Neyers Vineyards and Winery: The Story
Bruce and Barbara Neyers moved to the Napa Valley in 1972 when Bruce joined Mayacamas Winery. In 1974, they moved to Germany where he worked for a small winery in the Nahe Region. They returned to California in 1975, and Bruce became National Sales Manager for Joseph Phelps. In 1979, Barbara was hired at Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, originally as a line cook. She spent the next 20 years there. In 1984, they bought a 45-acre parcel in Conn Valley, in the hills a few miles east of Saint Helena, and began to develop 20-acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot vines. Their first harvest was 1992, and they now produce 15,000 cases annually. The winery is in the Napa Valley, but Bruce’s experience with Berkeley-based wine importer Kermit Lynch has had a strong influence on Neyers wines. Many of the French producers Bruce worked with farm organically, make their wines naturally without use of cultured yeast or laboratory designed malo-lactic starter, and bottle their wines without fining or filtration. The Neyers plan was to utilize these ‘Old World’ ideas.
While their early wines were made under a ‘Custom-Crush’ agreement with Rombauer Vineyards, in 1998 they bought a 30-acre parcel in the Sage Canyon region of Napa Valley, and built a state-of-the-art winery facility. In 2017, Bruce and Barbara formed a Joint Venture partnership with Trinchero Family Estates. Today, they remain active in the operation of the vineyard and the winery, along with their oldest daughter Elizabeth, and their winemaker Tadeo Borchardt, who has been with them since 2004.