Beaulieu Vineyard

Beaulieu Vineyard began in Rutherford in 1900, when French immigrants Georges and Fernande de Latour bought four acres and gave the property a name meaning beautiful place in French. Georges combined winemaking with a nursery business, supplying growers with phylloxera-resistant rootstock from France. During Prohibition, sacramental-wine production allowed the estate to remain active, leaving it ready for the region’s next chapter.

That chapter accelerated in 1938 with the arrival of André Tchelistcheff, whose scientific rigour reshaped both the cellar and modern Napa winemaking. After tasting the family’s private 1936 Cabernet, he urged the de Latours to release it; the wine appeared in 1940 as Georges de Latour Private Reserve. Fernande later became one of the seven founding signatories of Napa Valley Vintners in 1944, anchoring Beaulieu Vineyard in both Rutherford history and the broader rise of Napa Cabernet.