9TEEN - GRADUATION DAY 2023 SAUVIGNON BLANC -

2022 SAUVIGNON BLANC
Farmed by the Father. Harvested by the Daughter.

This is not a bottle of wine. If you’re holding this bottle, you’re holding more than wine. You’re holding a father’s heart. A daughter’s hands. And the dirt between them.

This is a mile marker. Not just a point in time—but proof that time moved. That we moved. That she moved. It’s the sound of one door closing softly and another slamming open. It’s a photograph made of fruit and sunlight and heartache. And like most photographs worth keeping, this one took a lifetime to take.

Brielle is the reason we live here. Brielle is the reason we make wine. Brielle is my firstborn. That sentence alone could be the whole label. But let me tell you the rest.

She was five the first time I asked her if she thought the fruit was ready. We were walking rows, tasting clusters. I handed her a grape and said, “What do you think?” She shrugged—uncertain—and said with a little lisp, “I don’t know.” And I told her: “That’s okay. Here’s what we’re looking for: We want the acid to come down, the sugars to come up. We want the seeds to turn brown. We want the fruit to be mature—not just sweet, but wise.” So we kept walking. Kept tasting. Kept talking. And one day—just like that—she looked up and said, “I think it’s almost ready.”

That was the first harvest where she started to trust her own voice. And then, not long after—when the sun was right and the fruit was honest—she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I think it’s ready.” So the next morning, we picked.

My father was driving the tractor, watching through the back window as his son and his granddaughter picked fruit he once planted. Three generations. One block. One purpose. I wouldn’t say it was the greatest day of his life. But I’d be hard-pressed to name nine that meant more.

I named the wine after her that year. And we never stopped. Every year, she got more involved. She walked the vineyard. She tasted the fruit. She decided when we picked. She cleaned the bins. She ran the press. She bossed around the crew—most of whom were twice her age. And she owned it. Every last bit of it.

This wasn’t a side project. It wasn’t a cute family moment. This was her learning how to work. How to lead. How to see things through.

When she turned 10, I asked her what we should name the vintage. She looked me in the eye and said: “I’m 10. Call it 10.” That was it. That was the moment the baton passed. It was no longer just me making a wine for her. It was ours.

And the mile markers started flying by. 11. 12. 13. We blinked and she was 16—driving the vineyard roads, turning up the music, laughing with her brother, boots on the dash, radio on full blast, shouting into the wind.

The year the child started fading and the woman started showing up. The year she carried grief on her shoulders and still stood tall. The year she learned that love and loss are branches on the same vine.

Then came 19. The year she left. The year she crossed the stage. Graduation Day. And even though I knew it was coming, nothing prepares you for the sound of that last zipper being pulled shut on a suitcase that won’t be staying here.

You spend your whole life preparing them for the world—teaching them, guiding them, feeding them, fighting for them—and then one day the world shows up with its hand out, and you have to let go.

She’s been gone two years now. Living on her own. Working. Studying. About to be a junior at TCU. She’s doing it. All of it. She’s everything we prayed for and more than we could’ve imagined. Strong. Smart. Capable. Compassionate.

And this wine? This bottle? This is me, putting one last note in her bag. A whispered reminder from the old man on the hill: You were raised on something solid. You were forged in the field. You know what’s good. You know when it’s ready. Now go make your own call.

I didn’t get into wine because I loved it. I got into wine because I needed to feed my family. To put a roof over our heads. To build something worth handing down. And if I had to do it all again—leave the city, buy the land, plant the vines, take on the risk, shoulder the debt, sweat through the summers and stress through the winters—I would. A thousand times over.

Because every bottle we’ve made has brought us here. To this one.

2023 Graduation Day. A wine we picked together. A wine we made together. A wine that says goodbye without saying it out loud.

You’re holding a father’s heart. A daughter’s hands. And the dirt between them.

Row by row. Mile by mile. Making something together.

THIS IS 19.

TASTING NOTES – 2023 Graduation Day

Picked by hand. Made by heart. Told by a father.

Color
Looks like sunlight poured through a mason jar. The kind of light that hits the kitchen floor in the morning before anyone's awake. Honest. Pale gold. No tricks. Just clarity and time.

Nose
Stick your nose in the glass and you’ll get hit with what it smells like to be alive and hopeful at 7:12 a.m. in late August.
Green apple right off the tree. A slice of lemon on a cutting board that’s seen some years. White peach.
Jasmine blowing in through the window. A clean breeze coming over the hills, carrying a little bit of the ocean and a little bit of the vineyard dust.
This wine smells like the first day of school and the last day of childhood at the same damn time.

Palate
It hits like a memory.
Sharp, clean, and bright—like the snap of a flag on a clear morning.
Lemon curd. Grapefruit rind. A splash of green melon.
Not sweet—just right. Like someone who knows who they are and isn’t asking for your opinion.

It’s got a backbone.
A quiet strength.
It doesn’t need to shout. It just stands there and is.
Pure. Focused. Straight down the line.

Texture
Lean and fast. Like a kid running downhill.
Dry as a farmer’s humor.
Balanced like the tightrope between raising and releasing someone you love.

Finish
It lingers like a goodbye you didn’t want to say—but needed to.
Crisp. Clean. Then gone.
But you still taste it, don’t you?
Yeah. Me too.

Pairs Well With
Fresh air.
Goat cheese.
The second you shut the truck door and sit in silence.
That moment when you look at your kid and realize: they’re gonna be okay.
Also: oysters, grilled corn, summer dusk, and stories told over old wood tables with people you love.