It’s a bitingly cold morning in St. Helena when I meet up with winemaker and outdoorsman, Ketan Mody. We’re standing on Main Street, outside the Model Bakery, a popular local hangout. We’ll enter the bakery in a moment to grab coffee, but for now, the chilly air catches our breath, and we speak in clouds, exchanging news about our lives. 

I met Mody a decade ago, when he first launched his brand, Beta, showcasing wines from unusual non-estate vineyards Mody strongly favors. He was also preparing his own stretch of land to plant Jasud, an estate vineyard atop Napa Valley’s Diamond Mountain.

Jasud, Indian for hibiscus, is named after Mody’s grandmother. The first vintage of Jasud, the 2019, has yet to be released. Nowadays, his Beta Wines typically sell out within a 48-hour period. 

When we first met, he was 31, taut, energetic. Now, at 41 — having lost nearly 40% of his estate vineyard, home and much of his vineyard equipment to the 2020 wildfires — he’s circumspect, reserved. More resolute than before, but also more suspicious, turned inward. 

The difficulties intrinsic to maintaining an estate vineyard in a sometimes-volatile environment like the Napa Valley, with its wildfires, floods, and increasingly unprecedented heat, are not for those with a frivolous temperament. Add to that the trappings of the Napa Valley vintner lifestyle, with its endless stream of dinner parties, expensive restaurant engagements, and the accompanying effort required to keep up with appearances, and the pressure can be overwhelming.  

"The ego is very strong in the Napa Valley," Mody says, "and when you’re growing grapes and making wine, in its truest form, it’s about the disillusionment of ego. Farming in this way gives you the opportunity to get beyond the ego, and truly become a part of a piece of land, of nature."

Mody, now notoriously reclusive, maintains a small circle of trusted friends, but otherwise stays out of Napa Valley’s "cool kid clubs," which he views as a distraction. "A lot of winemakers come to the valley with the greatest intentions, but success is its own prison. Next thing you know, they’re making a lot more wine than they ever thought they needed to, just to keep up with the lifestyle."

"One doesn’t need to go down that road in Napa. If I can do it, other people can do it. You just have to stick to what you believe in. Within that path — the path I’ve chosen — you're not going to make 10,000 cases of wine. It’s about saying no more than saying yes. People say yes to everything. No is the most powerful word in the English language."

"What keeps me here is the community."

We hop into Mody’s Sprinter van and head south, down Highway 29, the sky brightening even though the cold refuses to leave. Our destination is a warehouse on the outskirts of town where Mody makes his wines contemporarily, until he’s able to build a winery at his estate. 

We talk about a rash of articles that have come out lately about how impossibly expensive the Napa Valley is to visit, and how expensive the wines are. He cites an especially high level of hospitality, customer service, food, and wine culture as responsible for the high-ticket price of visiting. "I mean, if writers want to complain about high prices, why not complain about Burgundy? And it’s expensive to visit Bordeaux, too."

"What keeps me here is the community," he continues. "I get to run into Ric Forman at the grocery store. I get to talk to Philip Togni. To have that level of mentorship present is rare. You’re not going to find that kind of wisdom and openness in a lot of places."

He cites winemakers who inspire his work and vision. "The Philip Togni’s of the world. The Lisa Tognis. The Mike Dunnes of the world. The Cory Emptings. The Cathy Corisons. The Ric Formans. The Brad Grimes. The Arnot-Roberts guys. These people have stuck by their convictions through thick and thin. The level of detail in their work, their mission not to waiver. I respect the people who integrate farming with winemaking."

As we wind our way down the valley, driving through downtown Napa, Mody points out restaurants and hotels I might want to check out. Though he’s aware of the latest, upscale spots and shares the information with customers headed to the Napa Valley, he’s perhaps most comfortable in a tent, preferably in the Alaskan tundra, which he visits frequently, chasing what he calls "little unicorn fish. I’m forever pursuing them."

He travels "pretty deep into Alaska and British Columbia chasing Steelhead. They’re the impetus for going on these adventures. It's been the way I’ve had adventures since I was eleven years old. Just getting out deep into the natural world." He frequently free dives, spear fishes and scuba dives off California’s Jenner Coast. 

A committed outdoorsman, he also spends much of his time on his project walking his vineyard atop Diamond Mountain, about halfway between St. Helena and Calistoga. He checks in on the Lion’s Mane mushrooms he has cultivated near an old Manzanita grove, or cuts stakes for vineyard rows from downed trees on the property. 

It’s a full and robust life, but none of it can be found on Instagram, or any other social media outlets for that matter. "Social media is fucking destroying us. It set out to target and prey upon our worst impulses. It’s really hard to find anyone who’s really positive these days, and it’s because it’s so easy to be negative and judgmental on the internet. That energy is everywhere now."

I wonder aloud how important it is for a wine brand to have a presence on social media and is it vital to sales? "No way," he tells me. He says of his customer base that social media is "not that important to them. That’s the beauty of what we’re trying to do here; connect with like-minded people, and we’ve been able to do that."

Mody confirms that much of his business has come from word-of-mouth, and that people have discovered his wines the way he discovers the wines of others, and new music, film and art: through friends". "If I want to hear more about a television show, or whatever, I just ask around. Somebody will tell me about it."

"I’m not interested in fucking making a twenty-dollar bottle of Pet Nat that’s served in some bar in Brooklyn."

He’s quick to add, though, that "discovering new things is not the most exciting thing for him. "It’s just not where I am at in my life. Where I’m at in my life right now is refinement. And, paying attention to the natural world around me. Wanting to have a relationship to that. I’m trying to get what I perceive to be the best I can out of a piece of ground, which has very little to do with me, and everything to do with refinement, observation, and the earth itself. It’s a meditative practice; a cutting away of everything else, so one can see what is actually there. That’s what I’m interested in." He adds, "I’m not interested in fucking making a twenty-dollar bottle of Pet Nat that’s served in some bar in Brooklyn. Not my cup of tea. I’m interested in the conversation about site, place and time. That’s the most beautiful thing about wine. I’m so grateful that I’ve found customers who want to have that conversation."

Mody wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s obvious he hasn’t had media trainings and doesn’t have a publicist on retainer. His intensity is palpable, his viewpoints unmanufactured. We talk about maintaining a very specific vision over time and the stamina that requires. "This business is hard. And, also, it’s hard to have a conviction and really hold onto it. Especially if it’s really demanding. It’s hard to hold and keep an idea for so long. You get one chance a year to do this, and life is so short. You don’t know how many chances you have. At the end of the day, what some people see as risk is not a risk for others. I can’t live another way. For us, it’s always been about what this site could be. There is no other option. As time goes on, that’s still the clearest path forward."

For us? And, who is the "us" in Mody’s hermetic world? His small team which includes his father and a handful of team members who have been with him from the beginning. "Nothing would happen without them. I'm so lucky to have them in my life. They’re family. There’s so much trust there. I wouldn't have been able to do this without them or my father. My father’s daily words of wisdom are what truly get me through the hard times. When I have a hard day, he's the guy I turn to. What a great father he is. We had become estranged, and wine brought us together."

Mody’s debut vintage of Beta Wines performed unusually well, his total production selling out within two weeks. I ask him if he has butterflies about sustaining that kind of success, especially as his estate-driven wines, Jasud, are set to debut. "You know, your first album’s your best, because you made it for yourself. And then it takes about ten albums to get back to that honesty. That truth. And you see that in the wine business. Those first few vintages when someone really does it for themselves, for the love of it, those first vintages are usually very strong. But it's easy to lose your way. In anything. Staying in love is a hard job. I've learned balance. I used to think I could do it all. I spent a decade working on that ranch (the Jasud Estate) night and day. And now, spending time practicing refinement, I'm taking more time for myself."

"You stay in love with it if being in the natural world is important to you. If that's where you find your reassurance and awe. It's about a place in nature, having a voice and having a conversation with that place. It's sitting by the brook and listening to the stream."

Mody was born in Georgia but was raised mostly in Florida. His mother is from Mississippi, his father born in India. He grew up in a traditional household and for a time his parents raised cattle and were peanut farmers, though his father later became a leading cardiologist.

He left home at the age of 16 to attend boarding school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. After not fitting in at public schools, he finally found like-minded friends at boarding school where he remained for two years. From there, he attended the Museum School for painting where he lasted for only three weeks. Having worked on a series of paintings on boats while there, he left to work for a boat shop where he apprenticed in wooden boat building. 

It was during this time that he was diagnosed with advanced Lyme Disease. "It got to a really advanced stage, where it was basically attacking my nervous system. I could no longer live by myself. I had to quit building boats. I returned to Florida where a doctor who specialized in Lyme Disease started my treatment." Every day for a year, Mody had a PICC line deliver IV Rocephin, a strong antibiotic, into his body. "It was a very, very difficult time," he says now. Though he is in remission, he remains cautious about his health. 

A few nights before my visit with Mody, my wife and I have a Beta–the 2017 Moon Mountain Chuy’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon — and I tell him that I found it needed at least half a day or so in the decanter. "I would think we did something wrong if we made a wine that tastes great right now and that you could still drink for 40 years. I don’t think things really work that way. I want to make wines that need time. That teach patience. Reflection. They’re not going to be pleasurable young. The most amazing thing has been meeting customers who want to get to really know a wine."

What does he think of the comparisons frequently made between his style of winemaking and wines made in the Napa Valley in the 1960s and 70s. "People fetishize everything," he says. "They’ll tell you all the wines from the Napa Valley in the 60s and 70s were fucking amazing. Nope. Probably only five were."

Rather than drawing comparisons between his wines and those of others, he prefers to taste benchmarks so that he can become familiar with greatness. "In Jiro Dreams of Sushi, there's a line, ‘To make delicious food you have to eat delicious food.’ If you want to make great wines, you have to drink great wines. In the last few years, I've been fortunate to do much more of that. I find great inspiration in fine wine."

It must be natural to wonder how one’s wines hold up to other wines available in the marketplace. Competition is prevalent and fierce in the Napa Valley. "That’s the hardest part," he says. "The exposure. Especially when you really care and the stakes are high. It's frightening to put your balls out on the table and give someone a hammer and then hope they don't hit it. My skin ain't that thick anymore. I don't have time to justify myself to people. And wine people are the worst. Over time I found a tiny community of friends I can trust in multiple ways. I listen to what they have to say about my wines."

Mody appears nervous as he thieves the Jasud wines out of a barrel for us to taste. The cellar is pitch black, save for a work lamp tucked away in the corner. Mody prefers a monastic, quiet, peaceful and dark atmosphere within which to taste and assess. 

His Jasud wines are profound in their purity, energy and brightness. Mody’s use of oak seems mostly textural and structural. The wines are jewel-like, precise, linear and focused. The 2021 is an exemplary wine: beautiful, soulful and balanced. Simply put, it’s delicious, thought-provoking. A rare offering. "I'm the proudest of this wine, of anything I've ever done," he says. 

When I ask Mody what the price will be, he’s stumped. His Beta Wines are line-priced at $85 a bottle, but the Jasud wines, for their labor-intensive nature, may toggle north of the $150 price point, which makes Mody uncomfortable. "It has to make some kind of sense financially, but I don’t want to gouge anyone. It’s something I think about all the time."

Following the 2020 wildfires, during which he lost 40% of the vines he had nourished from the ground up, Mody continues to replant and rebuild his estate. "I’m still climbing out of that hole. There is some trauma from that." He planted 27,000 vines in 2021 and continues, at the time of publication, to revive his estate vineyard. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t view this as a setback. "It takes 20 years to even start to understand something." He is not in a rush to learn from the land. 

The thoughtful way in which Mody has built both the Beta and Jasud projects speaks to his preference for the long game. He bought his vineyard in 2008, discovering then it would take four years just to have it permitted. He began logging the site in 2012, preparing the land for three years. I ask him if he added soil amendments, a common practice. "I didn’t amend shit. You see these overworked, over prepared soils, and they’re producing uninteresting wines. Hardships in soil build character."

He planted the first few blocks in 2015, utilizing clonal material that he personally sourced himself at To Kalon, MacDonald, Eisele, Spottswoode, Martha’s Vineyard and Diamond Creek; some of America’s most iconic vineyards. Most of the estate is planted on 4x4 spacing, with a smaller parcel planted to 3x3 spacing. The majority of Jasud has north-facing slopes, with the few south-facing slopes identifiable by their early-blooming wildflowers. Now that replanting is well underway, Mody says, "The second act is what I'm most excited about."

When he obtains a winery permit, he will build a small facility at the estate. "Then I’ll truly never have to leave." His winery will be small, and “a really beautiful place because our work is beautiful. It will be church-like, so that we're reverent upon entering. We're building it for ourselves. That will be the final piece. We’ll be all on our own, making micro choices, on our own. You build a house for who you want to be, not who you are. I've been building this ranch for the last 15 years. It feels like a calling," he says. "I want to know what this place tastes like. I've got to fucking know."