Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards

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Saint Helena, CA
Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards

Private cave tastings. No crowds, no script — just you, the wine, and Todd Anderson, who's farmed this land for 43 years.
(293)

Named Best Winemaker & Best Hidden Gem by Napa Valley Life.📞 707-963-8600

09/03/2026

Most people think Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards and Ghost Horse are my story.

They're only half right.

That's Sarah. Refractometer in one hand, air pump in the other, filling barrels during harvest. She grew up in this industry — her father George was one of the largest grape growers in California history, farming 8,000 acres of w**e and table grapes at his peak. W**e isn't something Sarah learned. It's something she was born into.

She runs both w**eries. She fields calls and emails from over 20,000 people on our mailing list. She built and runs one of the most successful direct-to-consumer w**e clubs in Napa Valley. She manages Ghost Horse inquiries, cave reservations, Syndicate relationships, and finances — all of it.

And when I'm about to get lazy after 44 harvests and almost 70 years of farming, she looks at me and says three words.

"Get to work."

She's also the reason we laugh in the cave. After everything — the harvests, the setbacks, the years of building something from nothing — we still laugh in the cave.

I am the reason Anderson's Conn Valley exists. Sarah is the reason it survives.

Every great w**ery has a story like this. Most of them just don't talk about it.

Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600

— Todd

08/26/2026

Most people want the result. Very few want the process that produces it.

I've been farming the same hillside above St. Helena for 44 years. Same ground. Same vines. Same obsession with getting it right. There are no shortcuts in a vineyard — the fruit ripens when it ripens, the barrel does what it does, and time moves at exactly one speed.

People ask me why great w**e costs what it costs. The honest answer is that they're not paying for the liquid in the glass. They're paying for every decision that had to be made correctly over decades before that liquid ever existed. The pruning cut in February. The pick date in September. The extra year in barrel that most producers can't afford to wait for.

A vine doesn't care about your budget. It cares about whether you paid attention.

44 harvests teaches you that patience isn't a virtue in this business. It's a requirement. The w**es that move people — the ones they remember years later — were never rushed. They were earned.

The result you're holding in your glass took longer to make than most people spend at a single job.

That's what you're paying for. And honestly — it's a bargain.

Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600

— Todd

08/19/2026

In 1962 my father Gus and I made w**e together for the first time.

I was five years old. We were on our farm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We picked chokecherries off the trees and fermented them in several 5-gallon demijohns. One demijohn is still full. It sits in my cave today, right next to the first commercial w**e Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards ever produced.

Twenty-seven years after that chokecherry w**e — on August 23rd, 1989 — the first bottles of our 1987 Estate Reserve Cabernet came off the bottling line.

Gus and I both wanted the first bottle. So we mixed them up. Neither of us ever knew which was truly first.
He eventually gave me his. I have both now.
On the back of each bottle, hand-etched and painted:
"This is 1 of the first 2 bottles produced by Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards. Bottled on August 23rd, 1989." Signed by my dad and me.

54 years of farming. 44 harvests in Napa Valley. And it all starts with a five-year-old boy and his father picking chokecherries in Michigan.

Gustaf. His father's name. My middle name. My son's middle name.

Some things you carry forward because you can't imagine putting them down.

📞 Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600
— Todd

08/15/2026

Sarah and I want to take you to sea.

June 2–14, 2027 — we're hosting an Anderson's Conn Valley W**e Cruise aboard the Regent Seven Seas Voyager. Twelve nights from Stockholm to Copenhagen through some of the most beautiful ports in Northern Europe — Helsinki, Tallinn, Gdańsk, Berlin, Gothenburg and more.

We'll be pouring library w**es and Club-only selections at private dinners aboard. The same conversations we have in the cave, just with a very different view out the window.

Regent Seven Seas is truly all-inclusive — every suite, every meal, unlimited shore excursions, premium beverages, prepaid gratuities, unlimited WiFi. Our group gets $400 onboard credit per suite plus private welcome and farewell receptions hosted by Sarah and me.

This is for our w**e club members, friends, and anyone who's ever sat in the cave and thought — I want more of this.

Full details and registration:
https://www.martindaletravelandtours.com/GroupRegistrations/view/140707

Or call us: 707-963-8600

— Todd & Sarah

08/14/2026

We all start somewhere.

That's me in the late 1970s — still figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. A few years after this photo was taken I broke ground on a hillside above St. Helena with nothing but raw land and a whole lot to learn.

44 harvests later I'm still learning. But somewhere along the way I started teaching too.

One of my favorite things about hosting tastings in our cave is watching someone discover their own palate for the first time. People come in thinking they don't like Chardonnay and leave with a case. People who swear they hate Cabernet end up pointing to our biggest, boldest Cab as their favorite w**e they've ever tasted.

I actually had a gentleman sit down and tell me three times — don't pour me Cabernet. I don't like Cabernet. I hate Cabernet.

So I didn't tell him what he was drinking.

At the end he pointed to number five and said that's my favorite. I'll take a case. Best w**e I've ever had in my life.

It was our AURUM. One of the biggest Cabernets in Napa Valley. He bought the case anyway — and I respect him enormously for that. He trusted what his palate told him.

That's what we do here. Blind tastings. No labels. No preconceived ideas. Just what's in the glass telling you the truth about what you actually love.

Every guest walks out with a guide we developed ourselves — varietals, characteristics, and how to actually taste w**e. Several people have told us it's the most useful thing they've ever been handed at a w**ery.

If you're newer to w**e and want to understand your palate — not just find a w**e you like, but understand WHY you like it — come see us.

We all start somewhere. Might as well start here.

Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600

— Todd

08/10/2026

Most Napa tastings are poured by someone who read about the w**e last Tuesday.

When you sit down in our cave, something different happens.

The man across from you planted these vines. Farmed this ground for 44 years. Built this cave by hand — every stone wall, every barrel room, the reservoir on the hill. He made every vintage himself, from the first harvest in 1983 to the one coming in this fall.

He knew the pioneers of this industry personally. He can tell you why the fruit from the east-facing block tastes different from the west. Why we pick when we pick. Why patience in a cave looks exactly like this — rows of barrels in the dark, doing what time does when you leave it alone.

There's no script. No tour guide. No talking points from a marketing department.

Just a farmer who has spent 44 years learning everything this particular piece of ground has to teach — and loves nothing more than sharing it over a great bottle.

That's the t-shirt. That's the hat. That's the cave. That's what you get when you come visit us.

Very few August tastings remaining.

Call us — 707-963-8600

— Todd

08/05/2026

My father Gus never went to w**e school.

He didn't need to.

What you're looking at is a 1964 advance w**e offering from Plain Old Pearson's in Washington D.C. — Bordeaux and Burgundy from what they called "the century's most celebrated vintages." Lafite. Latour. Petrus. Cheval Blanc. Mouton Rothschild.

And covering every inch of white space — in Gus's own handwriting — are his notes. Prices compared. Bottles circled. Shorthand only he understood. A man teaching himself the greatest w**es in the world, one margin at a time.

Nobody told him to do this. No class, no mentor, no one guiding him. He just loved w**e enough to study it like it mattered.

Thirty years later his son broke ground on a hillside above St. Helena with nothing but raw land and everything Gus had quietly taught him.

That piece of paper is framed on my wall. I look at it every day. Gus lived to see what it became. I'd like to think those margin notes had something to do with it.

Some educations don't come with a diploma.

What's the most important thing someone taught you — who never had a formal credential in it?

Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600

— Todd

07/30/2026

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

George, my father-in-law is 86. He was once the largest grape grower in California — 8,000 acres. He helped open up Paso Robles, the Central Coast, Edna Valley. He knew every pioneer in this industry personally.

When George had ideas about how to save struggling vines, you'd think people would listen. They didn't.

We have combined some of George's with some of ours at Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyards. George's secret biodynamic solution for the root system, which we run through the drip system, combined with our reflective foil down every row, has made our vineyards healthier and stronger than ever. The foil turns the vineyard floor into a giant reflector, bouncing light up into the canopy from below. More color. Better tannin. Riper, more uniform Cabernet.

It's working.

Turns out it's not that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. It's that the young ones aren't always ready to learn them.

Have you ever had an idea nobody believed in — until it worked?

Cave tastings by appointment: 707-963-8600

— Todd

07/20/2026

I knew them all.

The people in this photo built California w**e. Not as a brand. Not as a business category. As something worth caring about.

Justin and Bonny Meyer. Al Brounstein. Henri Jayer. Mike Grgich. Warren Winiarski. The Raymond brothers. Robert Mondavi. Gustav Dalla Valle. Louis Martini. Chuck Wagner. Joe Heitz. André Tchelistcheff.

I sold grapes to some of them. I learned from all of them.

These were w**emakers. Not producers. Not brand managers. Not portfolio directors. People who farmed their own land, made their own decisions, and put something of themselves into every bottle they ever made.

They're almost all gone now.

And what's replacing them isn't the same thing. It's something more efficient, more scalable, more market-driven. It produces w**e instead of making it.

The w**e in your glass knows the difference. It always does.
I'm still here. Still on the tractor. Still farming the same land I started with 44 years ago.

I don't know how many of us are left.

Cave tastings by appointment — call or text 707-963-8600

Who shaped your passion for w**e — and are they still remembered the way they should be?
— Todd

07/17/2026

Our granddaughter Sophia lives in Boston.
She's 16 weeks old, and she says ALL IN! 🍷

She has no idea yet that her grandfather has been farming the same valley in Napa for 44 years. But someday she will.

Sarah and I are heading to Boston this week — and bringing Anderson's Conn Valley with us. When family is the reason for the trip, everything else falls into place naturally.

Join us for a pop-up tasting!
Wednesday July 22nd
4 - 6pm
The Vermilion Club
115 Federal Street
Boston, MA 02110

Complimentary for active w**e club members.
Friends and fans welcome — $85 per person.

Call or text to RSVP: 707-963-8600
or email [email protected]

Hope to see you there! — Todd, Sarah & Sophia 😊

Address

680 Rossi Road
Saint Helena, CA
94574

Website

http://www.connvalleyvineyards.com/

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