Hendry Winery
One family, 114 acres at the foot of Mt. Veeder, and nothing in the bottle that was not grown on the ranch. You taste on the farmhouse porch.
Why go
George W. and Margaret Hendry made this ranch their home in 1939 and the family counts 87 years of farming it.1 The vines run to 114 acres in the low hills northwest of Napa town, and enough marine air reaches them that the family grows many different varieties on one property rather than betting the ranch on Cabernet.1 Every Hendry wine comes off those estate grapes.1 What they say they are after is good wine at a fair price. In growing good grapes, and keeping the winemaking simple,
which is a plain thing to say on this stretch of the valley and shows up in what a bottle costs.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the guided tasting on the front porch. It is how this winery hosts, and the staff walk you through the ranch rather than a script.1
- Avoid: arriving on spec. Hendry works by appointment and the ranch is up Redwood Road, not on the highway.1
What locals & experts say
- Kelli White, sommelier, in Napa Valley Then and Now:
Straightforward, delicious, and priced with an eye toward value, the Hendry wines offer an unpretentious counterpoint to an increasingly precious Napa Valley. The operation remains firmly in family hands, and the already impressive quality seems to improve with each passing year.
Read on the winery's own page rather than in the book.1 - The San Francisco Chronicle, on the tasting:
The staff here is among the most knowledgeable of any tasting room in Napa Valley, and the guided tastings on the front porch of the farmhouse-like winery strike the perfect balance of casual and informative.
Also read on the winery's page; the Chronicle is behind a paywall this batch could not reach.1
Good to know
- Booking: by appointment. The winery invites visitors on its own page and publishes no walk-in policy.1
- The Chronicle claim: the winery says it has made the paper's Top Wineries list six years running, 2021 to 2026. That is the winery's own line and the roster was not read.1
- Hygiene: not established. No inspection instrument for this county is on file here.
Verdict
should-visit — One family has farmed this ranch at the foot of Mt. Veeder since 1939, they bottle nothing that is not grown on their own 114 acres, and the tasting happens on the porch of the farmhouse. Kelli White, writing in Napa Valley Then and Now, calls the wines 'straightforward, delicious, and priced with an eye toward value... an unpretentious counterpoint to an increasingly precious Napa Valley', which is the case for driving out here rather than up Highway 29. Read that quote with one caveat: it was read on the winery's own page, as was the Chronicle line beside it, and neither was verified at its publication. Marine air off the bay is why a single ranch can grow this many varieties, and that is the thing worth asking about on the porch.