A small but ambitious St. Helena wine brand with a charitable bent has quietly snapped up one of the hillside parcels that had been packaged into Vineyard 29’s headline-grabbing $65 million estate listing. The purchase gives Caren and Nick Orum’s Arborum Napa Valley enough contiguous land to qualify as an estate winery and to plant new blocks on Spring Mountain. For a boutique label that donates its net proceeds, it is a big neighborhood move in a very tight Napa corner.
The owners of Vineyard 29 agreed to sell the Orums a roughly 24-acre parcel that includes just over seven acres of planted vines, pushing Arborum’s contiguous holdings to about 44 acres, with roughly 10 acres already under vine. The purchase price is staying off the record, and Wine Spectator was credited with first flagging the deal. As reported by San Francisco Chronicle, the acquisition should let Arborum lean more on estate fruit and scale back its dependence on bought grapes.
How the $65 million estate got unbundled
Vineyard 29 originally went to market as a single $65 million package that rolled together a gravity-flow winery, visitor center, subterranean caves and three vineyard parcels totaling around 38 planted acres. Owner Chuck McMinn eventually broke that up after learning that prospective buyers were eyeing different parts of the property, effectively putting the vineyards and the winery up for grabs as separate pieces. The marketing materials spell out the estate’s scope and perks, including its Highway 29 address in St. Helena, as detailed in the Vineyard 29 listing.
Arborum’s plans: plantings, farming and giving
The Orums plan to plant Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Musqué and Semillon on the newly acquired parcel this summer and intend to transition the site to organic, regenerative farming practices. They have already committed money to local social services and environmental conservation groups and have pledged that 100% of Arborum’s net proceeds will support those causes, according to PR Newswire. Arborum’s website outlines the Hidden Key estate and credits Andy Erickson as the brand’s winemaker, framing this land purchase as both an agricultural play and a philanthropic expansion for the project (Arborum).
From boutique bottlings to estate control
Since its debut vintages, Arborum has been working in tiny quantities, placing small allocations with top producers, restaurants and collectors, according to Napa Wine Project. Trade and retail listings show the Hidden Key Proprietary Red as a tightly allocated bottling, with the 2022 release coming in at about $265 on retail shelves, underscoring just how limited Arborum’s output has been so far (ACME Fine Wines). With this parcel in hand, the brand is positioned to swap some purchased fruit for estate-grown grapes and to exert more control over future vintages…