Robert Travers

1940–
Mayacamas Vineyards, Mt. Veeder

Although trained as an engineer at Stanford, Bob Travers thought he preferred finance, but, as he succeeded in business in downtown San Francisco, he found he was making more and more time for wine related classes at UC Berkeley and Davis. When Bob and his wife Nonie decided to leave San Francisco and look for something in Napa Valley, Bob jumped at the chance to work a harvest alongside Joe Heitz at Heitz Cellars. He improved his winemaking, enriched by commentary from Louis Martini and André Tchelistcheff, and felt ready to go out on his own.

In 1968, the Traverses bought Mayacamas Vineyards from a retired couple, Jack and Mary Taylor, who hadn’t lived on the property for almost a decade. Bob virtually rebuilt the estate, simplifying the number of wines offered from the Taylors’twenty to just two, Cabernet and Chardonnay, and then adding three more, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, as he made changes to existing vines and planted additional blocks. Bob’s first release at Mayacamas Vineyards was a 1968 Cabernet made with fruit from the Draper ranch on Spring Mountain as well as the estate.

When Stephen Spurrier came to California to select wines for his now famous Paris Tasting, he wanted to include the Mayacamas Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 1970, but Mayacamas was sold out. Stephen settled for the not yet ready 1971, which went off to Paris in 1976, still unreleased. Bob’s style of Cabernet is very much Old World. His wines age beautifully, but they do require aging. Although his wine placed ninth out of ten Cabernets at the tasting, in 2001 when the tasting was repeated in celebration of its 25^thanniversary, the Mayacamas 1971 was ready and placed first.

Dick went to Mayacamas ostensibly to photograph Bob. The two spent hours, however, talking about how Bob made wine. As they walked and talked, Dick would take pictures, sometimes of Bob, sometimes of the estate, where, Dick says, “joyous love permeated everything.”