Chiles Valley, a long, narrow valley running north-west to south-east at 800 to 1,200 feet of elevation, obtained it's AVA designation in 1999. The terrain is gently sloping, providing superior drainage and shallow soils. In addition, the average temperature is 4-5 degrees cooler than the adjoining Napa Valley floor. This provides for cooler nights, a later bud break and a later harvest than most of Napa Valley. These qualities lend a more refined and balanced character to Chiles Valley wines coupled with a unique combination of a high degree of fruitiness and acidity.

In William Heintz's book, California's Napa Valley, "the wines tastes better, somehow, when the taster knows something of the history of the place and the men and women who built it —where they came from why they came to Napa, what their achievements were."

To examine Chiles Valley, located northeast and above the Napa Valley, yet still being part of the Napa Valley, is to look at the uniqueness of its settlement and understand how being late in the colonization of the Northern frontier of Mexico affected this area.

The Valley had been occupied by the Native American tribes of the Nation of Wintun, which covered the area from far Northern California to the Sacramento delta. The tribes of Patwin, Suysun, Pomo and finally the Wappo, lived and occupied the land for centuries. The Valley was considered "unfriendly" and "wild" and the ordinary colonists who came north from Mexico to settle did not venture to this territory. The colonists who had come North were families from Mexico and the foreigners who came to the country who integrated by marrying into the society, adopting the religion and the vowing allegiance to the country and Mexican government.

Then a major change happened in the immigration pattern. The High Sierras had stood as California's fortress against the eastern part of North America. The colonization had been from the South and around the Horn in ships. Now men started coming over the mountains.

Sparse grants were given in the Napa Valley to singular men—George Yount, Edward Turner Bale, Salvadore Vallejo—men who were able to fight by themselves and be self-sufficient. The final man given a land grant by Mexico in 1844, was of a different type from the others.  He was not a trapper, but an artisan. His name was Joseph B. Chiles and this was the beginning of a generation of pioneers who traveled in parties from the Mississippi Valley to try their luck and test their mettle in the Far West.

He had heard about California from a Canadian trapper/trader who was promoting the Far West and who had trapped with George Yount and William Pope in New Mexico. It took several trips to and from his home and family in Kentucky but he finally settled on the grant "Rancho Catacula" in Chiles Valley. He set up a grist mill and packaged flour under the "Catacula" label. He partnered with a son-in-law to build and operate a rope ferry company across the Sacramento River and later built a distillery and began producing whiskey on a small scale.

His enterprises prospered and he remarried—life was good and the settlement of Chiles Valley began.