It’s a very personal endeavor to watch the development of a vineyard from first vine to vintage, comparable to witnessing your children grow before your eyes at a rapid pace. Seeing their unique personalities develop, doing your best to guard them from hardships, learning how they cope and reflect their environment, and then sending them out into the world on their own with the best of hopes. In many ways, for us, this is Bellows.

In the early days (we like to call them the “teenage years”), Bellows was fast-growing, eager to push shoots and leaves with a vengeance. Teaching restraint to such a tenacious site required a bit of trial and error as well as repeated consultations on nature versus nurture. Our approach to farming this site is regenerative, a method that allows it to grow organically (for the most part) with some gentle guidance from its elders (us).

Patience is a virtue they say. We have been patient with our 7 acres of Pinot Noir on our home farm and can barely contain our enthusiasm with what is happening in Bellows. After nearly ten years, this vineyard is starting to sing! And what a beautiful song it is…sit back and take it all in.