Chapter 2

Discovering Dry Creek Valley

While searching sometimes the scene's undetected
When the vision arrives it's most unexpected

Dawn and I came to America in 1980 planning to work in Stamford, Connecticut. Once we discovered San Francisco, however, we fell in love with Northern California. It's golden hills, redwood forests, lush valleys, an occasional dusting of snow on the higher elevations of the Mayacamas Mountains that separate the Sonoma and Napa valleys captured our imagination. So we changed our plans and settled in Northern California.

During our first summer in the San Francisco Bay Area, my office administrator, Pat James, invited Dawn and me to go wine tasting. "I know a great little winery that I'm sure you'll love," she promised, so off we went to discover the mysterious and inexplicable joy of California wine.

Nichelini Winery in the Napa Valley, the second oldest winery in California, is on a sharp curve well up in the hills. Tasting takes place in the back of an old stone carriage house, circa 1860, and there is a small bocce ball court in the yard beyond.

I'll never forget old man Nichelini. He loved his wine and he loved his life as a winemaker. We spent the whole day under a huge oak tree outside of his tasting room. It could not have been more enchanting, with "Nick" spinning his stories while pouring tastes of his best wines.

Pat, Dawn, and I sat enraptured in that magical moment that reminded me of what James Busby, the botanist who introduced wine grapes into Australia in 1830, had written:

The man who could sit under the shade of his own vine, with his wife and children about him and the ripe grape clusters hanging within their reach in such a climate as this and not feel the highest enjoyment is incapable of happiness.

A Manual of Plain Directions for Planting and Cultivating Vineyards and for Making Wine in New South Wales

That was my epiphany. I was then and forevermore obsessed by the legacy of my farming youth, the beauty of the vineyard surroundings, and the love for my wife and children. I would buy vineyard property in America! It was just meant to be. Well, not so fast. Dawn and I spent the next several years looking for the perfect piece of land in what we thought were all of the best locations-the Napa, Alexander, and Sonoma valleys. We just couldn't find land that matched the vision in our minds. We'd almost given up looking until one serendipitous day.

Dawn's mum, Joy, was visiting us in the spring of 1990; she had been a great fan of the TV show, Perry Mason. Raymond Burr starred in the series, and when we learned that he had a winery in Sonoma County, we just had to take the ride to a place called Dry Creek Valley.

Dawn and I had spent more than a few years exploring all of the wine regions east of the Redwood Highway. It never occurred to us that heaven could possibly be to the west toward the ocean where the fog frequently blanketed the sun. And besides, Dry Creek Valley? It sounded hot, dusty, dry, and uninhabitable but for snakes and lizards and other desert creatures.

So when we turned off on Dry Creek Road that eventful day, I was in my typical Type A mode of driving-without stopping toward our destination, the Raymond Burr Vineyards west of Healdsburg. After about two miles, I slowed the car, pulled off the road, and stopped.

"What's wrong?" Dawn asked, sounding more confused than alarmed. (Remember, I never slow down, much less stop when I'm focused on a destination.) "What's wrong?" she repeated.

I was speechless...or at least as close to speechless as I ever get. "Wrong? There's nothing wrong. It's just like Bordeaux, but without the French. It's perfect!" I said climbing out of the car.

I couldn't believe my eyes. We were on a gentle ridge, and to the south stretched the most beautiful, lush, green valley that I had ever seen. Dawn stood next to me and squeezed my hand. She didn't have to say anything. We knew that was all she wrote. We'd found what we were looking for-Dry Creek Valley-a stone's throw from heaven.

That afternoon, after the compulsory visit to the Raymond Burr winery, we engaged a realtor in Healdsburg. Two weeks later we signed a contract for an old prune ranch. We chose a site that met all of our requirements: loamy soil with layers of gravel for good drainage, a north-facing slope high enough to avoid late spring frosts, and by a river for an adequate water supply. The property had some vineyard acreage and horse corrals bordered on one side by West Dry Creek Road and on the other by Dry Creek itself, which wasn't dry at all. We had found our own little piece of paradise.