Ehlers Estate

In 1886, San Francisco grocer Bernard Ehlers completed planting vineyards and constructing a stone winery building just north of St. Helena in the Napa Valley. “Ehlers Lane” still runs east from Hwy 29 to the original property. Various owners took over the land after it was sold by the Ehler family in 1923. The estate became part of a number of wineries, including Conn Creek, Saintsbury, Vichon, and Stratford Winery.

In 1987, Parisians Jean and Sylvaine Leducq began re-purchasing tracts of land and planting them to Bordeaux varietals. In 2001, the original stone winery and home built by Bernard Ehlers were purchased, thus reuniting the original estate. The stewardship of Ehlers Estate is now in the trust of The Leducq Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to funding international cardiovascular research. All profits created by the winery flow back to the foundation.

Ehlers Estate’s vineyards are farmed biodynamically using the approach conceived by Rudolf Steiner. Biodynamics was the first farming system that offered a holistic, grassroots alternative to industrialized agriculture. Today, it is being adopted by many of the world’s best wineries.