Twelve Stones is family owned

Our vineyard journey started out as a grove of olive trees. Affie,  who would love nothing better than to grow his own olives and  press his own oil, was sadly disappointed to find out our property  was not in the least supportive for olives. However, it was “world  class” for growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

All I could say at this point in our  journey was, “Praise the Lord!” I love wine.

For  more than a decade, I have wanted to grow grapes on our  property and now we had confirmation. What to do next? Google  of course. I have no idea what I searched for, but I eventually  found a company to help us start our vineyard; Coastal Range  Vineyards (CRV)! What a godsend! 

It was the fall of 2014 and California was in a drought. Who in  their right mind would plant a vineyard in a drought? Planting  would not actually start until the spring of 2015 so we were buying  ourselves some time and hoping for the best. We definitely had a  peace about moving forward. Now we had to wait until the spring  to actually plant the vines… which meant more decisions had to  be made.  

Being a red wine kind of gal, we decided on planting Pinot Noir,  but what variety? Of course we wanted quality wine which  required quality grapes yet we were novices, what to do? We had  so many questions. Root stock, clones, organic/non-organic,  north/south verses east/west - yikes! CRV recommended we visit  Heart O’ The Mountain, a vineyard in the same micro-climate and  elevation as ours and not too far away as the crow flies. We  contacted this vineyard and were overwhelmed with the owner’s  willingness to see us and his graciousness at educating us. Heart  O’ The Mountain grows five varietals of Pinot. Bob Brassfield, the  owner, opened his heart and his barrels to us! We sampled each  variety and then mixed some together. We were blown away -  were all the people in this industry so nice? We decided on two varietals, 777 and Pommard, which tasted wonderful on their own  and exceptional when mixed. 

Fast forward to 2018 when our first bottles were delivered. As fate  would have it, we were hosting a dinner party that weekend. All 14  guests, including children, had a glass of Twelve Stones Pinot  Noir 2017 in hand. We drank together. The kids made faces, the  adults all gleamed with joy, one girlfriend had tears in her eyes.  We LOVED the wine! So much so that we decided to plant more! 

2019 found us planting two more varietals of Pinot Noir; 115 and  943 along with a Rhone style Syrah - I mean, why not? We were  told the Syrah is considered the ‘masculine’ whereas the Pinot is  considered the ‘feminine’ in the wine world. Mmmm, let’s see. 

As I write this ‘About Us’, the 2019 grapes were harvested this  year and are currently aging in barrels. Can’t wait to taste them  next year.

Our Team