One day in the spring of 1996, we met with a local real estate agent to talk about

our dream of buying a piece of land that we could develop and plant wine grapes on:  In short, a place of our own where we could put our agriculture degrees from Cal Poly, SLO and our skills as viticulturists to the test.  Very few properties were in our price range and when the real estate agent heard what we wanted, he proceeded to laugh at us regarding what we thought we could find at that price range.  He said, "Yeah, you and everybody else."

We didn't leave there dejected, we left there more determined. The next day, we began driving all over the back roads, side roads and dirt roads of Napa and Sonoma counties looking for real estate signs in front of properties. We called around to many agents in the valley and finally came upon an agent who said that he had a 35-acre piece on Mt. Veeder but it was in the middle of nowhere. We took a drive up the following day and it was perfect. The previous owner had started the clearing years earlier so without the dense tree cover we had a clear vision of what it could be.  From the top of the property, one could see all of the Bay Area and from the back of the property, the view looked down upon the Napa Valley. Still, we had our work cut out for us!

We purchased it by December of that year with the help of Ashley's family and moved a trailer up by the following spring.  We would live off a 12-volt battery for the next year.  Eventually, we installed a complete solar system which we continue to live off of today.  It was important to us that we had these early experiences with the land before we decided on vineyard planting and construction of a home.  We learned a lot during this time and it influenced many aspects of our lives as well as the proper development of the vineyards.

Why the name Lampyridae Vineyards? The name was inspired by the millions of blinking lights you see as you look down at night upon the valley floor, the look of fireflies. Lampyridae is the family of insects that contain the fireflies.