ABOUT
An Overview of Woodside Vineyards
Originally located in the town of Woodside, Woodside Vineyards continues to be the oldest continuously operated winery in San Mateo County.
Our grapes are grown on some of the most expensive land in the Peninsula area of Woodside, Portola Valley and Los Altos Hills and includes some vines over a century old.
We're among the first to pioneer the “boutique winery” movement in California
Our founder, Bob Mullen, began producing wine from little more than one acre of grapes at the original Winery on Kings Mountain Road, in 1960. Three years later the winery became bonded, or licensed, to sell Bob's creations. We have grown to manage, harvest and produce wines from over 35 acres in Woodside and the surrounding areas.
Our premium Cabernet wines come from the legendary La Questa vines first planted by E.H. Rixford in 1884. At the time other California wine producers were selling their wines in bulk, Rixford cultivated his La Questa vines that were hand-carried from France to produce wine in the tradition of the famed Château Margaux winery. In 1915, his wine won a Gold Medal at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. The richness of Rixford's tradition is still evident in the premium estate grapes hand-crafted in the wine we produce today.
Read more about Woodside Vineyard's history and the history of wine in Woodside
Founder Bob Mullen pruning in the historic La Questa Vineyard.
Great wine starts in the vineyard
In addition to winemaking our experienced winemaker and Vineyard workers have been developing the vineyards for over five decades and continue to develop area vineyards. From planning, design, installation and maintenance, they pay close attention to the intricacies of the plant, soil, water, and typography management to ensure each estate vineyard produces grapes to our winemaking standards.
Our winemaking process is carefully controlled from the vine to the bottle
Our award-winning winemaker, Brian Caselden, personally supervises the cultivation of the grapes through each stage of the process from harvest to bottling ensuring only the highest quality and vintage character year after year. All grapes are hand-picked and sorted into small lot production requiring minimal processing and gentle handling to ensure the highest quality of wine.
The harvested grapes are brought to the winery where they are put through the destemmer to gently remove the stems and break the berries. Juice and whole berries then go into the fermentors for 10 to 14 days. The juice, pulp, seeds, skins, and the must, start to ferment sending carbon dioxide bubbling to the surface of the tank where a cap of seeds and skins forms. To insure maximum color extraction the cap of skins must be punched down below the wine surface at least three times a day during fermentation until the conversion of grape sugar into alcohol is complete. Finally the wines are transferred to oak barrels for aging. In 2021, our 34 tons (68,051 lbs) of grapes became 86 barrels and ultimately the 26,400 bottles of Woodside Vineyards 2021 vintage.
