I will close out the year with just a few rambling thoughts.
I started this career as a 19 year old knucklehead kid who grew up in the country caring for animals and range land. Luckily I met John Scharffenberger and he changed my life. I learned about land management and how to keep a balance with the land. I didn't know shit about grape growing in 1979 but it was a time in my life I was searching for something. I learned every about grape growing from the ground up. Pounding wood stakes all day, planting vines, learning how they grow and develop. Together the vines at Eaglepoint and I grew together and I worked hard at my craft.
I had success and failure all the time with the guidance of my mentor John S.
I quickly learned that growing grapes wasn't just about bringing fruit to market but that there was a whole nother journey. The journey to wine. I made my first barrel of wine in 1990. It was a Zinfandel and a week into the adventure I was hooked.
Over the next few years I learned the balance between growing grapes and making wine. It became clear that vineyard management, irrigation control, crop levels and picking at the right sugar levels all added up to make great wines.
In 1995 John S and I decided to start our own brand called Lonetree Winery (the Eaglepoint name was being used my LVMH who bought Scharffenberger winery). We made wine at a couple of different custom crush places and had mixed results. The fruit was good but the winemaking was on a learning curve. Then there was marketing and selling the stuff. WAY more than I was ready for. I learned about distribution and the three tier system. I learned it took a story to sell wine, and although I thought our story was fastenating there were hundreds of other well funded brands that had a leg or two up in us.
We continued to make our wines better. We were allowed to use the Eaglepoint name in 1999 and changed some of our production techniques for even higher quality. By 2005-2006I think we finally making decent to good wines but we still weren't making headway on the market. Just by luck we liquidated inventory after the harvest of 2007 right before the economic crash of '98. I felt like a failure, but knew my life was growing grapes to the best I could. Okay enough rambling for one year. Happy new year everyone.

I would just like to add, that I'm so blessed to have tried to create a wine brand. Had I not I would have always kicked myself for not at least trying. It has also made me a much better grape grower, as I understand both sides of the biz so much more. So often you hear of growers bitching about how wineries are trying to screw them etc, without really understanding the entire process. It's hard enough to sell great wine, but when the grower doesn't put full effort into it the winery is at an immediate disadvantage in the market place.
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"Behind every bottle of wine there's someone driving a tractor"