‘A WINEMAKER’S DREAM VINEYARD COMES TO FRUITION’
And for a Grizzled Journalist – A New Experience
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
July 10, 2025
My brown leather shoes were now a darker shade of brown, more resembling gingerbread with laces. They were totally covered with Goldridge sandy loam. I attempted to stamp the dust off them as I climbed back into the Jeep, but as I looked over to the driver – a winemaker-cum-vineyard lover – he had a grin, which fully bared his big teeth. He looked like that crazed Coney Island Steeplechase guy that I loved so much growing up four subway stops from Coney.
While I fretted because my costly urban shoes were likely ruined, the vineyard worshipping winemaker was euphoric. His two-decades long thirsting to see nubile vines finally being put into the ground, was happening before his eyes.
Mine too. As I approached the near naked expanse, which appeared to be on top of the world because of the 360-degree panorama of the browning California coastal range and the bay below, white grow tubes revealed themselves as though they were tombstones.
In reality, the narrow cylinders were life-saving protectorates of the precious infant Chardonnay vines that were, moments before, were being placed there by a cadre of vineyard workers, so diligently walking in unison down the hillsides.
It dawned on me just then, that in all the times I had spent in the vineyards over the decades, this was the very first time I had experienced a vineyard being planted. At this stage of my career, it was so gratifying to experience something new. For my friend the winemaker who loves vineyards, to see this parcel of ground transform into the vineyard of his dreams, was palpably joyous.
For 20 years, our winemaker/viticulturist has had evergreen contracts with several vineyards. He made all the planting decisions, watering regimens, and pick strategies. But never had he owned his own vineyard; or had a place to make wine that he could call his own.
Now, everything has changed for him. This particular site – at more than 600-feet above sea level and overlooking the Marin hills and the Petaluma Wine Gap – has come up for sale. So, he pounced on it and was successful in his bid.
In addition to the almost 9 acres planted -- that he has been using for some of his Chardonnays and Pinots – the site also has a house that was built right after Prohibition, and outbuildings and barns that until very recently, housed cattle.
In fact, it was those very same cows that fertilized – for 85 years – the same said soil on which our guy is now planting his vines; a majority of which will be Chard and some Pinot Noir, too. In the past, he has boasted to me – and this guy doesn’t boast – that these soils are rich in nutrients because of almost 100 years of dung. But now he tells me, while having something about which to really boast, “These new vines won’t need any fertilizer.”
So certain and so ecstatic he is about his new vineyard, that he realizes – in his late 40s – that this very moment of growing a vineyard from scratch is a life-changing signal point in time for him.
Can you imagine being so present that you know precisely when one of those moments in your life had just occurred?
And, when many vineyards are being torn out because of the economy and apparently America’s eschewing wine when unforeseen powers (read: neo-Prohibitionists) are flooding our hearts and minds with propaganda such as “One drop of wine will kill you or give you cancer,” our brave guy is gleefully planting his dream vineyard.
So, who am I to concern myself with dusty, ruined shoes? I say, walk on my friend!