1880s Storybook Mountain Vineyards, originally known as Grimm’s Vineyard and Wine Vaults, was founded in 1883 by Adam Grimm. Grimm purchased 400 acres of high-elevation land four miles north of Calistoga and planted extensive vineyards on the site. In 1889, he was joined by his brother Jacob – yes, “brothers Grimm”! – who helped Adam direct the Chinese laborers who dug three large caves for wine aging into the property’s mineral-rich volcanic rock.
1900s By 1919, with Adam relocated to San Francisco, Jacob was making sacramental and medicinal wines, which were permissible during Prohibition. Post-Prohibition, the winery was abandoned and the vineyard subsequently destroyed in 1964 by the disastrous Hanley Ranch fire. (The caves survived.)
1970s – Today In 1976, Jerry Seps, a former professor of European history, and his wife, Sigrid, fell in love with the wild, abandoned site and purchased 90 acres surrounding the original winery, planting roughly half to grapevines. The Seps renamed the vineyard Storybook Mountain to denote its fairytale beauty and to honor the original founders. Advised by legendary winemaker Andre Tchelistcheff that the hills above Calistoga, with their red clay-loam soils and eastern exposures, were the best place in California to plant Zinfandel grapes, the Seps replanted the vineyard to Zinfandel. Subsequently they added Cabernet Sauvignon, other red Bordeaux varieties, and Viognier.
The first Storybook Mountain Zinfandel, released in 1983, earned a gold medal, and more accolades followed. In 1989, the 1984 Reserve Zinfandel became the highest-rated Zinfandel in history. In 2003, Wine & Spirits Magazine named Storybook Mountain “Artisan Winery of the Year” and included Storybook among its Top 100 Wineries in the World, an honor we have now won 18 times.
While Storybook was garnering acclaim for its intense, beautifully structured Zinfandels, Jerry Seps was methodically mapping out sections of the estate vineyard where red Bordeaux varieties might thrive. Jerry chose cooler, north-facing parcels with thinner soils, which he began planting in 1994. The first Storybook Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon was released in 2005.
During the 50 years since the Seps family purchased the estate, Storybook Mountain has earned distinction after distinction. In 1994, The United States Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, poured Storybook Mountain Zinfandel to honor that year’s Nobel laureates. The wines have been served in the White House by three Presidents. In 2005, famed critic Robert Parker characterized Storybook as “representing the pinnacle of wine quality in California” and one of the six best Zinfandels in the world.
Today, Jerry and Sigrid, along with their daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, continue building an impressive legacy of world-class, artisan wines.
Wine critic Robert Parker has described our Storybook Mountain estate as “One of the steepest, most picturesque vineyards in California.” Located at the top of Napa Valley four miles northwest of Calistoga, our estate vineyard reaches elevations of 1250 feet on an eastern slope of the Mayacamas Mountain Range, creating an ideal eastern exposure characterizing many of the world’s most acclaimed vineyards.
The vineyard is divided into over 100 separate micro-blocks based on grape variety, sun exposure, rootstock and clone. Open to the morning sun, the vines easily ripen their fruit, yet their oblique angle to the hot afternoon sun tempers the heat spikes and heat accumulation that can bake grapes, leading to overripe flavors. Furthermore, the Russian River to the west funnels cooling afternoon breezes to our vineyard, resulting in temperatures often ten degrees cooler than in the valley below.
Rainfall patterns in our northernmost section of Napa Valley also contribute to our estate vineyard’s singularity. During spring, the area north of Calistoga is among the rainiest in Napa County, often receiving twice as much precipitation as the cool-climate Carneros district in the southern end of the valley.
This amount of moisture – given our vineyard’s relative coolness and clay soils – means that most of our mature vines do not require irrigation, a blessing especially during drought years. Water conservation, however, is just one element of our commitment to sustainable farming. We are a certified organic vineyard and thus refrain from the use of herbicides and pesticides, instead using environmentally friendly farming techniques reflecting our determination to be responsible stewards of the land.
The 130-year-old wine caves at Storybook Mountain Vineyard were dug by Chinese laborers at the direction of Adam and Jacob Grimm, brothers who founded Grimm’s Vineyard and Wine Vaults. The earliest public reference to the caves was in a publication called the Viticulturist, on July 8, 1889: “Mr. Grimm is now engaged in driving two tunnels 10 x 100 feet into the mountainside for a cellar, where he intends to store and age his wines.”
A third tunnel was added at a later date, and the three connected. A round room was dug out between two of the tunnels, which Grimm Vineyards used as a riddling room for aging its sparkling wines.
The caves are dug into rhyolite rock, volcanic in origin, which provide a consistent, year-round temperature between 55 and 60 degrees F., with high humidity. These conditions create an ideal natural environment for barrel aging Storybook Mountain wines. In addition to storing more than 400 French, American and Hungarian oak barrels, our historic caves also serve as the tasting venue for visitors to Storybook Mountain.
Jerry Seps’ father and grandfather both sold wine, so it was perhaps written in the stars that he become a vintner. Having worked his way through college at UC Berkeley as a sommelier at the distinguished Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, Jerry taught at Stanford University for four years while earning his PhD in European History at Berkeley. (Not coincidentally, wine plays a pivotal role in European history.) He subsequently became a tenured professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
In 1976, Jerry and his German-born wife, Sigrid, discovered an abandoned vineyard and ghost winery, with century-old caves, in the Mayacamas Mountains northwest of Calistoga in far northern Napa Valley. Captivated by this wild, high-elevation site, which dated to the 1880s when it was known as Grimm’s Vineyard & Wine Vaults, the couple purchased the property, set about replanting the historic vineyard, and constructed a new winery. While Jerry focused on the vineyard and winemaking, Sigrid supervised retail sales, marketing and the winery’s wine club.
Storybook quickly became one of California’s premier producers of Zinfandel and, in 1990, Jerry initiated the creation of Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, an organization that has been wildly successful in promoting the features and benefits of the Zinfandel grape. (ZAP’s annual tastings in San Francisco have attracted up to 10,000 people.) Thirty-six years later, Jerry and Sigrid are still crafting superlative Zinfandels – as well as world-class Cabernet Sauvignons – and enhancing Storybook Mountain’s reputation as one of America’s – and the world’s – most distinctive and respected wineries.
Colleen Williams (Seps) grew up at Storybook Mountain, absorbing all there was to know about the family’s spectacular vineyard and the winemaking techniques that best capture its intense, complex fruit. After a stint as the winery’s marketing director, Colleen became her father’s assistant in the wine cellar and now does much of the winemaking, while her dad focuses on the estate vineyard. Colleen’s husband, Rick Williams, now oversees sales and marketing for Storybook Mountain, often hosting visitors to the winery and going on the road to promote Storybook wines throughout the U.S. In 2023, after having received a degree in environmental studies at UC Santa Barbara, their youngest daughter, Elena, joined the family business, assisting in production and administration.
Storybook Mountain Vineyards
3835 Highway 128
Calistoga, CA 94515
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707-942-5310
