Chiles Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in

Napa County, California Napa County () is a County (United States), county north of San Pablo Bay located in the Northern California, northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 138,019. The county seat i ...

and a sub-region within

Napa Valley AVA Napa Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Napa County, California. The area was established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on February 27, 1981, after a 1978 petition submitted by the Napa Valley Vin ...

. It was established as California's 81st AVA by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) on April 19, 1999 after reviewing the petition submitted by Mr. Volker Eisele, owner of the Volker Eisele Vineyard and Winery, representing the Chiles Valley District Committee proposing a viticultural area in Napa County to be known as "Chiles Valley District". The Chiles Valley is nestled in the

Vaca Mountains The Vaca Mountains are a mountain range in Napa County, California, Napa and Solano County, California, Solano Counties, California that is one of the California Coast Ranges. They represent the easternmost of the Inner Coast Ranges in north−ce ...

above the northeast side of the Napa Valley between and on the same latitude as

St. Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

and Rutherford. The

appellation An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication used to identify where the ingredients of a food or beverage originated, most often used for the origin of wine grapes. Restrictions other than geographical boundaries, s ...

has a cooler

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

than the main Napa Valley floor due to elevations of as well as a cooling breeze from the Pacific Ocean. The area expands approximately with being cultivated in 1996. The remaining plantable area does not exceed . The most planted grapes in Chiles Valley are

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebano ...

Zinfandel Zinfandel (also known as Primitivo) is a variety of black-skinned wine grape. The variety is grown in over 10 percent of California vineyards. DNA analysis has revealed that it is genetically equivalent to the Croatian grapes Crljenak Kašt ...

Chardonnay Chardonnay (, ; ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new a ...

, and

Sauvignon Blanc Sauvignon blanc () is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the city of Bordeaux in France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words ''sauvage'' ("wild") and ''blanc'' ("white") due to its early origins as an ind ...

. The term "District" was requested as part of the viticultural area name in the original petition. ATF noticed the proposed area as "Chiles Valley" because ATF did not find that the petitioner submitted sufficient evidence to support the use of the term "District" with Chiles Valley. Six comments in the petition favored the addition of "District" to the name, but no additional evidence was submitted to support it. The comments only reiterated the petitioner's original argument that the use of the term "District" was important to distinguish the Chiles Valley from the larger Napa Valley. None of the comments added any data or historical evidence for the use of the term "District" in conjunction with Chiles Valley.

History

The valley’s first known inhabitants were the

Wintun The Wintun are members of several related Native American peoples of Northern California, including the Wintu (northern), Nomlaki (central), and Patwin (southern).Pritzker, 152Sacramento Delta. The

Wappo The Wappo (endonym: ''Micewal'') are an Indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the Yu ...

Pomo The Pomo are a Indigenous peoples of California, Native American people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to ...

, Suisun, and

Patwin The Patwin (also Patween and Southern Wintu) are a band of Wintun people in Northern California. The Patwin comprise the southern branch of the Wintun group, native inhabitants of California since approximately 500. Today, Patwin people are en ...

were part of the Wintun Nation with the Wappo having the predominant presence in the valley. Chiles Valley was named after Joseph Ballinger Chiles, who received a large

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

in 1843, from Mexican governor of California

Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general and adjutant-general of the Mexican Army, List_of_governors_of_California_before_1850#Mexican_governors_of_California_(1837–47), gover ...

, named

Rancho Catacula Rancho Catacula was a Mexican land grant in present-day Napa County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Joseph Ballinger Chiles. The grant was located along Chiles creek in the Chiles Valley east of St. Helena. Histor ...

. The property is currently known as Chiles Creek. Chiles planted the first vineyards on Rancho Catacula in 1850. During the 1870s, Francis Sievers bought a parcel of Rancho Catacula, cultivated a vineyard and founded Lomita’s Vineyard and Winery on site which is currently part of the Volker Eisele Family Estate. The area was historically a local source for

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

, which was mined by residents in the area as of the 1881 while

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

was found in the southern end of the valley. In August 2020, Chiles Valley residents were evacuated due to the Hennessey Fire, which resulted in the burning of over in five counties, including in Chiles Valley.

Terroir

Topography and Climate

The geographical features of Chiles Valley AVA sets it apart from the surrounding area in the Napa Valley and produces a unique microclimate. The lands within its boundaries generally is between above sea level. The valley lies on a northwest-southeast axis acting as an open funnel for the prevailing northwesterly winds. This fairly constant northwesterly flow produces substantial cooling during the day and, in combination with the altitude, relatively dry air. During the night, this drier air leads to more rapid cooling than in most of the Napa Valley. In addition, the narrow valley is surrounded by hills up to which concentrate the cooler air flowing down the hillsides toward the valley floor where the vineyards are located. In the summer, Chiles Valley has sunny days that are occasionally cooled by afternoon fog. The relative distance from

San Pablo Bay San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of the San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep wate ...

and the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

allows the summer

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus and is heavily influenc ...

to move in much later than in the main Napa Valley. By the time the fog does reach the Chiles Valley, the air temperatures have dropped much more dramatically than in the Napa Valley, thereby causing much lower temperatures during the night. Late fog ceiling, combined with low minimums, cause a very slow heat buildup during the day, again producing relatively cooler average temperatures than those found in many places of the Napa Valley. According to the U.C. Davis climate classification, Chiles Valley indicates a "Region Two". The growing season starts later than in the Napa Valley due to a colder winter with temperatures dropping below . The high incidence of spring frost is another indication of the generally cooler climate conditions. In the areas immediately adjacent to the boundaries, the micro-climate changes significantly. As one moves up the hillsides on either side of Chiles Valley, the summer fog blanket gets thinner and thinner and disappears altogether at approximately elevation. Since the cold air drains down into the Chiles Valley, the night time temperatures are quite a bit higher on the steep slopes than on the valley floor. In addition, the lack of fog allows a much faster temperature build up during the day, reaching the daily high two to three hours earlier than on the valley floor. Not only is the temperature drop at nightfall less, but also much more gradual so that during a 24 hour period the heat summation is substantially higher on the slopes than within the AVA boundaries. In winter, the situation is reversed. Strong winds tend to chill the uplands creating a cooler climate than on the valley floor. Snowfall above elevation has been observed many times. The microclimatic limitations combined with enormous steepness and very poor soil (serpentine, heavy sandstone formations, and shale out croppings) create an abrupt change from the viticultural area to the areas surrounding it. The Pope Valley to the north of Chiles Valley is also significantly different. A combination of a lower elevation valley floor and substantially higher mountains on the western side causes the formation of inversion layers, which result in substantially higher average temperatures during the growing season and significantly lower ones in the winter. In addition, the summer fog from the Pacific Ocean never reaches the Pope Valley.

Soil

The soils within the Chiles Valley are well drained and of medium fertility. The overall terrain gently slopes toward a series of creeks, which act as natural drainage for surface as well as subterranean water. The petitioner believes this is a good basis for high quality grapes. Uniform elevation and relatively uniform soil make the viticultural area a clearly identifiable growing area. Almost all vineyards lie between elevation while some extend to elevations. As a general rule, the soils in the Chiles Valley all belong to the Tehama Series: nearly level to gently slopping, well drained Silt loams on

flood plains A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudie, ...

and

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...

s. The elevated vineyards are made mostly of decomposed

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

, a rocky red volcanic soil, and green serpentine.

Viticulture

The local viticultural production has been affected by the valley’s remote isolation both favorably and unfavorably. Its distance from the rest of the Napa Valley essentially excluded it from the late 19th century wine business boom cycle. However, Chiles Valley vineyard development was largely protected from Napa Valley’s

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belongs to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs); orig ...

outbreaks in the 1980s and 90s as its pre-phylloxera vines still thrive today. These century-old vines are some of the most prized AxR1 rootstock in the AVA producing low yields, and quality grapes. From

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

until the early 1970s, very little wine was produced in the Chiles Valley. The region was too small and remote to be a significant contributor to the mass-produced

fortified A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Lat ...

and popular jug wines marketed for decades following Prohibition. In 1972, the Meyer Family purchased a large tract of land that previously was a thoroughbred horse ranch. They began growing Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon establishing RustRidge Ranch and Winery in 1985. In addition, on the legendary Rancho Catacula parcel, the Volker Eisele Family began cultivating Cabernet Sauvignon in 1975. Although, 90% of its grapes are sold to other wineries, Eisele Family Estate is currently the largest producer in the Chiles Valley. Mr. Eisele submitted the ATF petition that was approved to establish the valley’s AVA status in 1999. There are currently a little over of vines in Chiles Valley. Most of the arable land within the AVA is being used for grape production, but there are still a few hundred acres that are not developed. Representing the AVA’s seven vineyards and nine wineries, the Napa Valley Backroads Winery Experience organization was established by three wineries, Catacula Lake, RustRidge, and Nichelini, to promote Chiles Valley.

References

External links

TTB AVA Map
Vaca Mountains American Viticultural Areas of Napa Valley, California 1999 establishments in California