Anomaly Vineyards is located at the base of the Mayacamas Mountains in California's Napa Valley in the small historic town of St. Helena.
Steve and Linda Goldfarb never set out to become winemakers. In 1997, after discovering six rows of Cabernet Sauvignon growing in their backyard, they decided to harvest the fruit and make wine in their garage, despite having no formal training or prior winemaking experience. What began as a simple experiment between two curious new retirees marked the beginning of Anomaly.
Their first vintage in 1997, crafted as true “budding garagistes,” received enthusiastic praise and inspired them to pursue permits to build a small winery adjacent to their vineyard. Their inaugural commercial release in 2000 consisted of just 300 cases and sold out immediately. As the vineyards matured, the increased availability of fruit allowed production to grow gradually over time. Through every vintage, Steve and Linda have come to appreciate that great winemaking begins in the vineyard and that, ultimately, every farmer remains at the mercy of Mother Nature.
The stone winery at Anomaly is representative of the cooperation amongst wineries in the Napa Valley. As newcomers to the wine community, we retained Jon Lail and Associates of St Helena to design our winery and were fortunate to persuade Bob Eberlin of Eberlin Construction to undertake the task of building our little gem. However, before anyone could start building, we had to determine just what kind of facility we wanted. We quickly realized that we didn’t have a clue as to how to build or outfit a winery.
So we embarked on a journey of asking 30 small wineries in the Valley to advise us on what elements to include if we were to achieve our goal of producing a cabernet that we liked to drink and one that complemented fine food.
To our surprise, not one of the wineries refused to help. They told us what worked and what didn’t. They shared their secrets, and more importantly, opened their doors in the true spirit of the Napa Valley welcoming us, not as competitors, but as family.
By Harvest of 2002, our beautiful stone winery was open, replete with the best ideas from the best minds in the wine community.
We love our little winery and believe that it gives us the opportunity to make a wine that is the finest possible expression of our organic vineyard.