Bluford Wines. History, cars, mines and wines – all are passions of proprietor Jeff Parady. And remarkably he has been able to combine all of these interests into his business and lifestyle pursuits.
However his story begins with history – and there is a lot of it as it relates to both mining and wine making. To borrow from another Napa winery name, his ‘roots run deep’ in the valley; Jeff is the 7th generation of his family to live in the Napa Valley. His great, great, great grandfather, Buford Stice came to California by leading a team of wagons across country in 1856 from Missouri. Buford settled in the Napa Valley (farmed land in what is now Rutherford) but then heard about a gold strike near Baker City, Oregon in the early 1860’s and left the Napa Valley to become a gold miner.
Unfortunately Buford met his demise in one of the hydraulic mines when part of the mine collapsed on him. However, his name lives on near Baker City – Stices Gulch is named in tribute to his gold mining efforts. Before he died, he fathered a son, Lafayette Stice who eventually owned vineyards near what is now Stice Lane (south of the town of St. Helena). Lafayette became a prominent winemaker in his own right – working at the old Brun & Chaix Winery (now Cade at 13th Vineyard on Howell Mountain). In the early 1900’s Lafayette became the director of wine making at Inglenook Vineyards.
And the wine story continues: Lafayette’s son, Henry (Jeff’s great grandfather) was also a winemaker and made the first vintage at the storied Beaulieu Winery in 1909 (after being hired by the founder of BV, Georges de Latour). Henry’s son Lloyd was Jeff’s grandfather and was the Fire Chief of St. Helena for a time and also ran St. Helena Feed and Seed at the corner of Spring and Main Street, supplying local farmers with various supplies.
And if that side of Jeff’s family doesn’t bring enough Napa heritage to the table, consider the history that another relative brings – Heinrich Thomann. Heinrich came to California in the 1850’s and ultimately settled for a time in what was Sutter’s Fort and directly worked for Captain John Sutter. Incidentally John Sutter employed James Marshall who was credited with discovering gold at Sutter’s Mill and sparking what become the California gold rush of 1849 over the ensuing years.
Heinrich built a saloon in what is now old town Sacramento and planted vineyards in the late 1840’s (certainly among some of the earliest privately planted vineyards in Northern California). Eventually Heinrich convinced his nephew, John Thomann to move to California from Switzerland and John settled in the Napa Valley. John established a small winery in St. Helena which was sold to John Sutter’s daughter and his son-in-law after his death and they named the property Sutter Home. Eventually the Trinchero Family purchased this property which became the foundation for their now nationally recognized Sutter Home wines (incidentally, Jeff’s mother Judy has worked at Sutter Home for 30+ years).
And if you connect the heritage back far enough, the Parady’s aren’t the only long time Napa wine making family connected to Buford Stice – the Wagner family (Caymus Vineyards) and the Pina family (Pina Vineyards) are also connected to this historical pioneer.
Today Jeff remains busy with a number of business interests. In 2015 he and his family purchased the Pope Valley Repair & Towing shop located at the intersection of Howell Mountain Road and Pope Valley Road. While only about a 15 minute drive from the Silverado Trail and the floor of the Napa Valley, the feel in Pope Valley is decidedly different. Physical wineries are far and few between, the roads are not heavily used and there are less people who live in this part of Napa compared to the actual valley floor.
The history continues with this old repair shop. It dates from 1915, a time in the early development of automobiles and continues to serve as a repair shop including for farm equipment. And in another piece of automotive history, this was the first shop in California to contract with AAA in 1927. Jeff also provides a valuable towing service for this part of the Napa Valley and during harvest is busy trucking grapes from vineyards to wineries.
An original building dating from 1875 is located near the repair shop (the old Pope Valley store). It originally was used as a store, a bar and a post office with hotel rooms located upstairs. The post office had to be moved out of the building to another building a few feet away in the late 1930’s after a law was implemented forbidding post offices be in the same buildings as bars.
Jeff has intriguing plans for restoring this old Pope Valley store including bringing back several hotel rooms, renovating the old buildings on site and opening the old bar as a place to taste Bluford Wines. Walking into this saloon is like walking back in time. It smells old. Perhaps there would be bartender with a long beard and a leather jacket. There might be horses parked in front. It might be nice if it was actually the late 1870’s for an afternoon.
Jeff also owns 18 acres in the hills just east of Howell Mountain (above Pope Valley). His hillside ‘ranch’ was once in the thriving township of Aetna Springs, a town built around quicksilver (cinnabar ore) mines. His property is next to the first Cinnabar Mine established in Napa County in 1861, the Phoenix Mine. Ultimately 21 miles of tunnels were drilled into the hillsides. For some 40 years between the 1860’s and early 20th century, Napa County was once one of the most prominent quicksilver regions in the state.
Quicksilver from Napa County was an integral part of California’s gold mining heritage – as quicksilver transported from Napa County to the Sierra Nevada gold fields was used for extracting gold and silver from the ore bearing rock.
Jeff honors the local mining heritage in a number of ways. In 2007 Jeff was told the nearby Aetna Springs Clubhouse (dating from 1925) was going to be torn down and if he wanted to keep the old building he had 6 days to make arrangements. Going to work quickly, Jeff rounded up a number of friends and volunteers, sawed the building in half and then transported it about a mile from its original location to his ranch where he and friends re-attached both halves together. Today the interior is a tribute to local mining heritage – Jeff has collected numerous mining implements, old signs, geological specimens and documents from both local and nearby mines.
Some of the more interesting mining relics he has acquired over time include mining equipment directly tied to quicksilver mines. Processing cinnabar ore is a time intensive process. The ore is crushed into a fine powder and in one process is fed into a rotary type furnace (Jeff has an old furnace from a WWI destroyer) containing a long tube which is anchored at a slight angle. The ore powder is heated for up to 8 hours in a tube which rotates so that the heated ore falls to one end of the tube. Eventually the mercury rises as a vapor, goes through condensing tubes and ultimately is deposited into buckets as a liquid form.
The Washington Mine (Adjacent to the Phoenix Mine) is on Jeff’s property. When he purchased the land an old shaft extended into the hillside. He closed this up and built a structurally robust wooden entrance – which ends at a large vein of serpentine.
Jeff’s parents Larry and Judy own 50 acres in the hills above Pope Valley of which 4 acres are planted to vine. They purchased this land in 1993 and Larry and Jeff planted the first block of vines here in 1998 themselves (entirely Cabernet Sauvignon with some of the vineyard planted from cuttings from Martha’s Vineyard (in Oakville). Larry worked for ATT for many years (based in St. Helena) and this was his retirement project. Retired from ATT but not retired from grapevines, he continues to oversee the management of their 4 acres of vines. Most of the fruit is sold but they do hold some back for Bluford wines.
The property was originally planted to grapes in the late 1860’s and by the early 1870’s a ghost winery called the Haug Winery was built (but never bonded). Wine was shipped to San Francisco for several decades until phylloxera ultimately wiped out the vines in the 1890’s. The age of this winery puts it among an extremely select company of Napa Valley based wineries that are still standing from the 1860’s and early 1870’s. The original first floor and its stone rock walls (quarried nearby) still stand. The second story was replaced with wood in the early 1940’s from the Olive Hill School (located nearby). And when the Parady’s purchased the property – the original wine press was still standing in the cellar.
Ore Cart Wines was their original label with it’s first vintage from 2010 – made with Jeff and their winemaker at the time Scott Brown. They only made several vintages of this wine before introducing Bluford Wine in 2012. The wines are made at a small winery on Howell Mountain. Currently they produce one wine each year, a Bluford Cabernet Sauvignon.
The 2013 Bluford Cabernet Sauvignon is representative of a ‘bigger’ vintage in the Napa Valley. It is noticeably dark in the glass and shows darker fruit on the nose. It is initially somewhat earthy with notes of black olive and a noticeable berry type sweetness (blackberry and boysenberry) with a kiss of vanilla. As it opens more fruit shows on the bouquet including a sweet cherry component. Drinks well young – shows bright ripe fruit on the palate with decent structure. The tanins are fairly well integrated and somewhat chewy on the finish. No robust grippy tannins here.
The 2014 Bluford Cabernet Sauvignon shows bright fruit on the bouquet including blueberry and blackberry with a hint of dessert spice. Packs plenty of flavor including notes of blackberry. Fairly supple and round upon the entry and throughout the palate. Presents pleasing fine grained tannins that linger for some time. Somewhat dusty in nature. A clean finish. This wine is highly approachable and drinks very well young.
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Those interested in purchasing wine can call Jeff at: (707) 965-1199
Pope Valley Towing & Repair
Pope Valley Store
Mining History
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