During the  27-year Mexican period in California, 1821-1848, the few and rugged arrivals from the U.S. and the rest of the world were usually hunters or traders not necessarily planning to stay. Some, however, did stay; among them, in the Napa Valley, George Yount, Edward Bale and William Wolfskill, now recognized as pioneers of the California wine industry.

In 1841, a different kind of immigrant arrived in California. These were settlers coming to stay, traveling in wagon trains with women and children, tools, books and all of the personal belongings they could carry. Many ended up in the Napa Valley.

 Joseph Chiles, who would eventually settle in Chiles Valley and become an early Napa vintner, was a guide on the first wagon train to attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada and come to California, the Bidwell-Bartleson party in 1841. When the party arrived at its destination, a rancho near Mount Diablo, the members dispersed throughout Northern California. 

It is thought that Chiles knew George Yount in Missouri, which may be why Chiles immediately came to the Napa Valley. He stayed long enough only to scout out a piece of land for himself, and then he headed east again over the Sierra Nevada to Missouri. There, he gathered another group of settlers, including one of George Yount’s daughters and her husband, and brought the entire group directly back to the Napa Valley.

From then on through the rest of the Mexican period, wagon trains began making their way over the Sierra Nevada and into California without the permission of the Mexican government. In 1846, the arrival of a large wagon train, the Grigsby-Ide party, in Northern California pushed the limits of the Mexican government’s tolerance. The Mexicans threatened to send them back over the mountains after the snow melt. The new arrivals, in turn, plotted an insurrection against the Mexicans.

A group made up mostly of Grigsby-Ide party immigrants set out from Sutter’s Fort to Sonoma to arrest Governor Mariano Vallejo and declare California an independent country. The Napa Valley was one of the largest populations of American immigrants living in Mexican California at the time and so the insurrectionists made a point of going through the valley on their way to Sonoma to recruit American settlers to join their revolt. Accounts vary as to the people and numbers involved in the Bear Flag Revolt, as this insurrection came to be known, but probably at least 20 of the 33 men who captured the Mexican Governor Vallejo in Sonoma during the Bear Flag Revolt were from the Napa Valley — more than 60 percent.

The “Bear Flaggers” raised the flag of the Bear Flag Republic and declared California an independent country. Less than a month later, the Bear Flag Republic was abolished by its own founders as the U.S. laid claim to California and the American flag was raised over Sonoma. Many of the original insurrectionists from the Napa Valley were sworn in as United States Army soldiers and eventually helped to defeat the Mexicans and make California a part of United States in 1848.

Setting the stage for a wine industry

What changed for the Napa Valley wine as a result of the introduction of the American period? First, American lawmakers tended to favor settlement on smaller parcels of land rather than the large ranchos of the Mexican era. The Americans did not immediately dismantle the large ranchos that existed in the Napa Valley, but over time, laws and court rulings early in the American era gradually made it extremely difficult for men like George Yount and his descendants to keep intact ranchos like his 12,000-acre Caymus ranch.

As civilization advanced, Yount’s fights with the grizzlies and wild Indians became less and less frequent, but new and more formidable enemies appeared in the land commissioners, squatters, and lawyers. Yount's history, in this respect, is but a repetition of that of almost every one of the early settlers in the country.

The 1848 Gold Rush brought hundreds of thousands of people to California. They squatted on the large Mexican era landholdings and challenged titles to land grants in court with cases often lasting many years. The result was that land in the Napa Valley that had been used for cattle ranching or left in its natural state began to be used for intensive crop farming of wheat, fruit and other commodities, wine grapes among them. Those who wanted to cultivate vineyards were often able to find manageable parcels of land on which to do so.

In addition, a cosmopolitan city was born 50 miles from the Napa Valley with a ready market for wine. The entire U.S. market was now open to the Napa Valley, even though the transportation infrastructure necessary to exploit this was still some years off. Nonetheless, the valley was poised for the birth of its wine industry.

These important changes didn’t happen overnight. Dedicated commercial viticulture and wine making did not come to the Napa Valley until the arrival of Charles Krug in 1858, but the earlier experimentation and small-scale production of wine proved that viticulture was possible, created the beginnings of a wine industry infrastructure and attracted wine making entrepreneurs.

George Yount engaged in wine commerce during the Gold Rush, but on a very small scale. The first to have a true vineyard in the Napa Valley was John Patchett, an Englishman and a ’49er. Patchett eventually came to the Napa Valley to farm, bought a 100-acre parcel and became, according to the “History of Napa and Lake Counties of California” (1881) “the first one to plant a vineyard of any consequence for any other purpose than for grapes for table use.” He only produced wine from mission grapes and had a modest operation at best. In 1859, Patchett constructed a stone cellar for his wines. He is also credited with being the first to ship wine from Napa County when he sent a shipment to San Francisco in 1857.

Patchett was joined by early grape-growing pioneers like John Osborn and Simpson Thompson who grew grapes, and made and sold wine, although they did not focus exclusively on wine production. Patchett also deserves recognition as the one who invited Charles Krug to the Napa Valley to make wine from his grapes. After Krug married Edward Bale’s daughter and began to grow his own grapes on the Napa Valley property that was his wife’s dowry, Patchett brought in Henry A. Pellet to continue Krug’s work at Patchett’s winery.  Pellet went on to make wine for Dr. George Belden Crane, an enlightened early grape grower who recognized the potential for growing numerous grape varietals in the Napa Valley and who was one of the first to produce large volumes of wine in the 1860s. Pellet eventually left Crane and become a partner in one of the other early large wineries in the valley.

Other early residents also got involved with wine. Sam Brannan, who led an early settler party of Mormons to California and went on to promote a resort in what is now Calistoga, planted vines on a farm he acquired in 1857. William Thompson, who like John Pellet had made some money in the gold fields, bought property where his brother Simpson joined him in 1852. They planted orchards as well as several grape varietals.

While each of these men contributed to the early history of wine in the Napa Valley, one among them, Charles Krug, was a true visionary who, along with four other men who followed him, would leave us with the legacy of a Napa Valley wine culture.

Next: Five who left legacies in the Napa Valley

Editor’s note

This is part four in a six-part series excerpted from Napa author Tim Gaughan’s book that traces the history of wine in the Napa Valley.