We began research for the Napa Wine Project in 2006. This project involves personally tasting with all Napa Valley commercial wine producers as well as any Napa area businesses providing tasting experiences, (collectives and or certain wine shops) and providing extensive reviews on this website. Two requirements; we personally visit with a winery representative and taste the wines.
To date, we have personally visited, tasted and written about more than 1,200 commercial Napa Valley based wine producers. We taste at Napa Valley based wineries usually 8-10 months of the year and always take a good portion of the winter months for international travels and some much-needed rest and recovery from the intensity of working on this project.
Any wineries that we have not yet visited listed in our database (see directly below for complete database), are contacted by email or phone to request a visit and tasting.
900+ Napa Commercial Wine Producers
Last updated 1/5/25 (Major Update on 1/5/25)
To date, we have identified 900+ (and constantly changing) unique commercial wine producers in Napa County. They are all listed in this database. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the most often independently updated and most exhaustive lists of Napa Valley based commercial wine producers published.
Theoretically all in this list would vinify and bottle at least one SKU from Napa Valley grown grapes in Napa Valley. Like other lists, this list is in no way perfect and it can be hard to determine if a winery is still producing, has moved their production out of the county or decided to no longer produce wines from Napa Valley. Regardless, it has been updated daily, weekly or monthly continuously since 2006.
850+ Non Napa Valley Winery Places & Spaces
In addition to visiting both Napa Valley wineries and places and spaces within Napa Valley connected to wineries, we are visiting numerous places and spaces outside of Napa Valley with strong connections to wineries or brands within Napa Valley through ownership, heritage, family ties or other. We have visited more than 850 such places and spaces around the state, country and planet to date for adding content to our existing reviews. This list is extremely diverse!
A least once a year we perform a *major update* which usually takes several intense days to research and cross reference (using multiple sources, TTB, NVV, ABC among other references) – removing some of the non-active producers, updating contact information and adding new active producers. One of the most challenging aspects of updating this list is identifying active producers as often producers stop making wine but continue to sell older releases. We keep these ones listed for several years but eventually we remove them if we can determine they are no longer making wine commercially. And sometimes it can be challenging to determine where the wines are being made; sometimes wineries move their production operations outside of Napa County.
Also, of note is we have archived 390+ reviews written since 2006 (including some tasting rooms) and have removed 300+ listings from this database we never had a chance to review of producers who are no longer producing wine from and in Napa Valley for whatever reason. This equates to approximately 700+ unique Napa Valley based producer listings removed in 18+ years who are no longer making Napa Valley wine in Napa Valley commercially. The turnover on unique producers is absolutely remarkable.
TTB
As of January 2025, according to the Federal: Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) there are 1,353 permits within Napa County for production, bottling, importation or distribution of beverage alcohol products. However, many of the Napa Valley producers listed in this TTB databases are *no longer actively producing wines*. As a result, this database is very inaccurate. And a number of Napa Valley producers have multiple permits/listings often at nonphysical winery addresses. It should also be noted that some of the producers in this list source all or the majority of their grapes from outside of Napa Valley but are making their wine in Napa Valley.
ABC
Napa County has the most Type 02 licenses issued for winegrowers of any county in the State of California. As of January 2025, there are 1887 Type 02 licenses listed as active by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). It should be noted that a sizable number of licenses are listed twice in this database. Others make their wine outside of the county but the address in this database is listed as their home or vineyard. The ABC allows you to renew your license even if you are not actively producing or selling wines. There are numerous non producing listings.
The bottom line is, there is NO perfect list out there.
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For those interested in how many unique physical winery facilities there are in Napa County – the best estimate we can come up with is somewhere between 500-600 unique physical bonded locations (a winery) within Napa County where wine is commercially made. We have personally visited and tasted at the vast majority of these. A number are in business and industrial parks in or near the city of Napa and some are production only facilities. We have also visited 140+ winery caves within the Napa Valley (although several of these caves are not bonded but are sometimes used for private events). Email comments, updates or corrections about any of this to info@napawineproject.com. Please do not phone in updates or corrections.
For our definition purposes – a “winery” constitutes a physical location with a winery bond while a “producer” or a “brand” makes wine commercially but does not own their own physical bonded location. In a general sense on parts of this website, we may use “producer” or “brand” to refer to both producers and physical wineries. Note: many of the listings in our database don’t actually own a physical winery and are brands.
One winery may have multiple different labels or brands, especially the larger wineries – we do not list each label as its own entry in our database. Significant efforts have been made to list only unique Napa wineries and commercial Napa wine producers.
Updating
The extensive list above is based on hours and hours of research and monthly multiple updates. We attempt to keep this lengthy list updated by referencing numerous lists of wineries and websites including the TTB and ABC. Furthermore, from time to time we physically visit wine shops in Napa County and note down any unfamiliar labels (or browse their online inventory). We also visit each one of the winery websites (if available). We subscribe to many email lists from Napa Valley wineries and related wine sites. Wine forums and social media are also an excellent resource for new releases and new Napa wineries. In addition, we attend numerous public or trade only tastings.
Archived Reviews
Frequently Asked Questions
For additional information please visit our Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section.
Visitation
In regard to visitation, wineries fall into three categories:
- Open to the Public – simply walk in during normal business hours;
- Open by Appointment – there is a huge range in this category. Some wineries are setup to take larger groups and may offer tours, some are so small their county permits may be extremely limited to the number of visitors they can see a week. These producers generally do not encourage visitors unless they are already members. Some appointment only wineries offer tours where visitors are combined into small groups;
- Private – the winery is not open to the public, and they do not receive visitors.
There are numerous printed and online Napa winery lists floating around. One of the best updated independent overall list of Napa wineries and producers is published by Wine Business Analytics.
Who Qualifies as a Commercial Napa Valley Wine Producer
It is extremely difficult to come up with an exact number of commercial wine producers in Napa Valley for many reasons. First one has to define what qualifies as a Napa Valley commercial wine producer.
We use the following definition: a commercial wine producer must regularly make at least one of their wines from Napa Valley grown grapes and this wine must be fermented, cellared and bottled in Napa Valley. This producer must have the necessary licensing to be able to sell their wines commercially.
We don’t consider the following to be Napa Valley producers:
– a producer making wines from Napa Valley grapes who makes all their wines outside of Napa Valley.
– a producer regularly making all non Napa Valley wines at a winery within Napa Valley.
Consider the following types of wineries:
- Physically Bonded (an actual winery facility – may even be a house/garage winery). One winery may have multiple bonded locations.
- Alternating Proprietor – winery/custom crush facility has a bond that allows participating custom crush clients to have their own “bonded winery” within the main winery
- Custom Crush – these “virtual” wineries do not own their own winery, rather they rent space from an actual winery.
- Negociants – these brands purchase wine that has already been made by someone else and bottle it under their own brand. This is common. In Napa Valley, in terms of numbers, there are very few 100% negociant producers – however, some producers may utilize the negociant model at times.
Thank You
We want to thank all Napa Wineries who have been so gracious with providing tasting and winery information. By numbers 90 to 95% of Napa’s wineries/producers are small family owned.