The land always has remained the same. It has not been sold, subdivided, cemented over or built upon. Since David Fulton first bought the land in 1860, it has been planted in vines and its grapes have been sold for nearly 150 years. Today, the land on Fulton Lane in St. Helena is owned by Fulton’s great-grandson, Fulton Mather and his wife, Dink.

The 75-year-old Mather remembers driving a truck on the farm when he was 9 years old. A few years later, at 12, he remembers driving a truck loaded with grapes to the St. Helena cooperative, where the grapes were sold. Every summer, he would come back to the St. Helena farm and help out.

 At that time — and for many years afterward — the land was owned by his aunt, Gladys Mather Beard. Around the Napa Valley, she wasn’t known as a grapegrower, but as the postmaster in Yountville for many years.

 Later on, college beckoned for Mather, and after that, graduate school and teaching at San Francisco State. Mather then went into a business partnership and became manager of a tennis facility, as well as a tennis pro, in Sacramento. For a while, he ran international tennis tournaments. He said he developed a life away from the St. Helena ranch, in part because he figured his cousin — Edgar Beard, Gladys’ son — would inherit the family property, which included an old farmhouse, a dilapidated water tank and wine cellar.

 To say that Mather has fond memories of the family property is an understatement.  He said he even remembers the old cellar, built by his great-grandfather in 1861. It had a dirt floor and its walls were lined with old oak and redwood barrels, called “pipes.”

 Keeping the farm

 Mather said his great-grandfather’s early death, at age 47 in 1871, may have helped keep the 14.5-acre property in the family’s hands. In the latter part of the 19th century, Mather said, people either sold their property and got out of the wine business, went bankrupt or got shot, which happened twice. “The economics of the worldwide wine market was out of their hands,” he added. Today it’s the same story, he said. Two pieces of land — at $1 million an acre — are for sale on Fulton Lane. With land that expensive, Mather said, “you can’t possibly sell cabernet sauvignon at a price to make any money.”

 After patriarch David Fulton died, family members did what they could to keep the land — which was to work at full-time jobs and grow grapes on the side. Mather’s grandmother taught school and his father worked as a dentist. In that way, six generations of the family were able to live over the years in the farmhouse originally built by David Fulton.

 When Gladys Mather Beard died in 1995, the farm went to Fulton Mather; his cousin Edgar inherited property in Yountville. The farmhouse was the only structure in good shape — the tall water tank was falling down and Fulton’s original cellar was blown over in a windstorm in 1973. It was the oldest cellar within the St. Helena city limits.

 At that time, both Fulton and Dink Mather had retired from their state jobs and Fulton said he decided to rebuild the property. He obtained the city’s approval to rebuild the water tank — about a month before it was going to fall down, he claims — and started viticulture classes at UC Davis. He joined a Sacramento home winemakers group and used some of the vineyard’s grapes to make petite sirah. That was in 1996, and Sacramento wine merchant Darrell Corti came to one of the group meetings to taste all the wines. He pronounced Mathers’ petite sirah the best wine of the group. Mather took his homemade wine to the California State Fair and won two gold medals for his efforts — once in 1996 and again the following year.

 Fast forward a few years. Mather wanted to make wine commercially from his own grapes and talked Markham Vineyards into giving him two barrels of 1999 wine made from Mather’s grapes — “so that I could say we’ve made wine in every century,” Mather said. Fifty cases of 1999 David Fulton Winery Petite Sirah were produced — the first commercial release in more than 125 years. After that, Mather has made petite sirahs every year from 2000 to 2007.

 Mather’s current vintage — 2005 — will be released in October. He has only a few bottles left of the 2004 vintage, which received a 94 score in June from the International Wine Review.

Cellar rebuilt

 Somewhere along the way, Mather found the four original corners of his great-grandfather’s cellar and spent 18 months rebuilding it. The new cellar is slightly deeper than the original one — three barrels of wine can be stacked on top of one another — and the winery above has room enough for two tanks, as well as a variety of winery equipment.

 Fulton does not work alone in running the David Fulton Winery. His son, 34-year-old Richard Mather, is a part-time cellarmaster and winemaker; his daughter, Jennifer, works part-time on sales and promotion. Jennifer is an event planner and graphic artist in Los Angeles. Currently, Richard is tasting room manager with one of St. Helena’s newest wineries — Alpha Omega. In his career he has worked for Whitehall Lane, Alexander Valley Vineyards and Chimney Rock.

 Randall Johnson from the Hess Collection and Allen Price, a longtime St. Helena resident, who has worked in the wine industry for the past 25 years, serve as consulting winemakers.  Price currently also works with Casa Neuestra.

 Edgar’s son, Ed, and his wife Anna, own and operate Beard Ranches, a St. Helena vineyard management company, which oversees the general care of the vineyard. For a time, the Beards and their two daughters, Adrian and Juliana, all lived in the old Fulton farmhouse.

 Besides their petite sirah, Fulton and Richard Mather have plans to release a zinfandel, not estate grown, after the first of the year and will release 25 cases of cabernet sauvignon, which is estate grown, sometime in the future.

Known for petite sirah

The David Fulton Winery, though, is well known for its petite sirah.

Both Fulton and Richard take extraordinary care with it. “We recognize how intense the wine is,” Fulton Mather said, “and you could cellar it for almost 10 years.” But, he adds, most people don’t cellar their wines and 90 percent of people who buy it will drink it within 48 hours.

Therefore, he and Richard take care to harvest the grapes at the right time, crush them gently and work to reduce the tannins.

 To determine when to harvest the grapes, he and Richard will look at the seeds, to make sure they’re brown, not green; and taste the grapes.

“We squish the berries and when the juice starts to turn pink, we know the tannins are softening,” he said. “We chew the skins and get away from the chalky, asprin-y taste.” When asked, he said the harvests are usually late, compared to other varieties in St. Helena on the Valley floor.

 Since 2000, they have kept five tons for their wines — and have made 350 cases. Starting with the 2010 vintage, though, they’ll make wine from 10 tons of grapes.

 The fruit is harvested in small lugs, and once it’s brought into the winery 20 people will work with the fruit in the first of two sorting tables. They will roll around the fruit clusters and pick out the raisins. Then the clusters will be destemmed, as whole berries — “we turn off the crusher” — and then go through another sorting table. The sorters then take out the green stems, which if left in would add bitterness to the wine. Finally, the berries are gently crushed.

“It’s labor-intensive,” Fulton Mather said. “We force our family and friends to come help us. There are 30 to 40 people in here and it’s a party.”

 After that, the wine is aged in both new and 2-year-old French oak barrels. It is racked once a year and aged in the barrel for 2 1/2 years, and then aged again in the bottle for an additional six months.

 To put out a new petite sirah after more than 130 years takes skill, talent and guts. It also adds pressure. Fulton Mather said, “Wherever my ancestors are, I don’t want them looking at me and saying, ‘He’s the one who lost the farm.'"