As if you really needed another introduction, the

School House story always bears repeating! With all of the hoopla surrounding so many new projects around the Napa Valley, it’s easy to miss some of the old ones doing business the way it’s always been done in the Valley. Take John Gantner Jr. and Nancy Walker’s School House Vineyard atop Spring Mountain. Gantner is actually a direct descendant of General Salvadore Vallejo, and this mountaintop vineyard property was once part of Vallejo’s massive California empire as well as the home of the area’s lone school house that graced the property until its untimely demise by fire back in the 1980s. There’s a tiny plot of Zinfandel vines (interplanted, as was the custom is those days, with several other old varieties) that dates mostly from 1890 that is still producing great wine, but it was Gantner’s dad, John Sr., who first planted Pinot Noir up there in the 1950s at the suggestion of Napa Valley legends Andre Tchelistcheff and John Daniel.  They provided the vine cuttings, all culled from the original Romanee-Conti Burgundy selection grubbed up at Inglenook so they could plant better-suited Cab instead. These are not the ‘suitcase selection’ of Burgundy clones we often see, but the real deal, and the source of Beaulieu’s legendary ‘Burgundies’ of the 1940s and early 50s. Later came the School House Chardonnay (planted with the famed Wente small berry clone from Stony Hill’s late Fred McCrae). These were the first plantings of these varieties on Spring Mountain and remain the oldest in production.  They also discovered that Syrah does amazingly well atop the mountain and now produce an extraordinary, very Rhone-like version that is probably the best deal we’ve seen in that variety. While their vineyard is an immovable institution, the actual Gantner School House wines have led a peripatetic existence since their first vintage in 1955. They’ve been made, over the decades, at places like Stony Hill, Caymus, Sterling and nearby Schweiger. Winemakers have included names like Fred McCrae, Philip Togni, Bruce Scotland and a host of others. Until the most recent vintage, they have resided at Pride Mountain Vineyards under the care of, first, Bob Foley and then his protégé Sally Johnson. Considering the reputation Pride has for making wines of prodigious power, Bob and Sally have shown surprisingly delicate hands with both the School House Pinot, preserving the old clone’s sexy Cotes de Nuits-like nose and its haunting evanescent mouthfeel. This is no powerhouse California-style look-alike; this is classic Pinot Noir cut from a Burgundian pattern, providing elegant drinking when young but capable of decades and decades of cellaring. And remember this. When you open a School House Pinot Noir of any vintage, be sure to give it lots of air. It is only after some time in the decanter that it begins to unfold its layers of incredible aromas and flavors. While others are already rushing their 2023s to market, the current vintage School House Pinot is 2021. The Syrah, from a vineyard planted in the 1980s, is a knockout! I love its cooler, peppery mountainside character. There’s a lovely, meaty, brambly character that speaks so much of this unique terroir. A case of this as a house-wine is a really good idea and six bottles or so of the Pinot will keep you happy for the next decade at least!