Esther Mobley, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
When Xavier Cervantes was scouting properties in Napa, he looked in all the usual hallowed ground for vineyards: Oakville, Rutherford, Pritchard Hill. The Mexico City entrepreneur got close — in escrow — twice, once with a property on Atlas Peak, once on Howell Mountain. Both fell through at the 11th hour.
It took seven years, but after exhausting all other possibilities, Cervantes finally purchased an 1,100-acre ranch in the far eastern reaches of Napa County, the edge of the county’s viable viticultural land: Pope Valley.
Pope Valley has long been considered Napa’s less-desirable corner. Although grapes have grown there since the 19th century, it’s never been named an American Viticultural Area. Over the peak of Howell Mountain, as close to Middletown as it is to St. Helena, the area is rarely discussed, scarcely developed and largely written off as too hot for high-quality grape growing.
But as the Napa Valley floor grows ever more crowded, and its land values skyrocket, activity moves outward. Like Coombsville before it — Napa’s youngest sub-AVA, long neglected until a recent surge of interest — Pope Valley is the latest Napa region to rise from obscurity for the simple reason that it still has plantable land.
It may also be Napa’s last.