s it was originally proposed, the Stags Leap District in the Napa Valley would have been much smaller. The area, south of Yountville and north of the city of Napa might have had only 400-to-600 acres instead of the 1,300 it has now. Clos du Val Winery, one of the region’s iconic wineries would have been a mugwamp with half of one of its vineyards in the district, and the other in limbo. And the western boundary wouldn’t have reached across the Silverado Trail to the Napa River, thus eliminating some wineries and growers.

But according to Dick Steltzner, who helped formulate the SLD American Viticultural Area (AVA), powerful forces such as Robert Mondavi and the Disney family (Silverado Vineyards), helped to propel the debate, resulting in the region expanding and becoming more inclusive.

The boundary eventually ended up at the Yountville Crossroad to the north and to the river on the west, to seven miles north of Napa, which allowed Clos du Val to fold in its entire vineyard parcel.

Today, the mile-wide district, which is only three miles long, includes nearly 20 wineries and about 14 growers, and due to such stalwart wineries as Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Chimney Rock, Shafer, and the aforementioned Clos du Val, the Stags Leap District has become quite the neighborhood. It is considered to be one of the most important AVAs in the country.

Steltzner, a fun-loving crusty sort, who owns Steltzner Vineyards, was one of the first to plant a vineyard in the area, three years after Nathan Fay put in the vineyard in 1961 that would help catapult Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars to international fame.

In 1977, a year after Warren Winiarksi’s Cabernet Sauvignon took top honors in the single most important tasting in American wine history, Steltzner says he was the first to put the words, “Stags Leap District” on his labels, before there even was a SLD. In ’80, the feds finally caught on to his ploy and ordered him to cease and desist.

A dozen years later, however, SLD finally received its official sanction as an AVA.

Steltzner says he was not so much influenced by Fay, as he learned from him. “It was another new vineyard,” is the way he describes Fay’s vineyard, which was then more than a decade away from gaining the fame it achieved after Winiarski’s Cab took the Paris Tasting in ’76. “But I recognized Nate’s knowledge in that he was sophisticated and understood French wines.

“When I was putting my vineyard in, I would often have lunch with Nate and his wife. I was working hard and was single and when someone was going to offer you lunch, why not? We talked about wine and grapes. I sucked up all the information I could from him. But he was not an influence. I was already on that path with my own ideas.”

Steltzner, who claims that early in his career he put in the vineyards for the aforementioned Clos du Val, Spring Mountain, and what would become the iconic Diamond Creek, reveals the reason why he so vigorously insisted that the word “district” be attached to Stags Leap’s official AVA name: “It was for a practical reason,” he begins to explain. “I was also growing rice (at the time), and I learned a lot of codes in California that covered (agricultural) districts. When you’re a certified district, you’re given from the county, all agenda items that would be rule changes. Today the county doesn’t want to do that. … But it makes for an orderly thing.”

Steltzer characterizes his decision in ’64 to plant 28 acres on what was then a hay field [he now has 80 acres] as “dumb luck”. He notes that his serendipity has paid off both for himself and his colleagues in an area that is predominated by world-class Cabernet Sauvignon.

“At that time (in the early ‘60s) you could buy anything in the Napa Valley for $2,000 an acre, which was an astronomical price,” he explains when asked why he settled in that specific area. “Grapes were selling for $175 a ton (they are now upwards of $6,000). It was affordable for me and I thought there was a future, although there was no money in it.