This event is sold out, but other dates are currently available. See our events page.
Exclusively on the September 1 Tour & Tasting, join Flora Springs Winery & Vineyards’ founders Julie & Pat Garvey!
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. On select days each month through October, we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines. On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. On select days each month through October, we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines. On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. One Sunday each month we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines.
On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
Sixteen Spirits Historical Ghost Winery Tour & Tasting:
Price: $75
Wine Club: $60 Limited to 12 guests, buy your tickets online now.
Questions? Contact us at (800) 913-1118 or info@florasprings.com.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
This event is sold out. Future dates are still available!
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. On select days each month through October, we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines. On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
Price: $75
Wine Club: $60 The June 9 tour is sold out. Future dates are still available, see our Events page.
Questions? Contact us at (800) 913-1118 or info@florasprings.com.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
This event is sold out. Future dates are still available!
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. One Sunday each month we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines. On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
Price: $75
Wine Club: $60
The April 14 tour is sold out. Future dates are still available, see our Events page. Please contact us at (800) 913-1118 or info@florasprings.com with any questions.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
The Flora Springs estate in St. Helena is home to one of the few remaining ghost wineries in Napa Valley, and one of the very few that have been revived as a working winery. We’ve often wondered about the history of our 19th century building. If its thick stone walls could talk, what would they say about this historic winery’s former inhabitants and passers-through? This longstanding intrigue was the inspiration for our Ghost Winery Malbec, an estate-grown wine we release each year at Halloween. It is also what led us to find out for ourselves if there are spirits still lingering in this place.
Introduced in 2018, our Ghost Winery Historical Tour and Tasting is one of Napa Valley’s most unique wine experiences. One Sunday each month we partner with a team of paranormal investigators from Napa City Ghosts & Legends for a fascinating walking tour of our Ghost Winery accompanied by a tasting of our Ghost Winery Malbec and other Flora Springs wines. On this trip back in time, we meet the spirits who can’t quite tear themselves away from the place they once inhabited. Past encounters have included a Scottish barrel-maker with a taste for whiskey and a 1920s flapper who didn’t want the party to end. Our investigators tell us there are sixteen souls who still roam our old stone winery, and they are anxious to make themselves known. This is a fascinating, thought-provoking tour for believers and skeptics alike. And no matter which way you lean, you’ll enjoy our Ghost Winery Malbec, a wine we make in honor of our ethereal history.
Price: $75
Wine Club: $60
The March 10 tour is sold out. Future dates are still available, see our Events page. Please contact us at (800) 913-1118 or info@florasprings.com with any questions.
About Napa City Ghosts & Legends Ellen MacFarlane is a native Napan who has lived in Napa for over 30 years. She is the proud mother of three boys, likes writing, ghosts and travel. She grew up in Napa and knew by the age of 11 she wanted to work with ghosts.
Devin Sisk is a Paranormal Investigator and creator of the Benicia Ghost Walk. He has been in the paranormal field for 11+ years, and has logged over 650 cases. He has been featured on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Eye on the Bay and More.
Recently Ellen & Devin worked on the Travel Channel’s #1 Show, Ghost Adventures.
About the Artist
Currently the official Artist in Residence at Coit Tower in San Francisco, Jeremy Fish has a degree in painting and a focus in screenprinting. His education and work experience has lead to a career as a fine artist and commercial illustrator. Finding a balance between exhibiting his work both across the US, and internationally in galleries and museums, he also maintains a presence designing skateboards, t-shirts, vinyl toys, album covers, periodical illustrations, murals, sneakers – and now, wine labels. His artwork is mainly about storytelling and communication, told through a library of characters and symbols with an emphasis on finding a balance with the imagery somewhere between all things cute and creepy. Jeremy has been based in San Francisco for the last 20 years. Learn more.
It’s no secret that Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and it’s that time of year again when we conjure up the ghosts of spirits past. September 1 – October 31, join us at The Room for a frightful good time.
Enjoy an exclusive tasting of our seasonal, winery-only Halloween wines that will send shivers down your spine, including our limited-production 2015 Ghost Winery Malbec.
Note: The following article written by Stephen Fay and published in The Ellsworth American can also be found here.
If you thought Prohibition was tough on wine drinkers, imagine what it did to wine makers.
The 13-year stretch from 1920 to 1933 just about killed the California wine industry. The Volstead Act’s ruinous disregard for a good time was especially disastrous for the Napa Valley, which had weathered the phylloxera blight of the late 19th century and the great earthquake of 1906 that flattened its warehouses only to be crushed like one of its own grapes when the “drys” prevailed.
As with any prohibition, the initial reaction was to cheat. Medicinal wines that could cure only sobriety became a hot item. But so many permits were sought for the manufacture of patent medicines that the federal authorities cracked down.
Some found religion in the Volstead Act, noting that it allowed an exclusion for sacramental wine. Religious leaders, in particular, managed to secure a steady supply with the result that attendance at Mass and temple took off. Suddenly, sacramental champagne, crème de menthe and brandy became instrumental in communing with God.
A federal judge was asked to rule on whether these alcoholic offshoots qualified for the sacramental wine exception. He ruled it was OK, saying “it is not the content of the beverage, but the purpose for which it will be used that determines whether or not it is sacramental wine.”
The Beaulieu Vineyards of Northern California sent sacramental wine to churches across the country. Wente Vineyards, Beringer and Martini also remained afloat by selling to the church. But only barely.
Because it wasn’t the same. The Napa Valley wine industry had been the finest in the nation, supplementing perfect terroir and weather with technical advice and advances from the oenological studies department at the University of California at Davis. But enforcement ramped up and production ramped down. According to an Aug. 16, 1923, story in the Napa Valley Register, the county treasury had been “enriched by $7,100 in bootleg fines from raids conducted in one day in St. Helena, Calistoga and other points in the valley.”
The result? Napa Valley wineries built between 1860 and 1900 were abandoned. Sitting empty, they were known in the valley as “ghost wineries.”
And there the story might have ended, might never have been known, were it not for the efforts of Flora Springs, arguably the source of the best reds in Northern California. A limited label — Flora Springs Ghost Winery — honors the history with an estate-grown malbec for which the adjective has not yet been invented.
It’s bull’s blood black with deep, dark fruit. The flavors of black cherry and plums join to create a single, joyous note from first sip to final swallow. This is but one of the products Prohibition sought to eradicate. And it took years before the Napa Valley recovered and restored itself to the pantheon of best wineries.
The vineyards have survived blight, earthquake, the Volstead Act and the Depression, overcoming adversity and offering a fresh take on Hemingway’s observation that “the world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong in the broken places.”
