Planting a Million Trees Is Napa Winemaker Tom Gamble’s Latest Sustainability Project

Today, Gamble grows Bordeaux cultivars on approximately 175 acres in Napa’s Oakville, Yountville, Rutherford and Mt. Veeder appellations near such revered neighbors as Screaming Eagle, Silver Oak and Rudd. Most of the fruit – 95% – is sold to about 30 wineries, but in 2005 he and his wife Colette founded the Gamble Family Vineyards label to produce high-quality wines in small batches.

Most notably, what Gamble shares with his cattle-raising ancestors, particularly his parents, is a conservation ethos that drives his approach to viticulture, which today is based on regenerative agricultural practices. It has also led to broader efforts to preserve Napa’s land and water resources for generations to come, including a recent project with the local resource conservation district to plant 1 million trees in the county.

George, his father, is known as a “ranching environmentalist” who, according to Gamble, was one of the first ranchers in the area to use rotational grazing methods to allow for long rest periods; his mother, Mary Ann McGuire, was a “foot soldier” with the founding of the Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve in 1968.

This law, which originally required land parcels in the valley to be at least 20 acres, laid the groundwork for subsequent conservation efforts, including the Napa Green Land Guidelines and the Fish Friendly Farming Initiative. Gamble helped design the language behind both.

He is also among several landowners supporting the Napa River Restoration Project. In 2019, Gamble gave up 10 acres, including six planted with vines, to “allow the river to flow more naturally for flood control, environmental restoration, and better disease prevention,” Gamble says. The project involved planting 1,000 trees per mile along the river.

That effort — which has already seen some success in flood prevention — gave birth to Million Trees Napa, the gamble starring Jon-Mark Chappellet, director of business development and sustainable building practices at Trainor Builders in Napa, and Anna Chouteau, a St. Helena City Council member and of the Napa Resource Conservation District or RCD.

The idea is to plant 1 million trees across the county, approximately two trees per acre, to improve the health of the county’s forests. Gamble considers the community-operated project to be in line with fire safety efforts across the valley, including bush clearing and forest thinning.

Initially, the project will focus on growing fast-growing strains for urban areas with a focus on low-income communities, before moving to areas devastated by fires in recent years, like Glass Mountain north of St. Helena. In the past six months, Million Trees Napa has planted 518 trees with the support of 422 community members, students and teachers.

“There’s a lot of opportunity out there,” says Gamble.

The RCD uses a “science-based approach” to planting trees where they grow best and is in contact with a division of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization to measure climate benefits. The data should be helpful to the state of California, which requires all cities and counties to create a greenhouse gas climate action plan.
“No one has bothered to measure, which can confuse the message when it comes to planting a million trees — that’s our secret agenda,” says Gamble.

Gamble, whose vineyards have so far donated $20,000 to the tree project, is also contributing proceeds from the sale of the winery’s newest line of wines at a discounted price. The Mill Keeper – named after an old mill that once stood on the property where the Gamble’s house now stands – is made from grapes not suited to the finest wines. After experimenting with these grapes for three years and successfully selling them to bulk wine producers, Gamble realized they had value and he could turn them into a desirable and less expensive wine.

Since then, Mill Keeper has evolved to include multi-vintage, dated red and white wines, including blends and single varietals, that are bottled sustainably (i.e. without foil packaging and cane corks). Gamble also anticipates that the lower price point (e.g., $24 for a multi-vintage Napa Chardonnay) will attract younger and newer wine drinkers who can’t afford Napa’s usual high prices.

Gamble Wines

Of course, Gamble makes its share of premium, age-worthy, and, yes, expensive Napa wines. From the label’s founding until last year, he worked with winemaker Jim Close; Today the wines are made by a team led by Philippe Melka and Maayan Koschitzky of Atelier Melka.

Gamble is first and foremost a producer, but the winery “picks” the best for Gamble Family Vineyards’ bottlings, says Private Accounts Manager Ania Gatto as she jars Sauvignon Blanc from Gamble’s Heart Block. The block is at the center of the 12-acre Gamble Vineyard in nearby Yountville, which is planted with two French clones and produces only about 400 cases of wine. It’s “an affair of the heart,” says Gatto.

The four-hectare Family Home Vineyard was planted in 1997 on off-white volcanic soil, some of which has decomposed, on a rise below the ridgeline of the Mayacamas Mountains. Screaming Eagle’s Vineyard is planted on a neighboring hillside on a different type of volcanic soil. Family Home is where Gamble grew up and where his mother still lives today.

Family Home grapes are found in Gamble’s Paramount Proprietary Red Blend, G. Thomas Cabernet Sauvignon, and in a wine designated as a vineyard. A taste of Family Home 2015 was full of bright fruit.

Gamble’s wines are sold directly to consumers who visit the winery or its website, while a handful, such as Paramount Proprietary Red, are distributed.

One of Gamble’s goals is to produce ripe grapes with lower sugar levels so the alcohol content in his wines doesn’t rise above 14% if he can help it. This goal even applies to Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, which can easily ripen to high sugar levels in the hot California sun.

To improve the health of its vines as climate change creates hotter and drier conditions, the winery has partnered with Save Our Planet, an Italian company developing a range of solutions for sustainable agriculture. For vineyards, SOP Gamble and others are helping improve soils so climate-stressed vines have more moisture and nutrients available. Gamble says he’s seen visible improvements in his vine leaves and roots in just a few years.

It’s this blend of local and global thinking that drives Million Trees Napa. A million trees won’t change the climate change equation, but if done strategically, the trees will help, and they will empower the wider community to make a difference.

As a longtime Napa Valley grower and winemaker, Gamble reflects on the fact that while he has wisely expanded his holdings, he has not sought to gobble up other wineries.

“I’m on pretty broad shoulders,” he says. “My job is to add to my part of the legacy.”