Jessup Cellars, owned and run by Mark and Pam Jessup, produces wines from vineyards in and around Napa Valley that meet the company’s standards for premium wines and distributes them to consumers. Mark Jessup, the winemaker, scrutinizes numerous vineyards before he selects the exceptional vintages for which Jessup Cellars is famous. Mark Jessup carefully chooses among the various Napa Valley red wine and Chardonnay varieties to offer the best representatives of the valley. Jessup Cellars also recently opened a wine tasting room in Yountville, from which wines can be purchased or ordered.
In the mid-1990s, Mark Jessup founded the Jessup winery east of Napa on top of Mount Veeder. After having chosen the spot for its scenic beauty and solitude, Mark Jessup realized that his locale was not conducive to publicity or foot traffic, so he opened the retail and tasting room in the center of Napa Valley. After having partnered with new investors and making the winery more public, Mark Jessup now has a better plan to make Jessup Cellars more visible and more profitable.
Jessup Cellars believes in the old world methods of making wine and only sells wines that have been made according to their standards. Without using any filtration systems or pumps to achieve their final product, Jessup Cellars gravity racks their wines, allowing them to transfer the wine from tanks to barrels without causing the wine to lose any of its flavor or aromatics. Their grapes are also handpicked, and the winery refuses to produce wine that has been exposed to pesticides. Despite these methods bringing lower volumes of wine, the quality is far superior to that of mass-produced wines. Jessup prides itself on being a small producer that uses higher quality grapes to create red wines and Chardonnays that are intensely flavor-filled.
Mark Jessup is a dedicated winemaker who believes in a hands-on management style, which gives him that ability to monitor the winemaking process and the quality of wines that are being produced from vineyards in and around Napa Valley. Mark Jessup chooses the winery’s award-winning reds from the warmer wine country climates in the eastern parts of Napa and its Chardonnay from the cooler district of Carneros. Mark Jessup searches for fruit that has the best possible ripened flavors in its natural state and has been farmed for quality, having been picked at the perfect stage of ripeness. The fruit is then carefully harvested, pressed, and fermented into a wine any wine connoisseur would appreciate.
