Our Story

"In the years before owing La Mesa I used to drive through the area to stay at a summer camp in the Sierras with my family. As we headed uphill through this beautiful wine region, Amador County, I never gave much thought to the area. It took a few trips before we decided to stop and check it out. We were struck with the way Amador still felt like the "early days" of Sonoma and even Napa. You could visit a small wine tasting toom, breeze through thin crowds and in many cases talk directly to the owner or winemaker. It felt a bit like discovering a well-kept secret no one in the city knew about. For the most part, the wines were fantastic, making for great storytelling.

The search for the perfect weekend getaway property in Amador County taught us about the rich winemaking history of the region, going back to the Gold Rush era. Some of California's oldest vines are located right here. Secret caves and deep mineshafts into the hillsides added to its mystique. After a year of looking, we had found the perfect spot: a former walnut farm owned by one of the earliest settlers in the area, the d’Agostini family. The home was surrounded by some of the original 75-year old walnut trees. The only scary part – it came attached to a vineyard!

Purchasing the estate in 2011 marked the beginning of extensive renovations to the home. A local contractor, Kirk Reuter, greeted us with a bottle of wine from his vineyard, Ard Aven. We could not help but wonder, does everyone up here have a vineyard and make their own wine? Kirk completed the urgent work around the home but in the thick of it all encouraged us to take a break and savor what we had stumbled into with the vineyard. He coached us through the process of making a single barrel of Primitivo using leftover seconds from the vines. We were hooked from that moment! Making a good wine to share with others offers challenge and excitement.

From our humble beginning as “garagistes”, under the mentorship of several exceptional winemakers including our current star winemaker Antonia de Heinrich, one thing is for certain – the combination of our high altitude, granitic red soil and small-batch artisan style produces wines of exceptional quality.