We are a family-owned winery that owns three distinct vineyards in the magnificent, central coast of California. We farm each vineyard meticulously with the goal of making extraordinarily, high-quality wine over multiple generations.
Richard Niner grew up as one of eight children raised on a farm in rural West Virginia. He spent his childhood working on the farm to provide food for his family, and eventually became one of the first in his family to attend college. He graduated from Princeton and then Harvard Business School. He then began a long and respected career building small businesses across a variety of industries, from sunglasses to machine tools.
He eventually met Pam in New York City, while she was working as a magazine editor after graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts. The pair married and had two children, Andy & Katy.
In the early 1990s, one of Richard’s ventures introduced him to the beauty of the Central Coast. The people here reminded him of his upbringing in West Virginia, and he saw the high potential for the area to compete with premier wine regions like Napa, which was booming at the time.
This return to farming was a return to his West Virginia roots, and in his mind one of the ultimate crops to work with. He purchased his first vineyard in 2001 and spent the next decade building out the rest of the business and hiring a team to help run it. Our tasting room & winery opened in Spring of 2010 and remains the heart of our estate.
Eventually, Andy took over the day-to-day management of the business and we remain family owned and operated today. In the decade since opening our tasting room doors, we have expanded the business to include a restaurant, Chef’s Garden and full roster of creative experiences for your visit.
Our goal is to grow high quality grapes and make delicious wines that preserve the unique qualities of each vineyard and vintage. We want to express those qualities with elegance and balance, using minimal inputs.
We are lucky to have two Winemakers. Winemaker Molly Bohlman is responsible for our wines from Jespersen Ranch and Patrick Muran is responsible for Heart Hill Vineyard & Bootjack Ranch. This division by vineyard allows us to fully focus on bringing the intricacies of each site forward in our wines. All wines are fermented, aged and bottled at our estate winery located at Heart Hill Vineyard.
Get to know the team of passionate, hard working people who are behind everything we do.
