Rooted in Family Stewardship
Today Spottswoode is among just a small number of historic Napa Valley wineries that remain owned and operated by their found families. Our family – the Novaks – became the stewards of Spottswoode in 1972, selling our grapes to other early winemaking families, including the Duckhorns and Shafers. A decade later, and five years after the unexpected death of our father, our mother courageously founded Spottswoode Estate Vineyard & Winery, making our first vintage of Estate Cabernet Sauvignon with winemaker Tony Soter at the helm.
Bee-ing Interdependent: Bees, Biodiversity, Business, B Corp, and Belonging
At Spottswoode we have four bee colonies. One at the winery, in the knot of one of our native Valley Oak trees. One on the front lawn at the Estate, in a log hive strapped to our historic Deodar Cedar. Another along Spring Creek, also a log hive, this one strapped to a Live Oak. And one in our vegetable garden, a standard hive from which we will be able to harvest honey.
Looking Forward to Our Next Fifty Years
2021 marks our family’s 50th year of stewarding the Spottswoode Estate. Having achieved this milestone, we ponder our next half century with optimism. Here in Napa Valley – and throughout California and all across the American West – with climate change bringing more extreme weather events, we consider our past, our present, and our future, hopeful for what is yet to come.
First We Are Farmers
Here it is, 2020, the year that marks our family’s 49th year of farming the Spottswoode Estate. That we are nearing a half century of stewarding this land seems somehow impossible, yet our deep connection to the soil and to our property gained over the passage of time has honed the singular realization that, before anything else, we are farmers.