For us, it truly is a labor of love. We have no grand designs to grow large. We like the fact that our fingerprints can be found on every step of the process. Our first harvest in 2012 to celebrate the birth of our daughter, Ella, is a great example. Harvest in the Anderson Valley happens at night so that the fruit can be moved to the production facility before the heat of the day sets in. Ella was one month old at the time of the 2012 harvest and was awake when we began at 4:00a. So we plopped her in a backpack and she went along for the ride. We aren’t fast enough to pick the grapes, so every harvest of Fathers + Daughters Pinot, we are the designated “leaf-pickers.” If you’ve never seen this part of the process, think of Lucy in “The Chocolate Factory.” We stand between the bins and as the fruit is emptied into the bins, we frantically try to get every last errant leaf out. We follow the fruit to Phil’s winery high on the Mendocino Ridge where we help with the sorting. We are involved from harvest through bottling.
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