Two brothers, James and William Rennie, immigrated from Scotland to the Napa Valley and purchased the property in 1885.

They planted sixty acres of grapes covering the Rutherford and St. Helena AVAs, and built their stone gravity-flow winery.

The Rennie Brothers were the descendants of British engineers (their uncle, sir John Rennie, was knighted for his work in completing the London Bridge), and they carried this creative and innovative spirit as they constructed Rennie Brothers Winery, built an estate, and financed many local bridges including the current Pope Street stone bridge in St. Helena.

They were the first in the state to use a gasoline-powered engine to crush their grapes, and they developed some well extracted vintages.

Their dreams were cut short when two unfortunate situations arose. A fire broke out, burning their press and all their barrels. In addition, phylloxera was making its way throughout Napa Valley, bringing an end to the brothers’ winemaking journey.

The property changed hands and the winery was shuttered in 1920 with Prohibition.

The beautiful old stone winery became one of many that were built between 1860 and 1900 that eventually fell into disuse in the Napa Valley. Intact but untouched for many years, these wineries came to be known as ghost wineries.

Then followed a series of exciting and historic changes. In 1933, Louis Martini purchased the property and built in the early ‘40s a large wood house where he lived with his family. In the late ‘70s, he sold to the Komes-Garvey family who then sold to the Cathiard family in January 2020.