Anton Nichelini emigrated from the Swiss canton of Ticino and homesteaded a 160-acre tract of rugged wilderness in Chiles Valley, converting about 30 acres to vineyards. He was the first Swiss settler in the area, but he would not be the last. In 1890, he married Caterina Corda, another Swiss immigrant from Ticino, and the partnership that followed was as productive in family as it was in wine. Between 1891 and 1916, Anton and Caterina had twelve children, all of whom attended the Chiles Valley one-room schoolhouse. Anton built a Greek Revival house on top of his stone winery - a practical arrangement that kept the living quarters cool in summer and made checking on the barrels a matter of walking downstairs. He was also a skilled miner who patented new smelting techniques, working the chromium and magnesite deposits that his property happened to sit on. Rancher, vintner, miner, father of twelve: the man stayed busy.

When Prohibition arrived in 1920, the Nichelini Winery shut its doors in the way that a theater goes dark between acts - technically closed, still very much in business. The family's bootlegging was an open secret in the valley. Beyond Clifford Clark's letter, the winery was well known as a source of wine for anyone who knew where to look, which in a rural valley was essentially everyone. A warning fine came in 1923. Anton was arrested on January 8, 1924, and taken to the St. Helena jail. The arrest did not meaningfully alter operations. The Nichelini family continued to supply wine to local miners and Bay Area residents, sometimes disguising deliveries as sacramental wine. When the Volstead Act was finally repealed, Anton's son William reopened the winery officially, restoring a legality that had been more theoretical than practical for over a decade.

The physical property tells Nichelini's story as clearly as any archive. The 1886 Homestead Cabin, recently restored, is believed to be the only structure of its kind remaining in Napa County, earning a place on the Napa Valley Historical Society's "10 Treasures" list. The stone winery that Anton built in the hillside, with his Greek Revival home constructed directly above it, stands as a monument to immigrant pragmatism: one structure serving both domestic and commercial purposes, the weight of family life literally resting on the foundation of their livelihood. The entire property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In an era when Napa Valley wineries compete to build the most striking architectural statements, Nichelini's buildings make their case through survival rather than spectacle.

The succession reads like a family tree because it is one. After Anton, his son William took over. Then James Nichelini. Then Jo-Ann Nichelini Meyer. Then Gregory Boeger, followed by Justin Boeger, and now Aimee Sunseri, who was named Woman Winemaker of the Year at the 2017 International Women's Wine Competition. Sunseri is the seventh family winemaker in this unbroken chain. The winery produces only about 2,500 cases a year - a fraction of what the valley's larger operations turn out, but enough to maintain the tradition that Anton started with his 30 acres of vines. The winery today is collectively owned and operated by the descendants of Anton and Caterina's twelve children, a corporate structure that is less a board of directors than a family reunion with legal standing.

Nichelini Family Winery has survived Mexican land grants giving way to American settlement, the temperance movement, Prohibition and its federal agents, the consolidation of Napa Valley by corporate wine interests, and the transformation of wine country from agricultural region to luxury tourism destination. Through all of it, the family kept making wine. They never sold. They never merged. They never hired a celebrity architect to redesign the tasting room. The homestead cabin still stands. The stone winery still holds barrels. The family still owns the land that Anton homesteaded when Chiles Valley was rugged wilderness and the nearest town was Monticello - a town that no longer exists, drowned beneath Lake Berryessa in the 1950s. The Nichelinis outlasted their neighbors, outlasted Prohibition, and show every sign of outlasting whatever comes next.