Diamond Mountain

\Our trip today is fairly long, but quite easy. Heading slightly to the west to Highway 29 (the westerly as compared to Silverado Trail of the two primarily north-south main thoroughfares theough Napa Valley), we head to the north and slightly west for a little more than 20 miles. We go through a number of American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) that we'll be visiting in the coming days and venture in and out of one that we've already been through (Calistoga) before heading due west to Diamond Mountain. Just to preview, we traverse Oak Knoll, Yountville, Oakville, Rutherford, Saint Helena, perhaps just a tiny bit of Spring Mountain, and Calistoga. That's a lot of scenery to see.

Along most of our drive, we see vineyards to our left and vineyards to our right, some unknown and some world famous. We pass Gott's Roadside, better known to locals as Taylor's Automatic Refresher, the home of garlic fries that your body will remember for days and your palate might remember forever. 

As we make our way into the Diamond Mountain AVA, we see the sharp reflections of the morning sun on the soil. Laden with shards of volcanically formed glass, Diamond Mountain got its name from the sparkle and lustre of these shards that makes them look like diamonds when the sun shines bright.

Technically, the name of this AVA is Diamond Mountain District AVA although almost nobody refers to it that way. This is because more than half of the mountain is actually in Somoma County. This resulted in great controversy when the not yet AVA applied for status in the late 1990s. In fact, Diamond Mountain Vineyards objected to this because it cut thrir property in half, but the decision to end the AVA at the county line stood as did the name including the label district.

The area was first planted by a German farmer named Jacob Schram in the late 1860s. And, the winery that still incorporates his name still remains.

Parts of the Diamond Mountain District were ravaged during the horrendous Glass Fires in the summer of 2020. In fact, one of the true landmarks of the AVA, Castello di Amorosa, the winery and castle built by the Sattui family and visible on the drive up was ruined.

A bit cooler than neigboring Calistoga due to both the elevation and the heavily treed landscape, the grape of choice for most on Diamond Mountain is Cabernet Sauvignon. While many are approachable young (and some are not), the wines from this distrcit tend to be remarkably ageworthy. In fact, having acquired at an exceptional price a horizontal (three, in this case, different bottles of the same vintage from three different areas of the same estate) from the excellent 1990 vintage, we opened them at a dinner in 2011. Two of the three were in their prime after 21 years, but the third still drank remarkably young with vibrant fruit and spice.

While we don'r ordinarily plug individual wineries here, since I brought up the name Jacob Schram earlier, I must continue there. The Davies family eventually acquired the estate from the Schrams. And, they continue to use the same cellars and for that matter the same techniques as were used by the Schrams. While their Cabernet is typically excellent, they are known for their sparkling wines made in the methode chanpenoise. These wines have been featured at as many White House state dinners as perhaps any since Reagan began the conversion from tradtionally French wines at these dinners to traditionally American. And, while I do not recommend winery tours in the US at all, if you visit Schramsberg, take theirs. Learn about the long-time bottle turner and the speed with which he does it while sipping on a glass of fine Blanc de Blanc.