Around the 1880s , San Francisco wine dealers were purchasing wine from Napa Valley vintners at low prices ( sometimes around 15 to 18 cents per gallon ) . The dealers had facilities to store and age wines that most Napa Valley vintners lacked , and thus were able to purchase wine from the vintners at low prices . Because of this , Bourn began a campaign to build the cooperative winery ; he was in his early 30s at the time . He created a business partnership with another businessman , E. Everett Wise , who was of a similar age . Bourn then asked for support within the Napa County wine industry . Bourn met with Henry Pellet , president of the St. Helena Vinicultural Club , who endorsed the idea and encouraged his associates to do the same . Bourn and Wise ended up gathering enough support from the local wine industry , and they hired George Percy and Frederick F. Hamilton of the San Francisco architectural firm Percy & Hamilton to design the Greystone Cellars , along with Italian stonemasons to build the façades , and the Ernest L. Ransome firm to handle concrete work . The plans involved the use of new materials and technology of the time , including the relatively new Portland cement . The cement was used as mortar and also poured over the iron reinforcing rods built within the first and second floor elevations . The heavy timber construction of the third floor provided structural support for not only that floor 's cask , barrel and bottle aging space but also for the gravity-flow crushing area located on the floor above . The architects planned for the cellars to hold two million gallons of wine at a time , with thirteen tunnels in the hillside behind the building to hold another million gallons . Those tunnels collapsed due to effects of water seepage and of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone