Author: Gail Unzelman

During the 1870s and 1880s the California wine industry made a steady swing from Los Angeles to the north. The center of this burgeoning industry became San Francisco where great amounts of wine from the countryside were collected, blended, and shipped.

For the half-century of its modern life, most people have commonly referred to the magnificent, mammoth stone wine structure just north of St Helena in Napa Valley as Christian Bros Wine & Champagne Cellars. Historians readily call it by its birth name, Greystone. The years in between were busy years. Within a decade of its completion in 1889 by Bourn & Wise Wine Co, Greystone began its succession of property owners. In 1894 Charles Carpy, a Napa Valley wine pioneer and power in the industry, acquired it. When Carpy became a founding member of the giant California Wine Association that year, so did Greystone.

Toasting is one of our oldest social customs, evolving from prehistoric ritual, to royal banquets, to conviviality and friendship, to romance and love. Though the custom is ancient, the word “toast” dates back only to 17th century England, where it was used specifically to describe drinking to the ladies.

The California Wine Industry has embraced the use of postcards since their introduction in the U.S. in 1898 as an efficient, expressive tool to publicize their wines. The postcard front picture-image could be the winery itself, or the vineyard, cellar, tasting room, bottles of wine, or any other wine scene identifying a specific winery — with room on the back for a message and the address for mailing.

Officially, Madonna del Carmine, or El Carmelo to the parishioners, the chapel was dedicated in 1909. Before this blessed day the devoutly Catholic Asti community attended church in Cloverdale until 1893, and then fourteen years in the Asti schoolhouse. Winemaker Pietro Rossi, their beloved leader and CEO of ISC, promised them they would have a church. In 1908 work was begun on his plan to remodel the old, unused greenhouse on the property.