation at which time it passed through several different owners before it was purchased in 1922 by Frank G. Manley, a mysterious gold and oil tycoon who made his fortune in the territory of Alaska while on the run from the law in Texas. He and his wife Lucile and their extended family lived in their country estate amongst the vineyards, walnut trees and prune orchards.

In 1963 the parcel sold to the Sullivan family with marriage ties to the de Latour family who owned Beaulieu Vineyards (BV). Already having a home, the Sullivans parceled off the home and sold it as a separate home site. Under the watchful eye of Andre Tchelistcheff the prune orchard was removed and new vines were planted for BV's exclusive Georges de Latour Private Reserve label. After the death of Louise Sullivan in 1984, the property was left to her stepson Walter H. Sullivan, Jr.

In 1985, the Staglin family, purchased this historic estate on the Rutherford Bench. It seems incredible that after much searching this unique parcel became available to the Staglins by sheer word of mouth and good timing.

With a strong respect for the former proprietors they have worked closely with Andre Tchelistcheff to bridge his knowledge of this unique land. In 2007 they purchased the original Steckter home, reuniting it with the surrounding acreage of which it had been a part for 140 years.

Situated at the base of the western slopes of Mount St. John, the tallest mountain in the Mayacamas Range, this sixty-one acre property is located in an alluvial fan containing rich volcanic soils.  With ideal soils, microclimate and location, the estate's potential was recognized by some of the first Napa Valley settlers and was planted to vineyards in the mid 1860's.  Today the property is home to the Staglins, fifty-one acres of vines, an underground winery, the historic homestead, a solar array and the many critters that inhabit this certified organic estate.

Situated under a steep hillside overlooking the vines, the winery's underground construction minimizes its impact on the local ecosystem. The old oak trees on the hillside are unharmed by the caves deep beneath them. These modern caves provide naturally gentle storage conditions with a cool constant temperature and mild humidity. We use less electricity to cool the winery and lose less wine to evaporation.

The spacious facility allows Fredrik Johansson, the ultimate flexibility to tailor the winemaking techniques for optimized quality.  The facility is customized to care for the wine throughout its production including de-stemming, meticulous sorting, fermentation, barrel aging and finally bottling.

During harvest, the crush pad hums with activity. The grapes are harvested before dawn under lights and are gently carried to the winery in small lug bins. As the sun rises accompanied by the lively Mexican music the crew begins to sort first the clusters and then individual berries to be sure only the perfect grapes makes it in to the fermentation tanks. We spend a lot of time and effort in the vineyard to achieve maximum fruit quality and intensity.

With a genuine respect for this land, this care and attention to detail carries through in all of our production practices to showcase the bst attributes of each of the estates varietals and vintages.

In 1992 famed enologist Andre Tchelistcheff told us, "Listen to the vines -- they will tell you what to do." This wise counsel is and will continue to be the most important element in our goal of making the best wine possible from our estate. Our winemaker, Fredrik Johansson, works closely with vineyard manager, David Abreu, to carefully farm the land and coax optimal ripeness, complexity and intensity from the vines with each harvest.