From one stubborn acre of Cabernet.
In 1962, Giulia and Tomas Vella bought a steep, rocky slope on Vella Ridge that the neighbors swore was too poor to farm. They planted Cabernet anyway, lived in a one-room cabin, and made their first wine in a converted dairy barn — a wine that, by all honest accounts, was rough but unmistakably theirs.
They were right about the hill. The same lean soils and cool valley fog that made the land hard to farm also concentrated the fruit and gave the wine its backbone. Sixty years on, their grandchildren still tend those original vines, and the old dairy barn still stands at the heart of the cellar.
We've grown — carefully — from one acre to forty-two, but the philosophy hasn't moved an inch: farm with patience, make wine with restraint, and welcome everyone like family at the table.
Great wine is grown, not made.
Our forty-two acres sit between 600 and 900 feet on a south-facing ridge, where morning fog and afternoon sun give grapes a long, even ripening. We dry-farm wherever the vines allow, pushing roots deep into the fractured volcanic soil rather than leaning on irrigation.
Everything is picked by hand, in the cool of the morning, block by block as each parcel reaches its moment. Smaller yields, more attention, better fruit — there are no shortcuts in the row, and we wouldn't want any.
- 42 hillside acres across volcanic and clay-loam soils.
- Hand-harvested at dawn, sorted twice before the cellar.
- Dry-farmed old vines, some planted over fifty years ago.
A light hand in the cellar.
Head winemaker Sofia Vella grew up underfoot during harvest, sorting grapes before she could reach the crush pad. After studying enology in Burgundy and a decade making wine abroad, she came home to take the reins her grandparents first held.
Her approach is deliberately quiet: native-yeast fermentations, minimal handling, neutral and new French oak in balance, and as little intervention as the vintage will allow. The goal is never to stamp the wine with technique, but to let each hillside block speak clearly in the glass.
“My job,” she likes to say, “is mostly to stay out of the way of good fruit — and to know exactly when not to.”
Farming for the next three generations
We borrow this land from our grandchildren. That belief shapes every choice we make in the vineyard and the cellar.
Certified organic
No synthetic herbicides or pesticides. We manage the land with cover crops, compost, and a flock of sheep that grazes the rows each winter.
Water & energy
Dry-farming where we can, drip irrigation where we must, and a solar array that powers the cellar through the heat of harvest.
Living landscape
A third of the estate is left wild — oak woodland, owl boxes, and pollinator hedgerows that keep the whole ridge in balance.
The people behind the bottle
Family at the core, with a small crew who treat the estate as their own.
Sofia Vella
Third-generation Vella; trained in Burgundy, home to make wine where she grew up.
Marco Vella
Knows every vine by name and exactly when each block is ready to pick.
Elena Reyes
Makes sure every guest leaves feeling like part of the family.
James Okonkwo
Guards the barrel room and tastes every lot before it earns a label.
Come meet the family.
The best way to understand Estate is to stand in the vineyard with a glass in hand. We'd love to show you around.