Exorcising the Ghosts The century-old wine caves on the Storybook Mountain Vineyards property were dug by Adam Grimm, who with his brother Jacob, founded the Grimm Vineyards and Wine Vaults. The Grimm brothers came from a German wine producing family which has been involved in this business since 1540 and continues to be to this day. We found the earliest reference to our wine caves in the Viticulturist of July 8, 1889: “..Mr. Grimm is now engaged in driving two tunnels 10 x 100 feet into the mountain side for a cellar, where he intends to store and age his wines.” At a later date a third cave was added and the three connected across the back. A round room was dug out between the center and the right hand cave, which the winery used as a riddling room in sparkling wine production. Nowadays, visitors are invited to taste Storybook Mountain Zinfandel  in these unique surroundings. The rock into which the caves were dug is rhyolite, volcanic  in origin. The temperature in the caves is between 55 and 60 degrees F, winter through summer, with high humidity, making an ideal environment for barrel aging without energy consumption. Storybook Mountain presently ages its Zinfandel in about 400 French, American and Hungarian oak barrels tucked away in these caves.