This article was originally published on Mar. 13th, 2026. It appears in the June 15-30, 2026, issue as “Memento Mori Co-Owner Purchases Historic Edge Hill.”
Napa vintner Hayes Drumwright has purchased the Edge Hill estate in St. Helena from Joel Gott. Edge Hill, a historic property that was renovated by the late Leslie Rudd, includes 27 acres, 6 of which are planted to a field blend of red grapes, as well as a retrofitted three-story stone winery originally built in 1876.
Drumwright, co-owner of the Memento Mori and Vida Valiente wineries, is joined in the ownership by his wife, Susana, and a group of 20 investors who are private clients of Drumwright’s other wine labels. Winemaker Sam Kaplan and general manager Genevieve Echavarrie round out the leadership of the new Edge Hill team. The purchase price was $21.5 million.
“I saw the property for the first time about two years ago,” Drumwright told Wine Spectator. “I had heard of it, but didn’t really know it. After visiting, I immediately asked Joel [Gott] for a deeper tour. I read Leslie Rudd’s 40-page history on the estate. It was all so fascinating.”
A Third Winery for Drumwright
Drumwright plans to use the Edge Hill estate as a temporary home for Vida Valiente while its winemaking facility is built, with completion there scheduled for 2030. At that point, Drumwright plans to make Edge Hill’s grapes and winery the home of a new label, Ultra Mortem. The retrofitted winery has a permit to produce 30,000 gallons annually, along with a distillery license and hospitality permit.
Drumwright has shown a knack for creating successful luxury wine brands. He has partnered with childhood friends to create Memento Mori, now housed on the former Stonescape estate in Calistoga. In Vida Valiente, he partners with Sam and Nancy Kaplan and is currently developing a winery for the brand on Crystal Springs Road, at the base of Howell Mountain.
At Edge Hill, the current vineyard is a head-trained vine mix of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Carignane and Alicante Bouschet that was planted in 2001 by Rudd as an homage to the area’s historic field blends. Drumwright’s team will remove those vines and replant, primarily with Cabernet Sauvignon.
“Still trying to figure out the vineyard,” says Kaplan. “We’re sifting through all the studies that have been done on the soils, which have been a great benefit. If all goes to plan, we would have a first wine coming in 2029 or 2030 as the Vida property finishes and we get ready to start Ultra Mortem.”
Kaplan also plans to finish figuring out the cellar. The retrofitted winery was never completed by Rudd. Gott added additional infrastructure during his ownership, but no fruit has yet been vinified in the facility.
“All the heavy lifting has been done, including the seismic work and so on. Joel [Gott] has been a great help in all this,” says Kaplan. “And now it’s almost at the fun point.”
Napa History
Located in the western hills of St. Helena, Edge Hill was founded in 1876 and is considered the oldest three-level, gravity-fed winery in Napa Valley, predating Greystone Cellars, Far Niente and Inglenook. It was a working winery in the 1800s and a family home post-Prohibition.
When Rudd acquired the property in 1999, he hired a historian to piece together its past. From native Wappo land, it became part of the Rancho Carne Humana Mexican Land Grant of 1841. In 1867, Erasmus Keyes, a Union major general during the Civil War, purchased 1,500 acres, started planting grapes and built a winery, naming the estate Edge Hill.
The property changed hands multiple times before 1900, with owners including the Heath family (when it was briefly known as Heath Cellars) and William Scheffler, an ambitious brandy producer who bought the property, installed a vacuum still and created Registered Distillery No. 209.
The estate had stopped production by 1907, when parcels of the property were sold off. Following Prohibition, the winery had a second life as a family home, starting in 1952 when Louis and Elizabeth Martini of Napa's Louis M. Martini Winery moved in. They then sold the current 27-acre property to Leslie and Susie Rudd in 1999. In 2022, Joel Gott and his wife, Sarah, founders of Joel Gott Wines, purchased the property from Leslie Rudd’s daughter Samantha.
Stay on top of important wine stories with Wine Spectator’s free Breaking News Alerts.
