We are excited to include a new vineyard in Napa to our farming life. The land is in Lovall Valley and consists of 5 acres of mature Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Lovall Valley is a small, bowl-shaped growing region in Napa Valley. It's known for its cool climate and is one of the coldest places in Napa to grow grapes. We look forward to farming in this beautiful valley.

Life on the farm is chugging along. Amazing what a good wet winter will do for the soil. The grapes look robust this year and so far no critters are taking over the garden. Can’t wait to harvest our summer bounty soon!

Planting mostly tomatoes and peppers in our garden that grow well in our clay soil. Trying a few other veggies so we’ll see how they do. The olive trees are sprouting, looks like it’s going to be a good harvest this year! We also planting 30 more olive trees from DaVero along the creek. Vines are starting to grow and so far all looks good. The Nunez crew is out in the vineyard shoot thinning and suckering. Amazing what a good wet winter will do. Almost 60 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevadas this year!

It’s been a well needed wet winter. The creek is full, the sun is peaking out and the farm and it’s surroundings are starting to come alive.

Well, we’re finally installing our new Reverse Osmosis System, a water filtration system to beat back the little bit of boron in our soil.

Wow! Our 2021 Talisman Rosé received 94 pts! It is a gold medal winner at The Press Democrat 2023 North Coast Wine Challenge! See all the results here and you can purchase this lovely wine at Talisman. Cheers everyone!

Not our best harvest in the garden this year, but we enjoy what the land gives.

It was a beautiful fall day with friends and family on the farm. We picked 680 lbs! EVOO is coming!

The experiment continues. Making the 2022 Dawson Ranch Pinot Noir in our backyard.

The vineyard is doing well, but the garden has been attacked by underground critters for the first time on the farm. So we enjoy what we harvest and hope next year will be better.

Life is rolling along at the farm

Since we love them so much, we planted 30 more DaVero Tuscan Blend olive trees!

More tomatoes, hot peppers, basil, mint this year. And the grapes are flowering!

Time to prune for the new 2022 growing season.

Bottling the 2021 EVOO from our alternate bearing year. Still very yummy!

Although it’s our alternate year for olives, we picked 419 lbs! They looked very healthy and had very little fruit fly damage. We had Juan and some friends help this year. Just before the rain, we delivered the olives to the press at Goldridge Farms in Sebastopol again. We saw Brooke Hazen and he’s still rocking olive oil. This must be at least our 5th year pressing there. Here’s to 2021 EVOO!

Hard to believe it’s another year of harvest and the pandemic is not over yet. This year’s wildfires had less impact on harvest and Mike Nunez and his crew picked 5.7 tons. We’re always in awe with what the land produces and so grateful for our partnership with Talisman who transforms our fruit into something wonderful. Cheers!

667: 4,205 net lbs.
115: 2,985 net lbs.
Pommard: 4,333 net lbs.

We finally have vineyard row signs. This is going to make Mike’s life a little bit easier.

Waited for the rain to stop and the vines to dry out a little before pruning this year.

The leg is now ready to hibernate for 12 months.

Once again taking on the hardship of curing another leg we bought from Sonoma Meats for prosciutto. Our pork is from Stone Valley Farm. The heritage Berkshire hogs are family farmed with no hormones and no antibiotics. All humanely raised, less than 100 miles from us in the East Bay around Alamo. Not your average pork, these little piggies have creamy fat that is prized by top chefs who knows what it means for a pig to be finished on walnuts. It weighs 29.6 lbs and we began with salt curing for the first 20 days.

Harvested and milled 18 gallons of Olio Nuovo this year!

With record heat in northern California, the grapes are ready for harvest! This year we yielded only 2.4 net tons of Pinot Noir grapes, the lowest in our relatively short years as growers. The spring frost effected the harvest more than anticipated, but luckily the grapes were not smoke tainted from the unprecedented wildfires this August. This year, we were the first growers to weigh in at Talisman and it was an honor to be included in their opening champagne toast at 8 am. We are always grateful for the people who are our partners and for whatever the land gives us.

667: 1,589 net lbs.
115: 883 net lbs.
Pommard: 2,268 net lbs.

Grapes are coming along and a lot of peppers and tomatoes this year in the garden, so yummy!