When we started making wine I had little interest in owning a vineyard. As the years passed, that began to change. We are more interested now than ever in having an estate vineyard where we control everything. A few years ago we acquired a property up above Shasta, CA. Its at up at 2100’ at the very top of the ridge. Excellent exposure, wind flow, and rocky soils of granite in different stages of decomposition. A stunning property with views of Whiskeytown Lake, the Trinity Alps, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen, The Yolla Bollys, Redding, and the Great Central Valley clear down to the Sutter Buttes!

Now far Northern California is not one of the well known wine regions of CA. This is due to rugged topography and the remote nature of the place, not the potential of the wine it can produce. One only needs to look at a wine region map to see that there is a lot of land between Lake and Mendocino counties in California and Southern Oregon and the Willamette Valley. This region (which is roughly follows the outline of “the State of Jefferson”) is no less suited for vineyards than any of those regions. It’s just less populated, has little "easily” planted land outside of the upper Central Valley. Also, you can’t get an idea of what to plant based on what your neighbors have since there are so few vineyards. That won’t make it any easier but we already have a plan and a list of varietals that we will be starting with. Initially, our plan was to build a home and new winery up there and begin to plant our vineyards.

Well, life and the Carr fire happened and our things have changed a bit now. The whole property pretty much burnt up. That was good for the vineyard plan, but not as good for the overall beauty of the place (for now anyway). We are re-evaluating building our home up there for now, but will be moving forward with vineyard development and building a small cabin for us and other visitors. We will have more news soon on progress and projects up on Falcons View and will keep you informed.