In May, we finally started building a house at the vineyard. Jim closed his office in Midland, Texas and moved to California full-time. Andy Isdahl, a skilled builder and our close friend, built the house with the help of his assistants – us, and our son Sheldon...
Last year we cleared some fir trees that were shading an area of the Merlot; we decided to plant a small block of Syrah on the cleared area as an experiment. Carolyn and Jim Pride, with their wine maker Bob Foley, bought some bulk Merlot wine made from our grapes that...
Before this year, we had a contract with our friends across the road, the Schweigers, who would send their foreman and crawler over to do work around the vineyard. We would have to stop traffic and lay heavy boards across the road so he could drive from their vineyard...
We planted the last five acres of our vineyard with 2,300 more Merlot vines on 110-R root stock for a total of 15 planted acres. We used a mix of Clone 3 and Clone.
We had been coming to St. Helena from Midland, Texas (our home at the time) since 1983, staying and working on the property from a few days to a few weeks at a time. This year we decided that the vineyard needed full-time supervision, so we rented an apartment in St....
