Grace Family Vineyards

Grace Family Vineyards, United States, California, St Helena | Kazzit US Wineries & International Winery Guide

About Winery

In 1976, Dick and Ann Grace moved their lives and family to Napa. At the time, Napa was just another agricultural region where prunes and walnuts were as viable a crop as grapes, and pig farms dotted the landscape. Their vineyard was simply a one-acre ‘accident’ in the property, which they tended to as a hobby. The first harvest, however, revealed the extreme quality and potential of the fruit it yielded. Their first ever vintage of 1978 scored a huge 98 points. Dick and Ann had fortuitously become the owners of a plot where micro-climate and soil were ideally suited to produce high-end Cabernet Sauvignon.

Naturally and inevitably their casual hobby would become a fully-fledged winemaking venture. Grace Family Vineyards’ wines have since become renowned worldwide for their balance, refinement and complexity.

The evolution and expansion of the estate reached an important landmark when, in 2014, Helen Keplinger (pictured left) joined as winemaker. Named “Winemaker of the Year” by Food and Wine magazine in 2012, Helen has an profoundly European approach to her craft, with structure and terroir as main guidelines. As such she perfectly embodied and developed Grace Family’s style and ethos carrying on a beautiful, if accidental, tradition.

In 2019 Dick & Grace decided to step back and sold Grace to Kathryn Greene, a Napa vineyard owner with whom Keplinger already worked on other projects. According to Keplinger, Greene aims to continue Grace’s tradition, both from a winemaking a philanthropic point of view.