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Wine Information
Cabernet Sauvignon – Grace Family Vineyards
After leaving the US Marine Corps in 1964, Dick Grace became a stockbroker in San Francisco while he and his wife, Ann, raised Kirk, Mark and Kim in the suburban comfort of Orinda. By the mid-seventies, when the children were teenagers, the idea of moving to the country was holding some allure, and a rundown Victorian that was just out of their price range became both their challenge and their haven. In today's world full of boutique wineries it is hard to believe that the Napa Valley of 1976 really ever existed. At the time, it was just another agricultural region where prunes and walnuts were as viable a crop as grapes, and pig farms dotted the landscape.
Planted with cuttings from the famous Bosché vineyard not far away, Grace Family vineyards started out as a family hobby. The first harvest was picked by family and friends in 1978 and taken to nearby Caymus Winery in the back of a station wagon. Charlie Wagner, the late Caymus patriarch, tasted a bunch of those first 1978 grapes and exclaimed, "You know, Dick, this is damned fine fruit!" And so one of the Napa Valley's first vineyard designated wines came to be produced.
With interest in California wines blossoming, Grace Family Vineyards quickly became the first "cult" wine, which was just as much a surprise to Dick and Ann as to anyone else. It was fortuitous that the family had settled upon a microclimate and soil suitable to making stellar Cabernet.
Since those early days, Dick and Ann Grace have pioneered numerous concepts now practiced throughout the Napa Valley. These include close or European spacing of vines, eliminating the use of pesticides and herbicides in the vineyards, etching and hand-painting large format bottles to be used at charity events as well as currently exploring biodynamic techniques that might positively affect the biology of their terroir.
Kirk Grace, Dick and Ann's eldest son, now manages the vineyard. Growing up in the Napa Valley, Kirk was always interested in agriculture, particularly organic and other sustainable practices. Kirk uses time-honored organic viticulture – including biodynamics – to bring out the best in the grapes that grow on his family's vineyard. Biodynamics, a philosophy of cultivation that takes into account certain celestial patterns as well as other organic practices, gives Kirk a greater connection to the land. It's clear, from the neat rows of beautifully manicured vines to the quality of the wine in every bottle of Grace Family Vineyards Cabernet, that Kirk has a clear understanding of the essence of grape growing and the unique terroir in his charge.
The Grace Family's philosophy of living transcends fine wine as a beverage, making it also a catalyst for change. In addition to producing fine wine, Grace Family Vineyards fuels the fires that run the Grace Family Foundation, which provides much needed services to the underserved of our world. These services range from helping the homeless in San Francisco to constructing health clinics in Tibet and Nepal. The winery motto is: Wine as a catalyst towards healing our planet.
Grace Family Vineyards
1210 Rockland Road Saint Helena
CA 94574
tel. +1 707 963 0808
fax. +1 707 963 5271
www.gracefamilyvineyards.com
