Saratoga, Calif. – Although the popular vision of California wine is dazzled by the starburst likes of Napa Valley, the fact is that California has hundreds of wineries that trade less on glitter and more on grit.

Usually these are small family wineries committed to a personal vision that pays little heed – and often receives the same in kind – to the handful of powerful critics whose high scores and worshipful words translate into big bucks. Of course, the small wineries would be pleased with such recognition. But to live and strive for it? Such is not their way.

A good example is Kathryn Kennedy Winery in Saratoga, close to the likes of Apple Computer and hundreds of other Silicon Valley moneymakers. Saratoga is an old town at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains in what Bay Area denizens call “the Peninsula,” the tip of which is San Francisco. Until recently, it was largely devoted to agriculture, horse farms, and logging.

Saratoga does have a history of gentility. Fifty miles south of San Francisco, it was first a logging community. That gave way to agriculture (apricots, cherries, and French prunes). But its sunny hillsides proved ideal for wine grapes and in 1890 the French winegrower Paul Masson made Saratoga the home of his eponymous winery.

Today, Paul Masson wouldn’t recognize the place. The hillsides he treasured are now encrusted with steroidal suburban “McMansions” invariably described as Tuscan-style. (The locals in Tuscany would be agog – and aghast – at the comparison.)

Kathryn Kennedy Winery is a literal island of vines – just seven acres – in a sea of these houses. When you approach the entrance on Pierce Road (the original Paul Masson winery was on the same road a century ago), you discover a pocket of 33-year-old cabernet sauvignon vines surrounded by manicured suburban lawns. Two small, ramshackle houses occupy the property. It is so odd, so disconcerting, that you expect Edward Scissorhands to come out to greet you.

Instead you get Marty Mathis, 48, who makes the wine and tends the vines that Kathryn Kennedy, his mother, planted herself more than three decades ago. Mrs. Kennedy, 79, is now slow of step but quick of mind and always proudly stubborn. “We’re not selling,” she said firmly, with a smile.

She did, in fact, toy once with the idea of selling up and getting out, applying for and receiving a city permit to subdivide her property into 1-acre housing sites, the minimum lot size in Saratoga. Each site would now sell for $1 million an acre. Two years ago she intentionally allowed the permit to lapse.”My family can sell it when I’m gone,” she said. One of Mrs. Kennedy’s other sons is a real estate developer.

Mr. Mathis, for his part, is steeling himself for that day, which he knows will happen. “There are four of us and there’s no way one of us could buy the others out in order to keep the vineyard,” he explains.

In the meantime, Mr. Mathis tends the vines lovingly and creates one of California’s most profound – and expensive – cabernet sauvignons. Designated the “Estate” bottling, it’s dense, rich, structured wine notable for an entrancing amalgam of violets and iron, a combination this taster is hard-pressed to recall in any other cabernet sauvignon from anywhere. Typically, just 700 cases of wine emerge each year from those 7 acres, thanks to yields of little more than 1 3/4 tons an acre (a low yield in Napa Valley is 4 tons an acre).

Mr. Mathis and I tasted 14 vintages of Kathryn Kennedy “Estate” cabernet sauvignon and this iron-and-violets quality appeared more often than not. (Older vintages, from the early 1980s, showed more tobacco and cedar, partly from sheer age and partly from a less “clean” winemaking style; newer vintages, starting in the 1990s, are more berryish, with better flavor delineation.)

Three Estate cabernets are currently available directly from the winery (www.kathrynkennedywinery.com): 2000, 2001, and 2002. The 2000 and 2002 vintages are $145, with the 2001 asking $160 a bottle.

Of the three, the 2000 was my favorite, with an intense scent of black cherries and dark chocolate and an enticing suppleness, with shy hints of the iron minerality and violets still to come. The 2001 is, thanks to the heat of the vintage, a bit overripe and alcoholic for my taste, but this lush style is now fashionable and sought after by some tasters, hence the higher price. The 2002 was back in form, in a lighter (relatively speaking) fashion, which itself may have seemed that way coming as it did after the ponderous 2001.

Mr. Mathis makes other wines as well. Look for the less expensive ($45) Small Lot Cabernet Sauvignon, which shows that Saratoga’s viticultural heritage is not lost altogether.”It’s called Small Lot because it comes from five or six tiny vineyards in the neighborhood,” says Mr. Mathis, waving his arm to encompass the high-end housing sprawl on the hillsides around him.

“You see, because the minimum lot size is 1 acre, there’s enough land after the house is built to put in a 1/4-acre vineyard,” he explains. “So the owners put them in, kind of like a front lawn. There are enough of them that you’ve got firms that work only on microvineyards, not only installing them, but also doing all the pruning, fertilizing, and picking.

“Ironically, I now have more Santa Cruz Mountain cabernet available to me today than before all these houses were built,” Mr. Mathis said with a laugh. “Who could have imagined that?”