San Luis Obispo County CA Archives Photo Place.....York Mountain Winery 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com November 23, 2006, 10:37 pm

Source:             Discovering San Luis Obispo County
Photo can be seen at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanluisobispo/photos/yorkmoun51gph.jpg
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YORK MOUNTAIN WINERY

History and Description:

The York Mountain Winery sits, appropriately enough, atop York Mountain in the
outskirts of Templeton. Relatively few changes have been made to it since its
establishment in 1882 by Andrew York,  Gold attracted York to California in
1853, but soon he returned to his home in the East.  Twenty years later he came
back to California and settled on the present site of the winery.  He became a
grape grower and in 1882 started construction on the winery.

Upon entering the winery, I could not help but feel I was experiencing a tomb or
cavern.  The first floor of the structure was dug out of the side of the hill
and lined with stone masonry walls, the stones of which were taken from the
surrounding area.  The floors are made of clay and rock with a rustic, natural
texture.  The building is poorly lit with electricity that is only a relatively
recent addition. The main room downstairs, approximately fifty feet square, is
lined with rows of huge 7500-gallon redwood wine casks.  In front of this
original room an office and wine tasting room was built, circa 1890.  It was
constructed of red brick fired right on the premises. Later these walls began to
fail structurally, so a tension cable was used to hold the walls together. A
fermenting room was built above the original building in the 1890's,  The
structure consists of huge timber columns with a peaked open-beam roof.  In 1964
the shingled roof was torn off by tornado-force winds. Aluminum roofing was used
to repair it.  The winery still has in it much of the original working
equipment, such as the grape crusher, pulp press, bottle filler, and chairs and
desks. Three generations of Yorks had run the winery until 1965 when the last
grapes were crushed.  Many reasons were given as to why it closed.  One of these
is the fact that the grape crops were being destroyed by deer.

The winery has recently been purchased by Mr. Goldman, and is now in the process
of being restored.  Mr. Goldman plans to use new machinery to make wine and
champagne and preserve the old machinery for a small museum he plans to add onto
the building.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Discovering San Luis Obispo County
by
Carleton M. Winslow

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanluisobispo/photos/yorkmoun51gph.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/

File size: 3.0 Kb