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Original layout of the vineyard

I did not inherit Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard. My mother and father worked hourly wages to buy a portion of land with a wistful view of the land that once been our own. My parents' first order of business was our modest cattle ranch, but I planted 8 acres of vines at Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard with my own two hands as the seasons permitted. I named my vineyard after the incredible generations that came before me. Their sacrifices, stories, and achievements are the wealth of inspiration that keep me grounded and always striving to improve.
 
My parents completed the purchase of the Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard property in 1976. As a kid, my dad had grown up on Palmer Road just down the street. He was the oldest of seven children and worked as a surrogate son on the Palmer Ranch until the family sold it to us in 1976. We were dirt poor with no money to do anything with the property at the time. I was the first in my family to go to college. I guess it is the classic American dream.
 
In the fall of 1994 while I was attending Cal Poly, I spent a weekend with my extended family on Lake Nacimiento. My cousins and I had enjoyed a full day of drinking on those oak shores when, in an attempt to sober us up, our parents declared that we were only allowed to drink wine. Someone brought out a 1992 Lane Tanner and a Meridian, and it was there tasting those wines that I had my first epiphany. At that point I changed my major from animal science to fruit and crop science and started taking wine tasting classes.
 
I watched my parents ranching and leaving for rodeo all the time, and I realized I'd never be able to make a living following in their footsteps. Meanwhile, the wine business had boomed and there was this developing industry all around me. I didn't know anything about the industry at the time, but I was falling in love with wine. I was a charter member of the Vines to Wines Club at Cal Poly and things started to take an interesting turn. In 1995 I enrolled in the Viticulture Enterprise Project and saw that in 1995 grapes were getting $2500 per ton. It was then that I realized that, with 8 rows by 6, I could get 907 vines per acre, and that would in turn cover the initial cost of the vines.
 

Photo taken during excavation

To build a fence, I used T-posts out of the existing cattle posts that are used to herd cattle on the ranch. It was a rather unorthodox look for a vineyard but it was all I had. By winter 1995 I was talking to nurseries about grape vines, but pickings were slim as 1995 was very warm and the nurseries weren't able to get good dormancy with the vines. So I waited until 1997.
 
It was pretty devastating looking out over the land grant that we lost. And that oil field. It was the only part of the original grant my parents could afford to buy back. We are cattle people with a little bit of farming background; I was a cowboy, not a winemaker! I asked Dale Hampton to help me pick the spot for the vines because all I could see was a stripped-down, barren piece of land. Low water, low nutrients (the mineral rights had been sold), you name it. Everything that could have been taken was gone. I didn't see it at the time, but it was actually the perfect place for a vineyard.
 
At the time, Chardonnay was the variety to plant because it got decent tonnage. It was a safe bet. I talked to a few wineries to see what they were looking for. I talked to Bruno DeFanzo and Steve Dooley and asked them what they thought about planting Pinot Noir. They thought it was a great idea. At the time I was working for Kendall-Jackson as a Field Supervisor in 8 counties (Santa Barbara, San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara), and I learned a lot by watching what was going on with the grapes in each of them. In 1997 while I was still at Cal Poly I planted Rancho Ontiveros Vineyard to 1 acre of Pinot Noir with a variety of clones and rootstocks to learn what would do best. The following year I planted 4 acres.

In 1999 I left the wine industry and went to work in the fresh-cut flower industry in Carpenteria. That market is 100% based on timing, and it's there that I learned about tricking plants into doing things they wouldn't normally do using incandescent lighting, warm water irrigation, etc. Shortly thereafter I left that industry; I wasn't interested in farming that way. Randal Grahm offered me a position at Bonny Doon but I couldn't find a place to live with all the techies descending on the Bay Area for the dotcom boom. I met with the Gallo family about their Sonoma program and was offered a position as well as a house over a 25-acre ranch to live on. So in May 2000 I went to work managing Gallo's grower relations for Sonoma, Napa, Mendacino and Lake Counties. The next season I moved into vineyard management as the Southern Sonoma County Unit Manager. When I could, I came back to Santa Maria and added 3 acres of Pinot Noir toRancho Ontiveros Vineyard. To select clones, I spent a day tasting blind through Byron's experimental Pinot Noir lots with Mike Sinor. Out of all of them, I kept coming back to the Swan, Benedict, and 1A clones.
 
I planted again in 2000 and these vines were better cared-for, even if I was only tending to them remotely. The thinking was that my parents could have a retirement and I could be doing something I enjoy. I should add that this vineyard was my dream, not my parents', however they have been very supportive. In 2000 my mom was in a serious car accident and we considered selling the ranch. I then made a decision to move closer to home and it just so happened that the Miller family offered me a job as Director of Sales and Marketing for their properties, including Bien Nacido Vineyard, where my ancestors built the adobe on a portion of our original land grant.