Robert Craig Winery

Robert Craig Winery is perched at an elevation of almost 2,300 feet on Howell Mountain on the north east side of Napa Valley. This is the highest physical winery on Howell Mountain, slightly higher than the winery at Black Sears, although the uppermost reaches of the vineyard at Black Sears are the highest vines on Howell Mountain. Because of the elevation, the property does see some snow in the winter and their surrounding vines are among some of Napa Valley’s highest vineyards. This location is well off the beaten path; their permit at the winery limits them to 30 visitors per month and only several events per year, so they maintain much more conveniently located tasting room in the city of Napa. We have been to both the winery and tasting room and first met Robert Craig years ago at a Taste of Howell Mountain event at Charles Krug Winery.

Robert produced the first vintage of Robert Craig wine in 1992; his founding partners were Derek Ruston and Michael Nugent, friends he had met while in business school at the University of Chicago and another friend Michael Adams. Robert was born in Arizona and grew up in Texas. His introduction to California was through serving in the Coast Guard. After marrying his wife Lynn in 1963 Bob became involved in real estate investment and became interested in wine.

He was involved in the wine industry for many years, initially with William Hill in developing a vineyard on Mt. Veeder and then later, at The Hess Collection as their General Manager from 1980 through 1990. In addition, he helped develop 300 vineyard acres on Mt. Veeder and was instrumental in forming sub appellations for both Mt. Veeder area and Spring Mountain. Over the years he spent a significant amount of time in some of the major hillside producing regions of Napa including Mt. Veeder, Howell Mountain, Spring Mountain and Diamond Mountain.

Robert passed away in September 2019 from complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Starting in 2013, Robert Craig Winery began to transition to produce the majority of their wines to estate owned vineyards, although they still purchase grapes from several growers. They work with Napa Valley based hillside vineyards generally 1,600 feet or higher. As of the latest update to this review, Robert Craig Winery owns three distinctive vineyard sites: the Robert Craig Winery Estate on Howell Mountain purchased in 1995, Candlestick Ridge Vineyard, purchased from from Duckhorn Winery in 2015, also on Howell Mountain a short drive from the winery estate, and Amentet Vineyard, a 10 acre site of which 7 are planted to vines on Mt. Veeder, purchased in 2015. Their vineyards are certified Napa Green and are farmed organically.

Wildfires have limited production due to problems with smoke taint in 2017, 2020 and in 2025. In 2025, a back fire in response to the localized Pickett Fire in late August created severe smoke over their vineyards on Howell Mountain including both their properties. In fact the only grapes they harvested from Howell Mountain to make commercial wine was their Chenin Blanc. Reports from ETS Laboratories on tainted samples came back with extremely high numbers indicating significant smoke taint. However, through an arrangement with the FDA and UC Davis a tank of wine was produced that year. We tried a sample; for those who haven’t had smoke tainted wine, when its bad, such as this lot, it smells and tastes like ashtray. This resulting wine was made for evaluative purposes.

Select Wines
Robert Craig focuses on producing hillside Cabernet Sauvignon wines grown on their estate vineyards. Their wines clearly display a common mountain thread of character and depth, driven by low pH, higher acidities and memorable tannins. These are big wines with excellent aging potential. One of their employees told us that at Robert’s funeral, friends and family brought some very early vintages of Robert Craig wines dating back to the early to mid 1990s; at the time these wines were 20-25 years old and were still showing very well.

Mountain wines, while sometimes texturally intimidating, can still be balanced. The integration of all the components in the Robert Craig wines is an important part of their winemaking style. In general, their wines see 65-80% new French oak. Those who have the patience to age Robert Craig’s wines will be rewarded by additional complexities that develop over time in the bottle.

Chenin Blanc
In 2022 about 1.5 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon next to the physical winery was budded over to Chenin Blanc. At an elevation of about 2,300 feet this is the highest Chenin Blanc in Napa Valley and among the highest plantings of a white wine variety in the county. For reference Kongsgaard grows Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc at a higher elevation on Atlas Peak. The inaugural vintage of Robert Craig Chenin Blanc was in 2024.

The 2024 Robert Craig Chenin Blanc is medium yellow in color; brightly lit on the bouquet, it offers scents of apple skin, a light note of honeysuckle, pineapple, pear, green apple, apricot, peach and a finishing hint of what winemaker Jason Price calls cream soda, a result from the lees contact. Shows plenty of acidity across the palate; this wine tastes like green apple, kiwi, guava, pomelo, white grapefruit and white nectarine. Vibrant, with a mouthwatering finish, the acidity lifts the lightly fleshy texture high overhead – buoyed like a life jacket by its brightness. The finish quickly invites another sip. While we are tasting this on Howell Mountain at Robert Craig Winery, our thoughts are out on the rugged Sonoma County coastline with panoramic vistas, in the company of this wine paired with lightly seared scallops and or raw oysters and a tangy mignonette sauce. This wine was aged in neutral French oak barrels with an aggressive battonage while on its gross lees – helping to build texture on the palate. This is very much a food friendly expression of the variety.

Chardonnay
While their focus is on Cabernet Sauvignon with most of their wines sourced from estate owned vineyards, they do make one Chardonnay each year. Over the years they have focused their efforts for this wine on cool weather sites in neighboring Sonoma County.

The 2020 Robert Craig Gap’s Crown Chardonnay wine was sourced from neighboring Sonoma County in the Petaluma Gap; Gap’s Crown is a very cool site at about 1,000 feet in elevation. The wine saw no malolactic fermentation and was barrel fermented in neutral oak barrels. New oak was minimal during its aging, about one new barrel per 10 barrels. This wine is pale to medium straw in color with aromas of citrus blossom, grapefruit and a lemon lime nuance; as it breathes further, it evolves to show some notes of honeysuckle. The mouth feel is slightly creamy and rounded and is complemented with minerality notes and a noticeable brightness from the acidity. Oaky, buttery? Absolutely not. Very balanced from start to finish; the palate offers flavors of melon, loquat and mandarin. This wine finishes with a zesty mouthwatering freshness and brightness.

The 2007 Robert Craig Chardonnay was sourced from the Durell vineyard in southern Sonoma County, just west of the town of Sonoma. The site is sizable; it encompasses some 750 acres of which 160 acres are planted to grapes. This vineyard is moderated by cooling breezes throughout the day due to its proximity to the San Pablo Bay. And while the site is planted to Pinot Noir and a small amount of Pinot Blanc, it is most known for its exceptional Chardonnay; this variety was first planted here in 1979. This wine has wonderful stone fruit aromas including of peach and nectarine, along with pear and a floral characteristic, primarily honeysuckle. The palate is rich with some of the fruit aroma characteristics mimicked as flavors.

Cabernet Sauvignon
Affinity
Affinity is the first wine Robert Craig produced in 1992 from grapes purchased from the Staglin family in Rutherford. Affinity has become their workhorse and steakhouse wine, comprising up to 1/3 of their entire production and is often sold at premium steakhouses across the country. This wine has evolved over the year in regard to vineyard sites including from their previously owned La Londe Estate Vineyard near the Napa Valley Country Club in Coombsville, named after La Londe Lane. Affinity is a Cabernet Sauvignon dominated wine but with smaller percentages of other Bordeaux red varieties in the blend.

The 2019 Robert Craig Vineyards Affinity Cabernet Sauvignon is 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Petit Verdot, 5% Merlot and 1% Malbec. This wine is medium to darker ruby in color; the bouquet is elegant with notes of sandalwood and cassis, and as the wine evolves in the glass it offers notes of dried rose petals and some barrel spice influence including vanilla. Upon tasting this wine, we immediately noted that its profile does not feel like a mountain grown wine. And that is of course true, the palate is much softer than their other hillside grown Cabernet Sauvignon wines. It sports flavors of red cherry and red licorice. It is already very approachable and balanced for such a young wine at the time of our tasting three years post vintage. The tannins are noticeable but finer grained and well-integrated into the slightly dusty finish.

We have enjoyed several vintages of this wine over the years and despite the variation of blending percentages and varieties each year, the quality and taste profile are consistent regardless of vintage.

Diamond Mountain
The 2018 Robert Craig Cabernet Sauvignon, Andrew Geoffrey Vineyard Diamond Mountain is a blend of 83% Cabernet Sauvignon and 17% Cabernet Franc. This wine is deep ruby and opaque; the bouquet offers a purity of fruit at this age 7 years post vintage with the oak influence highly integrated. It smells like boysenberry, blackberry and dark plum with layers of darker baking spices including cloves. Ripe, bright and intensely flavored, this wine tastes like dark cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, Satsuma plum and Persian mulberry. The finish is dark, savory and brambly with flavors of dried sage, pepper and a dusty character. The gravelly textured tannins fully coat the palate and linger in tandem with the fruit. Their is a noticeable textural density here, highlighting the tannic character resulting from this above 2,000 feet mountain site. This wine is clearly built to age and has several decades ahead of it with the proper cellar care. The last vintage bottled by Robert Craig from this vineyard was in 2019.

Spring Mountain
The 2017 Robert Craig Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (100% varietal) was sourced from the family owned Crowley Vineyard at about 2,000 feet on Spring Mountain near Sherwin Family Vineyards. This wine shows initial aromatics of mushroom and forest floor but as it opens the fruit is revealed including notes of plum along with some darker baking spices. The bouquet also shows notes of espresso and darker chocolate deeper into the aromatics and as the wine continues to evolve. The palate offers plenty of depth with flavors of dark cherry and plum. Lingers with gravelly, somewhat coarse and very persistent tannins along with some savory notes including darker spices and pepper.

The 2015 Robert Craig Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc and 7% Petit Verdot. This wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque; spicy on the bouquet, this wine smells like plum skin, dark raspberry, pipe tobacco, and a minerally almost ferrous character. It is lively, and perhaps more youthful on the palate than what one would expect from a bottling 10 years post vintage. Its flavors are more red fruited than dark; they include cherry, Santa Rosa plum and raspberry. The tannins are still gravelly; they broadly coat the palate with their lightly grainy and dusty presence, outlasting the fruit on the finish. Lingers with a red fruited tartness – the finish still sings soprano and shows in a sweet spot at this age. With that said, this bottling still has plenty of life ahead of it with the proper cellar care.

Mt. Veeder
The Robert Craig owned Amentet Vineyard on Mt. Veeder was originally part of actor Robin William’s estate. He later donated this section of land to Lori and Brian Nuss, proprietors of the no longer producing Vinoce and Twenty Rows wine brands. Brian sold this property to Robert Craig in 2015; from 2015 prior, the Robert Craig Mt. Veeder Cabernet was made with grapes on what is now Pym-Rae Vineyard. Amentet refers to the Egyptian god of rebirth and fertility.

The 2019 Robert Craig Cabernet Sauvignon, Amentet Vineyard Mount Veeder is a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque; if we were summarize the bouquet in a couple of words, it would be elegant and ripe. Its scents include some floral notes including lavender, African violets, old cedar box and red chili spice. And as it evolves, it expresses a note of dark cocoa powder. Its fruit includes dark raspberry, boysenberry and red plums. Bright on the palate as the wine smells, its flavors include red cherry, boysenberry, dark raspberry and red plums. We love Mt. Veeder wines; they offer character, freshness and loads of layering, and this wine is a perfect example of this. Finishes with lightly textured tannins; they are rounded with a gentle dusty character. Balanced and beautiful at this age, 6 years post vintage.

The 2018 Robert Craig Cabernet Sauvignon, Amentet Vineyard Mount Veeder is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc. This wine is dark ruby in color; the bouquet initially shows an herbal note in union with old cedar box and darker fruit aromatics including blackberry and blueberry. A dust and a note of mocha evolves as the wine continues to breathe. The palate features primarily darker fruit flavors anchored by broad based tannins which linger for some time. Very bright acidity keeps this wine refreshing across the palate; the finish lingers with a light dusty character.

Howell Mountain
The 2018 Robert Craig Howell Mountain Estate Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Malbec and 1% Merlot. Rather than Merlot being used as blending variety for softening their wines, their Howell Mountain grown Malbec serves that purpose. This wine is deep ruby and opaque; the aromatics include dark berries with an accompanying note of dried tobacco leaf. Its fruit includes boysenberry, blackberry, a brambly character that reminds us of walking the edges of a blackberry thicket during mid summer trying to harvest the fruits without getting overly poked. Minerally across the palate, with a light ferrous quality. The tannins are dense, chalky, dusty and tumbled, their moderate to firm handshake continues to persist beyond the fruit on the finish. The Cabernet Sauvignon dominates over the Merlot on the palate. One remembers this wine’s texture, but also the lively acidity that keeps the finish fresh. This wine is built for the long haul with plenty of aging potential. Steak please. How about a medium rare cut of Wagyu beef and a BBQ?

The Stick
The 2016 Robert Craig “The Stick”, Howell Mountain Estate Candlestick Ridge Vineyard is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 5% Malbec. This wine is deep ruby and opaque – 9 years post vintage its hold its primary colors well. The percentages change, always representing the best possible wine they can produce each year. The bouquet had lots of depth; it takes time for all its layers to be fully expressed – be patient. On the bouquet, there are aromas of crushed rocks, old leather, dark cocoa powder, dark raspberry, Santa Rosa plums, boysenberry and dried tobacco leaf. It smells bright and lifted from its red fruits. Showing wonderfully at this age, the palate is vibrant, full of life and very much expressive. Its flavors including red cherry, boysenberry, raspberry, cherry and Santa Rosa plums. The texture is a hallmark attribute; the ‘steak’ tannins are still firmly gripping, dusty, drying and outpace the fruit. The finish lingers juicy with mouthwatering acidity. This wine is generally led by Cabernet Sauvignon with the grapes harvested from the best blocks in Candlestick Ridge Vineyard.

Merlot
The 2015 Robert Craig Howell Mountain Estate Merlot is a blend of 86% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot and 2% Malbec. This wine is deep ruby and opaque, having transitioned slightly with a light brickish color, 10 years post vintage. Shows some bouquet maturation at this age, with a softening of the primary fruit aromatics. This wine smells like dried fruits including cherry, boysenberry and blackberry with some dessert spice influences including dark chocolate and dark cocoa powder. And like the bouquet, the palate shows some age including flavors of dried raspberries and blackberries. The chalky textured tannins broadly coat the palate with their rounded and dusty feel. This Merlot was grown entirely on their Summit Lake property and was co-fermented with the Cabernet Sauvignon. At this age the texture is still very much pronounced and long lasting. Merlot grown up here is distinctive and stands on its own; it it not meant to be used as a blending variety to introduce softness to a wine.

Zinfandel
Howell Mountain is one of two regions within Napa Valley noted for both its excellent Cabernet Sauvignon but also Zinfandel (the other being Calistoga). Bob had his eye on the Black Sears Vineyard on Howell Mountain for 6 years before its Zinfandel became available. They continue to source from a special Zinfandel block at Black Sears, planted in 1967. It is dry and biodynamically farmed; remarkably the yields from this high elevation site produce only about one ton of fruit a year.

The 2018 Robert Craig Black Sears Vineyard Zinfandel is 95% Zinfandel and 5% Petite Sirah. The wine is medium ruby color in the glass; sports aromas of raspberry, cherry cola and some spice notes including white pepper, probably from the variety but also perhaps from the barrel aging. Despite approximately 15% alcohol, one can quickly tell this is not a fruit forward ‘riper’ styled wine – or in other words, it is everything because of what it is not… IE, not jammy, not sweet and not overly extracted. The palate offers flavors of red cherry, red licorice and raspberry. Lingers with excellent acidity, a brightness and a tartness complemented by well-integrated tannins. And this style is not an anomaly; we have tasted several older vintages back to 2007 also produced in this style.

Tasting Room Evolution
Robert Craig closed their original city of Napa tasting room in 2021 and by the second week in October that year had moved their offices and hospitality operations to the edge of downtown Napa at 1553 Second Street. A parking lot to the rear of the building has three spots reserved for clients of Robert Craig as well as a handicapped spot. The tasting room is ADA compliant with a lift available at the rear entrance. Parking is also available curbside (2-hour limits) on Second Street and Church Street.

Visits to Robert Craig are appointment only and groups are usually small. Tastings are not rushed, are very personal and informative and are hosted in the main room or weather permitting, outside on the patio or on the porch. During several visits over the years, we have always found their staff extremely knowledgeable about the wines and their vineyard sites. Guests can enjoy a flight of wines or order by the glass or by the bottle. Library and large format bottlings are often available for purchase.

This home was built sometime between 1895 and 1907 and in its early years was owned by Belle Coombs, a member of the founding family of the city of Napa (reference Nathan Coombs). She sold the property to Anna Frary in 1906; today the structure is referred to as the Frary House. A number of families have resided here over the decades including William Butler who became the County Horticultural Commissioner in the 1920s. By the 1990s the house was converted from residential to commercial use.

Tasting salon

Robert Craig’s original tasting room was located mere minutes driving north of downtown Napa and was located in an area one doesn’t typically associate with a winery tasting room. That was not a bad thing; however, prior to their tasting room their offices were here, and it made sense to combine both the office space and tasting facilities. The tasting room was located just off Soscol Ave behind the large Central Valley Builders supply building.

The tasting room was elegant and included both counter and sit-down table seating. Looks are deceiving and it is wineries such as these that are fun to seek out. The inside tasting room was tastefully restored from its previous industrial uses yet felt completely modern.

Original Napa tasting room

Robert Craig Winery participates in select consumer tastings throughout the year including the highly recommended Taste of Howell Mountain held every June on the grounds of Charles Krug Winery. As of our latest update to this review, Robert Craig produces around 9,000 cases annually. About 50% of their wine is sold direct to consumer, primarily through their tasting room and wine club, with the other half sold through distribution.

The wines are or have been on a number of wine lists at premium restaurants in the valley including former Restaurant at Meadowood (was 3-star Michelin rated) in St. Helena, Cole’s Chop House, Celadon in Napa and at select wine shops in Napa Valley. For more information, to schedule a tasting or to join one of their wine clubs (members enjoy complimentary tastings), visit their website: www.robertcraigwine.com

Winery, Howell Mountain