Jan Krupp

CoProprietor
Krupp Brothers LLC
3267 Soda Canyon Road, Napa
kruppbrothers.com
6,500 case production

Interview by Diana H. Stockton

When Jan Krupp graduated from Yale he thought he’d have more fun going to medical school out in California than on the East Coast, so he applied to Stanford, got in and says it really was more fun the first couple of years in that sunny and relaxed atmosphere. Once his courses changed from scientific to clinical, though, Stanford Medical School was exhausting. Jan had a professor of oncology, however, who was also a home winemaker and determined to teach Jan how to make really great wine. After his clinical rotation was done, the professor took Jan and his lab partner back to his house and commenced handson instruction in winemaking most successfully.

Not only did Jan thoroughly enjoy the process and begin visiting wineries like Mirassou Winery in the Santa Clara Valley and Ridge Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and tasting wellknown wines, with Ridge Monte Bello and Château Margaux as his benchmarks, but he also made home wine for fifteen years as a hobby. Besides establishing a medical practice, Jan pursued various winerelated classes at UC Davis while constantly asking his friends and colleagues about wine. In addition to Cabernet, Jan tried his hand at Petite Sirah, Zinfandel and Pinot Noir, even a Chardonnay and won several awards along the way. In the mid1970’s he began tasting fruit in Napa Valley after buying grapes from Wine and the People in Berkeley sourced from the Fay vineyard in Napa. He next bought from Teldeschi in Sonoma and then Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa.

Eventually, Jan began looking for a backyard vineyard to call his own. Although he grew up in suburban New Jersey, he loved rural life. Each summer, when he was 8, 9 and 10 years old, Jan took the train down to stay with an uncle who had a farm in Virginia and helped tend crops of vegetables and flowers. Later, Jan went to summer camp in Vermont. He just thought country life was much more pleasant. One day during a grapesourcing trip, he found himself at lunch at Chateau Souverain overlooking its vineyard and said to himself, “Someday, I want to live like this,” thinking it was a most unlikely dream. After looking at properties all over Napa Valley, an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle for land on Soda Canyon Road caught Jan’s eye. He said it seemed too good to be true, but decided to check it out. He conferred with several consultants who liked the area but had reservations about its access. Water was also an issue. Several prospective buyers had looked at the property and given up. Unfazed, Jan bought 41 acres of brush and rock in 1991. He called in a well driller, and he and the realtor picked a spot for the well. So much water came in, Jan says, that the well driller was knocked off his seat!

There were still traces of old vines on the property. After many consultations with “several really smart farmers,” twentythree acres of Krupp Vineyard was planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. (Jan’s farmers included Peter Nissen of Nissen Vineyard Services, Armando Ceja with Will Nord of Nord Vineyards and Peter Murphy of Ag Tech Services; initial grape stock came from Sunridge Nursery.) Jan had undertaken the project thinking to sell most of the fruit, but in 1993 there was such a tremendous amount of new Cabernet on the market it took him 50 cold calls to get three offers to buy. He sold it all except what he needed for his annual homemade wine. And when Warren Winiarski came and tasted that, he said it reminded him of Nathan Fay’s, that he was as inspired as he had been by Nathan’s homemade wine. Krupp Vineyards steadily added more grape clients to its roster and started a waiting list.

In 1995, 750 acres of an adjacent untamed wilderness came up for sale. 40 of its acres had been in vines in the 1800’s but the vineyard had been let go during Prohibition and deer had since had the run of the land. Jan says several knowledgeable vintners had already turned down the piece despite its red soil. The lunar landscape was rock strewn, with an apparent dearth of water but, invoking The Winemaker’s Dance, Jan says Stagecoach has the same soil as Oakville and that the “all rocks and no water” challenge was equivalent to saving patients—consulting, making a plan and developing strategies. So, Jan together with his father and his brother Bart bought Stagecoach Vineyard. The well sites a geologist selected for Stagecoach gave no water at 300’ down, but a douser found an underground stream at 400’, and when the engineered wells were deepened to 400’ they, too, brought in water. In order to plant the 400acre heart of the site, Krupp needed 26 mutual easements with abutting properties to build an access road and further maintenance and construction permits necessitated 135 more legal documents. Although the permitting took a year, the road was built in a month, and then hundreds of thousands of tons of volcanic rock were removed.

Jan’s brother Bart handles the financial planning and any supply challenges for Krupp; Jan oversees its wine programs and vineyard development. For five years, Krupp planted almost 100 acres a year. Jan would be out in the field at six, then come in to shower off the red dirt, change, and drive to his practice in Pinole while telephoning Napa with what needed to be done next to develop the vineyards. Evenings he’d go out on the back balcony of his house to check on the progress of the D9 Caterpillar tractor and confer with his brother in New Jersey. When there were 500 acres of grapes in 1998, Jan retired from his medical practice. The next year, Krupp added an adjacent 50acre vineyard, Krupp Brothers Vineyard, to its holdings. 1999 was also the year of Krupp’s first vintage under its Veraison label, a Cabernet Sauvignon made with Joe Cafaro at Miner Family Vineyards. Jan says, “Finally there was light at the end of the tunnel.”

Currently, Krupp has sixty clients that buy ninety percent of its fruit from all three vineyards, which stretch from Atlas Peak to Pritchard Hill. Jan says Krupp owes its success today to Dick Peterson who really opened up the region to the south of Stagecoach when he established the reputation of Atlas Peak Vineyard, and to the Chappellets to the north on Pritchard Hill. Because of their altitude, the vineyards are above the fogline. Area days are generally cooler with less heat but more sunlight than on the Valley floor and, since cold air generally sinks and rolls away, nights are warmer. After the frost of 2001, however, wind machines were installed in both Krupp and Stagecoach Vineyards—in time to dispel severe frosts in 2002 (and 2008). Esteban Llamas is Krupp’s vineyard manager with viticulturalist Amy Warnock consulting and the participation of Bob Gallagher of Crop Care Associates, Inc. Krupp farms sustainably, practicing no till, its cover crops a mix of native grasses, fescues and clover. Raptor poles are in place throughout the vineyards as well as owl boxes. Irrigation is by drip and is well fed; there is no reservoir.

Tres Goetting is winemaker with Aaron Pott consulting as well as Jan. The vineyards are planted to 13 wine grape varieties including twentytwo clones of Cabernet Sauvignon that make up slightly more than half the plantings. The other half is devoted to Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot; Petite Sirah; Syrah; Chardonnay, Marsanne, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier; Sangiovese; Tempranillo; Zinfandel; and a recent planting of Grenache. Dave Miner is responsible for there being Krupp Chardonnay—he really twisted Jan’s arm, and Jan’s late son, Joshua, was responsible for its Marsanne and Viognier. Josh had gone to UC Davis and spent three years at Fisher Vineyards as well as interning at M. Chapoutier in the Rhône before joining Krupp. He advised adding another white to the Krupp portfolio when Chapoutier had said to plant Syrah. “And Marsanne,” Josh had insisted, as well as Viognier, so 3.8 acres of Merlot vines were grafted over with ENTAV and Tablas Marsanne budwood in 2003 that Jan calls “fabulous.” In 2004, Krupp grafted over its Sangiovese to Viognier with budwood from Pride Mountain Vineyards and the former Sonoma Grapevines. Viognier and Marsanne together with Chardonnay go into the blend, “The Bride,” a popular white wine unique to Krupp. In addition to its Chardonnay, Marsanne, and The Bride, Krupp also offers a number of single red varieties as well as unique red blends.

Currently, all Krupp wines are made at Laird Family Estate, but the permitting process is underway for a winery of its own in Napa on the Silverado Trail. Jan says Krupp has been very successful, especially with its vineyard. Wine, on the other hand, follows a bumpier road and is a business one really has to work at. In pursuing that road, Jan has studied many of the ‘doctors with vines and wineries’ and determined that those who have done it right have been both handson and informed by their consults—all those “smart farmers.” Jan also continues to confer with his Krupp customers and wine and business associates. Like medicine, winegrowing must be practiced. Jan has had to relinquish playing clarinet and saxophone and give up tennis to live his “unlikely dream,” fulltime, but he couldn’t be happier and has even learned to take the occasional sales trip on the road away from Napa in his stride.