Outpost

Outpost Winery is located on top of Summit Lake Drive at an elevation of 2200 feet – about 10 minutes outside of the small town of Angwin. This road should almost be called Zinfandel Drive as several other premium Zinfandel producers are located within minutes of Outpost off of this same road. This is in northern Napa Valley’s Howell Mountain appellation. As a result of the elevation the property is above the Napa Valley fog and experiences light snowfall in the winter.

Outpost was founded in 1998 by Terry and Juli Pringle; their first wine was from that year, 400 cases of Zinfandel. This first vintage established what would become a long-term winemaker relationship with this site; Ehren Jordan (of Failla Wines) produced this first Outpost wine at Turley Wine Cellars where Thomas Rivers Brown was his assistant winemaker. Thomas has been associated with the Outpost wines since this first vintage.

In July of 2018 the winery was sold to the third owners, France based AXA Millesimes – a company that owns wineries in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Portugal and Hungary. The sale included both the winery, the brand, all existing inventory and both planted and non-planted acreage on site as well as the nearby True Vineyard. AXA’s vision for Outpost is a long term one which has included expanding their vineyard footprint and continuing to retain long time employees.

The name Outpost was derived over a random conversation over dinner Bouchon Restaurant in Yountville one night. As Terry and Juli Pringle began to walk out after dinner, their server wished them well on their drive back to their ‘outpost’. It would certainly be nice to track down and identify that particular server.