Winery Story

Hourglass

When Jeff Smith talks about Hourglass Winery, there’s a sense of both reverence and reinvention in his voice. “Our story really starts with my dad,” he says, referring to Ned Smith, who left a successful advertising career in San Francisco in the 1960s to chase a dream in a then-sleepy Napa Valley. “In the Mad Men era of the early ’50s and ’60s, my family was living in the Bay Area, working corporate radio and television gigs. Burned out on the corporate grind, he longed for a lifestyle change and wanted to do something more entrepreneurial.”

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That impulse took Ned to Napa in 1964, a time when prune orchards outnumbered vineyards. “He thought people would eventually be drawn to what he believed was the most beautiful place he had ever seen,” Jeff recalls. “He figured populations would expand outside the Bay Area.” Ned earned his real-estate license and became only the...