A tiny bit of vineyard to call your own

Peter Story’s vineyard cost him five hours a day.

Enchanted by California’s wine country in the early 1990s, Story and his wife Paulette bought 18 acres on the valley floor in St. Helena – the heart of northern Napa.  But Story still commuted to his Bay Area day job as a salesman for Sun Microsystems, two and a half hours each way.  The Storys grew some 20 tons of grapes for nearby wineries until 1999, when they decided to bottle their own vintages as well.

Their efforts paid off earlier this year when Sympa, their limited-run Cabernet sauvignon, scored an eye-raising 92 rating from Wine Spectator magazine. “The following day, I retired,” Story recalls.

Many wineries are started by someone who visits a vineyard, swoons at the neat rows of vines and thinks: I can do this.  Story wanted to share that experience with his customers. When in 2001 he and Paulette were struggling to find a gift for a relative in New York, who was impossible to shop for, they struck on a notion: Why not give Uncle George a vine of his own?

So was born St. Helena Winery’s adopt-a-vine program.  For $80 a year, wine lovers can buy a year’s “adoption” of one of Story’s 12,000 vines.  More than just a name tag, a photo and a certificate, adopters get one bottle of Sympa, otherwise priced at … $80. (They can also choose two bottles of Scandale, his $40 bottling.)  With a production run of just 350 cases, and 182 of those already sold to what Story calls “vine parents,” these are indeed very personal wines.

“When people open a bottle, it’s not just for the taste.  They’ve actually now connected with our little estate,” Story says.

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Similar programs have appeared in Connecticut, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, and at least one other California winery offers them. So do vintners in Austria, Australia and even Germany’s esteemed S.A. Prüm, though Story says he and his wife get original credit.

The goal is always the same: To forge an emotional tie between wine and drinker, so that it's not just another shelf-bound bottle, vying to attract the passing customer. Tasting rooms serve that purpose, but some wineries want to take it further -– giving consumers a direct tie to the process and romance of winemaking. With more finicky high-end collectors simply buying by the numbers, such that a winery’s fate may rest on its latest ratings, that goal is a tricky one.

Story acknowledges it takes a lot of extra labor to service his 650 vine parents, especially since he’s capped production at 1,000 cases. But he believes there’s not necessarily more money to be made by expanding beyond boutique status.  And with half his adopters renewing their annual commitment, his sales instincts told him he’d found a stable retail model.

For those with a bit more money, renowned Napa winemaker Bill Harlan offers an even more hands-on option.  He and his partners took 80 acres next to their Meadowood resort in St. Helena and set up the Napa Valley Reserve, a quaffer’s equivalent of a high-end golf club.  How high-end? Initiation fees are currently $100,000, and members pay about $45 a bottle. At a minimum of half a barrel (about 12.5 cases), that’s at least another $7,000 for the wine. 

“It’s clearly not for everybody,” says Philip Norfleet, the Reserve’s director.

Membership includes the right to help make your own bottling with the winemaking team from Harlan Estate, whose $150-and-up vintages (if you can get one) have essentially defined the term “cult wine.”  Harlan’s pros always have final say, but members help decide how to blend their Bordeaux-style vintages. They can learn the entire process and even choose their bottles and labels. A full-time staff of about 20 helps with some hands-on work but the still-in-construction operation is a true winery, with its first bottling coming this fall. The only thing members can’t do is sell their wines. (Blame liquor laws.)

The Reserve takes pains to note that the refundable $100,000 doesn’t buy you a share in the winery, simply the right to be one of 375 members.  Some 115 slots are currently filled, with about half living in driving distance of Napa. And there’s more than winemaking: tastings, classes and regular food-and-wine pairings with high-profile guests, such as food writer Patricia Wells and chef Jeffrey Cerciello of nearby Bouchon.

Everything is members-only. After all, Harlan hopes to give the sort of well-heeled quaffers who love (and can afford) his wines a taste the vineryard fantasy.  And property in Napa being what it is, a small winery like Story’s might now cost $5 million or more.

By that measure, $100,000 seems like a bargain.

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