Rocca Family Vineyard is owned by husband and wife team Eric Grigsby and Mary Fran Rocca. After a three year search, we purchased our first vineyard in Yountville in 1999. The Grigsby Vineyard is a 21-acre parcel near the corner of Silverado Trail and Yountville Crossroad, on the benchland of the Vaca Mountains, the range that defines the eastern boundary of the Napa Valley. The vineyard was planted in 1991, mainly to Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, with an acre of Merlot, and a quarter acre of Petite Syrah.

The land gently slopes westward towards the Napa River. The soils are a well-drained melange of alluvial, sedimentary and volcanic soils. Just to the north, a knoll that was formed as a terminal moraine in Napa Valley’s ancient glacial past towers above the vineyard. The vineyard is poised between the warmer upvalley climes and the cooling maritime influence of the San Francisco Bay to the south, so temperatures during the long growing season are warm enough to produce perfectly ripe and flavorful fruit, and cool enough to ensure finesse and balance.

Our second vineyard, purchased in 2000, the Canamagi Vineyard, (named for the landmark stone chimney at the top of the hill, last remnant of a former homestead) is a nine-acre parcel in the Coombsville area of Napa. The property is a southeast-facing hillside with shallow, rocky and well-drained soil. The climate here is cooler than the Grigsby Vineyard, but with its sun-drenched hillside exposure the site is well-suited to growing Bordeaux varieties. The vineyard was planted in Spring of 2002 to Cabernet Sauvignon, with an acre each of Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot. We plan to farm this vineyard exclusively using horsepower provided by our Belgian draft horses, Bob, Duke and Montana. They will provide a gentler, less compacting till, natural fertilizer, and perhaps most importantly, a closer relationship with the vineyard gained from the back of a horse-drawn plow.

Our farming practices for both vineyards are holistic, guided by the closely-connected twin goals of farming organically and sustainably to bring the vines into longterm natural balance with their environment, and producing intensely flavored, balanced wines that express the personality of the land that bears them.

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