Keever Vineyards

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 setting in 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, they hired Jim Barbour to plant their vineyards and then in the subsequent years constructed the winery and opened their tasting room in 2006.

The entire property is 21 acres of which 6.5 acres are planted to vines – primarily to Cabernet Sauvignon 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. 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 the 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.

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 in their tiny tasting room followed by 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 machinery. During our last 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
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.

The Keever Vineyards 2018 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.

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 only specific amounts of wine are released through their website (not their entire production).

Note: this review has been identified as needing a major updating including tasting notes for current release wines.

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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.

Keever offers several wine club options available as part of their Wine Society. For more information, to purchase wine and or to schedule a tasting, visit: www.keevervineyards.com

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