The Town of Yountville

In 1831, George Calvert Yount became the first white settler in the Napa Valley. He planted the first vineyard and was also the first United States citizen to receive a Spanish land grant in the Napa Valley in 1836. In 1855, Mr. Yount brought in a surveyor to lay out a city which he named Sebastopol, in spite of the fact that there was already a town over the hill with the same name. Two years after his death in 1867, the town was renamed Yountville in honor of its founder.

Immigrant Gottleib Groezinger purchased twenty acres of land from the Yount estate in 1870 and built a winery, barrel room and distillery. The buildings remained a winery until 1955, but for eleven years lay dormant until it was brought to its present state.

Today the three massive stone buildings are known as Vintage 1870, and house a collection of specialty shops and restaurants. Yountville has many fine shops, restaurants, art galleries and wineries. It is also the home to a Mobil five-star restaurant: the French Laundry, considered by many food critics to be the finest restaurant in the world.

Please click here to find a Yountville inn.