2018 Inglenook Vineyard Blancaneaux

As ship’s captain, Gustave Niebaum sails into San Francisco Bay, after traveling throughout Alaska and its surrounding islands, with a cargo of fur hides and sealskins worth $600,000, a fortune at the time.

He settles in San Francisco and, along with several partners, founds the Alaska Commercial Company, which establishes trading posts and shipping lines in Alaskan territory. Within a decade of leaving Finland, Niebaum is a multi-millionaire with a refined taste for life and a dream of building an American winery to rival the great chateaus of Europe.

Niebaum buys the Inglenook property as well as the adjoining Rohlwing Farm for $48,000. After extensive travel and study, Niebaum chooses Inglenook’s site, intuiting its extraordinary potential for growing grapes. He continues to acquire smaller parcels of neighboring land over the next several years so that by 1887 he owns 1,100 contiguous acres, spending a total sum of about $60,000.

Fluent in several languages, Niebaum assiduously collects books on every aspect of winemaking, assembling a private library considered to be one of the most valuable on viticulture and oenology. John Daniel Jr.—Niebaum’s grandnephew, who assumes management of Inglenook in 1939—eventually donates this library to the University of California at Davis.

Niebaum buys the Inglenook property as well as the adjoining Rohlwing Farm for $48,000. After extensive travel and study, Niebaum chooses Inglenook’s site, intuiting its extraordinary potential for growing grapes. He continues to acquire smaller parcels of neighboring land over the next several years so that by 1887 he owns 1,100 contiguous acres, spending a total sum of about $60,000.

Fluent in several languages, Niebaum assiduously collects books on every aspect of winemaking, assembling a private library considered to be one of the most valuable on viticulture and oenology. John Daniel Jr.—Niebaum’s grandnephew, who assumes management of Inglenook in 1939—eventually donates this library to the University of California at Davis.