Keever Vineyards are located in foothills of the Mayacamas mountains (about 300 feet above the valley floor) close to the Yountville Veterans home, just south and west of the town of Yountville.
Olga Keever (who we first met with) is married to Bill Keever, a graduate of Napa High School. Bill’s father Marvin worked in the telephone industry for 4+ decades including two years as President of the Telephone Pioneers. He and his family lived in Napa for 10 years. Bill spent his career in the telecommunications industry including for Pacific Bell, Pac Tel and AirTouch. Much of his career was spent abroad including serving as CEO of Vodaphone Asia. With retirement age coming, the family was interested in returning to Napa Valley. Bill’s initial thoughts were to purchase land with a vineyard and sell grapes, not actually oversee a winery.
Both Bill and Olga have long enjoyed a diversity of wines; their passion for wine became stronger during their time living in Europe including in Germany and the Netherlands. In 1999 the Keever’s returned to the world-famous Napa Valley; Bill retired from the corporate life in 2003. After acquiring their property near Yountville, a former horse ranch, they hired Jim Barbour to plant their vineyards and then in the subsequent years constructed the winery and opened their tasting room in 2006. Prior to their winery buildout, the first few vintages of Keever were produced at the nearby Laird Estate Winery.
The entire property is 21 acres of which 6.5 acres are planted to vines, primarily to Cabernet Sauvignon (four distinctive clones) but also a few rows of Malbec and a small block of Clone 1 Sauvignon Blanc on the upper part of their vineyard. The vines are planted on steep and extremely rocky hillsides. They yield only about 2 tons per acre each year; some of the vines are netted to protect against hungry birds and some rows utilize shade cloth on one side of the vines.
The vines are planted on the east facing slopes of the Mayacamas mountains – which means the receive morning and mid day sunshine during the growing season. But by the end of the day, due to their exposure, they are already in the shade while across the valley on the Vaca mountains, vineyards are still exposed to sun later in the day. Less afternoon/hot sunshine combined with their southern valley location results in a long growing season.
It was Jim who highly recommended their winemaker, Celia Welch who has made every Keever vintage since their inaugural vintage in 2002; Jess McDowell works closely with Celia and is the day to day winemaker for Keever Vineyards. Celia is a well-respected long time Napa based winemaker (been making wine in the valley for more than 30 years) – who has consulted for select premium clients over the years including Scarecrow. She also produced Corra, her own small label here for many years.
Born and raised in Medford, Oregon, her introduction to wine came early through her father’s passion for wine. He was a home winemaker and collector, and she grew up helping him make wine. Her first introduction to Napa Valley was in the 1960s during trips with her family. She graduated from UC Davis in 1982 with a degree B.S. degree in Fermentation Science at a time when a number of now prominent women winemakers were enrolled including Pam Starr and Heidi Peterson Barrett and others who work in Napa and beyond.
Continuing her education after graduating, she embarked in extensive travels through a number of wine regions including domestically in the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast and then New Zealand – finally working in the Barossa Valley in Australia. She then moved to Napa Valley and worked at a number of wineries including Silverado Vineyards in 1987, was assistant winemaker at Robert Pepi Winery (now the home of Cardinale) and began her consulting career in 1992 for Staglin Family Winery.
Her focus of consulting is generally for premium producers who own their own vineyards (rather than labels who source fruit) – often (but not always) from hillside locations in the valley. And her work has been highly recognized throughout the industry; in 2008 she was named Winemaker of the Year by Food and Wine Magazine and has been inducted into the Winemakers Hall of Fame through the organization, Women for Winesense.
In the cellar, she extracts appropriately but never crosses the line into over extraction, always achieving desired textural and tannin qualities. The tannins are already silky even by the end of fermentation. The barrels will continue to respect that in terms of the structure of the wine and are used to add complexity and density to the mid palate. But never any astringency. By the end of fermentation all the wine needs is time in oak, a gentle hand and judicious blending.
Today Bill and Olga’s two children are involved in the day to day operations; Jason handles much of the cellar duties and Ashley helps host visitors among other winery duties.
A visit here is a very personalized tasting experience, often, but not always held with one of the members of the Keever Family – usually Olga or daughter Ashley. Guests to the property will start their visit outside on the terrace (weather permitting) to take in the expansive views of the valley below. This is followed by a visit to their tiny tasting room and a quick tour of the actual winery and related equipment; this is interesting because you get to see up close some equipment that you normally will not see on general winery tours – much of it is state of the art. During our most recent visit, a total of 14 tanks are located within the winery; each one can be moved by one person using an industrial sized pallet jack. A great deal of thought went into the design of the actual fermentation room, and it shows. The overall winery operations were designed to be gravity flow, with design input contributed by Celia.
A cave is tunneled into the hillside directly behind the winery and below Bill and Olga’s home. Visitors will walk through the interior learning more about their wine production and barrel aging. Several highlights include a small alcove reserved for their Oro bottling, merely two of their best barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon each vintage (complete with LED lights that change color) and a small wine library. Visits culminate back in the tasting room with a sit down of several of their current release wines.
Select Wines
Sauvignon Blanc
The 2023 Keever Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc is pale gold in color; the highly aromatic nose is both citric, floral and tangy with refreshing scents of lemon rind, pineapple, lemongrass, honeysuckle, orange blossom, honeycomb, white peach, passion fruit, Alfonso mango and golden delicious apples. Its aromatics are layered and long lasting. If you want to describe the nose as saline or minerally, we wouldn’t argue with you. Both the bouquet and the palate favor a California style expression of this variety rather than a New Zealand style. This wine tastes like pineapple, white nectarine, pineapple guava, passion fruit, fully ripe kiwi and lemon meringue. The fleshy and creamy palate sports a noticeable and prominent silkiness from the entry through the finish. A note of vanilla and a light herbal note round out the finish. Soft acidity. We want to be relaxing on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific with warm gentle breezes blowing, a good book and a bottle of this wine. This wine was barrel fermented in 15% new French oak, left to age sur lie with weekly battonage for 4 months.
The 2020 Keever Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc is pale yellow in color; the bouquet smells fresh with aromas of recently moved grass, lemon, lemongrass, grapefruit and green apple. As it warms up in the glass, it shows a hint of pineapple and vanilla sweetness. Offers an intensity of flavor across the palate; its superb balance is its hallmark. Rounded and supple from start to finish (almost a saline quality of texture), lingers with a brightness and a freshness of both flavor and acidity including flavors of mandarin and orange. The finish is completed with a lime nuance along with a lemon peel zest but is not tart. After the grapes were harvested, they were pressed, and the juice transferred to both French oak and stainless-steel barrels for fermentation. The wine aged sur lie for about 5 months with weekly battonage.
Inspirado
The 2019 Keever Vineyards Inspirado is a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon and 13% Merlot; this wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque. The bouquet is driven strongly by its core of dark and ripe fruit, yet the oak sits squarely in the passenger seat and wants to take the wheel at times. It is finally warming up in Napa Valley, but if we were smelling and tasting this in the winter, it would be in front of a warm and cozy place next to a dying fire, finishing up a generous amount of ‘me time’ on a Saturday evening. Its aromas include dark cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, dark chocolate, white pepper, toasted oak, toast, dried herbs and old cedar box being opened for the first time a long while. And a note of warm tobacco spice, we sometimes associate with more mature bouquets. Dark and savory across the palate its flavors including blackberry, dark cherry, black plum, mulberry, dark chocolate, smoked cedar, white sage and subtle amounts of dried bay leaf. Anyone who has plucked a fresh bay leaf from a tree knows those aromatics and flavors absolutely dominate. That is not the case here. Plush in terms of its texture, the tannins are rounded with very few edges at this age. For reference we tasted this 6 years post vintage. Both varieties were fermented and aged separately (45% new French oak) before being blended.
The 2018 Keever Vineyards Inspirado (meaning inspiration in Spanish) is a blend of 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. Offers intense fruit forward aromatics of spicy plum and dark cherry complemented by aromas of violets, black licorice, leather, white pepper and chocolate. Mouthwatering, juicy and certainly packed with intensity; the palate sports flavors of dark cherry and blackberry anchored by slightly drying tannins of light to medium grip but very long lasting. Generously flavored but well balanced. This wine is often only sold at the winery due to the limited availability after it ships to their mailing list customers.
Cabernet Sauvignon
The 2019 Keever Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon is deep ruby and opaque; replete with aromas of darker fruits, yet also nicely complemented by layers of spice. These scents include blackberry, plum, boysenberry, Pakistani mulberry and cherry with a light note of red chili spice, toast, dried herbs, coffee grinds, dried tobacco leaf, toasted oak and dark cocoa powder. There are loads of layering here. The palate is replete with red and darker fruit flavors including blackberry, raspberry jam, boysenberry and Santa Rosa plum with sage, white pepper and toasted cedar. And the finish lingers with dried tobacco leaf and gravelly and lightly grainy tannins which persist in tandem with the fruit along with a lightly drying character. The fruit is still quite youthful 6 years post vintage; this wine is showing in a sweet spot at this age.
2012 was the start of three excellent vintages in a row in the Napa Valley. The 2012 Keever Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon shows crimson red in the glass with a bouquet that is elegant – revealing floral notes, blackberry and black cherry aromas. As the wine opens, offers secondary aromas of vanilla and mocha. There is a pleasing softness on the palate with darker fruit showing mid palate through to the finish. Also, intriguing is the density of both flavor and mouth feel on the finish. The finish is smooth with a persistence of both barrel and fruit tannins for some time – yet these tannins do not dominate, rather they are well integrated into the wine.
Keever Vineyards also produces a Chardonnay. It should be noted that not all of their bottlings are released through their website.
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Because of this wineries’ location, on a clear day one will have excellent views of Napa Valley and the rocky formations (the Palisades) which rise behind Stags Leap District in the distance. Watching traffic roll by slowly in the distance on Highway 29 on some weekend late afternoon one realizes this is most certainly a better place to be, than down on the highway.
Be sure to get directions and the code to ring the winery ahead of time as they are located in a gated neighborhood.
The wines are sold direct but are also in distribution. Keever offers three wine club options with regular shipments throughout the year as part of their Wine Society. For more information, to purchase wine and or to schedule a tasting, visit: www.keevervineyards.com
Exterior
Winery
Cave
Interior/Hospitality
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