2023 DAD – Mourvèdre

"Time is the Only Thing Worth Spending."

Estate Grown | El Camino Real Vineyard | Santa Ynez Valley
Limited Release

The Story:

2190 Sunrises

Holy shit, I miss you.

Not in the polished way people talk about it—not in the quiet language that makes it easier for everyone else to stand nearby. I miss you in the middle of things. In the middle of a sentence that doesn’t land right because you’re not there to catch it. In the middle of a win that feels unfinished without you standing on the other side of it. In the quiet moments where I still reach for something that isn’t there anymore. I feel torn apart and stitched back together at the same time, like something in me broke open and instead of closing, it learned how to hold.

I think that’s what life is, if you’re paying attention. It’s loving people so much that the loss of them starts cutting into you before it even happens. A slow tear. A warning you don’t listen to because you’re busy living. And then when they’re gone, you don’t heal it. You can’t. You pack it. You pack it with gratitude just to stop the bleeding, because that’s all you’ve got left that still feels like them.

I can still see that morning like it never left me. Longhorn Coffee Shop, early, the kind of light that hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet. The world just waking up, and me already in a mood heavier than it deserved to be. You didn’t call, didn’t text, didn’t ask. You just saw my truck out front and walked in like that was enough. That was always enough for you. You ordered the same breakfast I had, like it was a rule we never spoke out loud, and you sat down across from me like you’d been there the whole time. Coffee in hand. Half-smile. Talking just enough trash to let me know you were alive and well and not here for any kind of ceremony.

I remember thinking whatever I was dealing with mattered. Felt permanent. Felt heavy. You asked me what was wrong, and I swear to you now, I don’t remember a single word of it. Not one detail survived you. You didn’t try to fix it from across the table. You didn’t give me a speech. You didn’t minimize it or magnify it. You just stepped down into it with me. Climbed right into the hole and started shoveling. Talking. Laughing. Nudging me back toward myself without making it feel like I needed saving. You just refused to leave me there. That was your gift. Not removing the weight, but carrying it with me until it didn’t feel like it was going to crush me anymore.

By the time the coffee was gone—second cup, maybe third—I could feel the shift. Nothing dramatic. Just enough light getting in to remind me I wasn’t stuck there forever. I was smiling again. Laughing again. Back on my feet without knowing exactly when it happened. And for some reason, I took that photo. 6:35 in the morning. Didn’t know I was freezing something I’d spend the rest of my life coming back to when I needed it most.

It’s been 2190 sunrises since then. Six years of mornings that showed up whether I was ready or not. Six years of learning that the sun doesn’t care how you feel—it just rises. Steady. Quiet. Certain. Like you did. There are days I measure in hours, and there are days I measure in you. And all of it, every one of those mornings, hasn’t been about getting over it. It’s been about becoming worthy of it.

Somewhere along the way, I realized something most people miss. You know when you’re in the good old days. You feel it sitting there with you, asking you not to rush past it. We just do anyway. I don’t anymore. I slow down now. I read to my kids slow, like the words matter, like the pauses matter more. I stretch moments on purpose, let them run longer than they need to, let them settle into memory while they’re still happening. I ask them not to rush, not with words but with the way I sit with them, the way I stay. Because I know what this is. This is the part they’ll come back to one day, the part that will find them again in a smell, a sound, a flash of light, and pull them straight back into it.

Time—that’s the whole thing. Not the money, not the wins, not the things we pile up to prove we were here. Time. You can’t buy it. You can’t save it. You can’t go back and get more. You can only spend it, and once it’s spent, it’s gone—except for what it becomes inside of you. So I spend it on them. On the ones I already know will hurt to lose. The ones still close enough to reach, still laughing in the next room. I spend it like I understand the cost now, because I do.

Brielle’s in her junior year now, and she carries something of yours into every room she walks into. Not loud, not forced—just a shift. People feel seen around her. Like they matter. She’s sitting at tables we didn’t even know existed back then, and she doesn’t shrink from them. She grows into them. I watch her sometimes and think she might go further than all of us. Hell, she might be President one day. And it wouldn’t surprise me.

Cash is seventeen. Big. Strong. Fast. But it’s not that. It’s the way he moves through people. The way he lifts them without making it a show. The way he leads without needing to say he is. He’s got that same ease you had, that same pull. A servant’s heart. The kind people trust without knowing why. You’d be proud of him. I know you would.

And Mom… she’s still swinging. Third round with cancer, and she handles it like it’s just another thing to get done. No panic. No performance. Just strength. She’s living. Loving. Showing up for all of us in ways that don’t make sense when you look at what she’s carrying. There’s a hole in her heart with your name carved into it, and somehow she’s still filling everyone else’s. I don’t try to explain that anymore. I just stand in it.

I’ve got holes in me too. More than I can count. And I stopped trying to fix them. Instead, I filled them. Packed them tight with gratitude, with memory, with moments I refused to let slip by unnoticed. So much of it that I think that’s what I’m made of now. Not whole. Not repaired. But held together by everything I was lucky enough to love. Like a scarecrow in a field, stitched up and standing, stuffed with old seasons, keeping watch over what matters.

I miss you. I hate doing this without you. I miss you in the middle of things, in the conversations we never got to finish, in the moments where I still turn my head a little, expecting to see if you caught that too. There’s no clean way to say that. But something happened along the way. I didn’t notice it when it started. It just showed up. Now when I see my son’s truck somewhere, I go in. No call. No warning. Just walk through the door. Same way you did.

And when someone’s stuck—really stuck—I don’t stand at the edge anymore. I don’t talk down into it. I don’t offer advice from safe ground. I step in. Get dirty. Start digging. Because that’s what you did. Not once. Not twice. Every time.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up your shield. Didn’t ask for it. Didn’t feel ready for it. Still don’t, some days. But I felt the weight of it… and I kept walking.

You didn’t just tell us how to live. You showed us. We live to honor those who came before us and to prepare the way for those yet to come. You lived it. And now… so do we.

2190 sunrises.

And from what I understand—there’s another one coming tomorrow.

I’ll be ready.

Love you,
Your son

Tasting Notes

It opens the way memory does—slow, unmistakable, and already halfway familiar before you can place it.

There’s smoked cherry first, rising easy, followed by dusty plum and sun-dried herbs, the kind of scent that feels like it’s been sitting in the sun for years waiting for you to notice it. Underneath that there’s black pepper, a little grit, a little resistance, and then something deeper—cured meat, worn leather, the quiet weight of something that has been used, carried, and kept. Nothing about it feels manufactured. Nothing about it feels rushed. It smells like it has lived somewhere before it ever got to you.

This is not a wine that performs. It doesn’t try to win you over. It doesn’t reach for you.

It just stands there.

And if you meet it where it is, you understand it.

It feels like a firm handshake—the kind you don’t forget. Calloused, steady, honest. The kind that tells you everything you need to know before a word is spoken. There’s no flash to it, no need to impress. It doesn’t chase attention. It doesn’t ask for approval. It simply is what it is.

Bold. Balanced. Built to last.

There’s a calm running through it, the kind that only comes from something that knows exactly where it stands. Structured, but not rigid. Powerful, but without any need to prove it. It holds itself the way a man does when he’s done enough in his life to stop explaining himself.

And the finish doesn’t hurry out the door. It stays.

It lingers the way the right stories do. The kind you don’t realize are important until later, when you find yourself telling them again, slower this time, making sure you don’t leave anything out.

Drink Now or Hold Until the Grandkids Graduate

This wine isn’t in a hurry, because it doesn’t have to be.

It’s ready now, and it will be ready long after you’ve forgotten the day you first opened it. Through 2052, maybe longer, but numbers don’t really tell the story. Time doesn’t just pass through a wine like this—it settles into it, the same way it settles into us.

You can open it today and get something real. Not just flavor, but understanding. And if you wait, if you let it sit, if you give it the space most things don’t get anymore, it will give you something deeper.

Because time, when it’s allowed to do its work, doesn’t just change things.

It reveals them.

Lay one down for every child you’ve raised, every mile you’ve walked beside someone you love, every moment you knew mattered even while it was happening. Open one when you need to remember. Open one when you don’t want to forget.

This is not a bottle you collect.

It’s one you carry.

Pair It With

Ribeye. Bone-in. Salt and fire. Something honest enough to match it.

A porch at sunset where nobody’s looking at the clock, where the light fades slow and nobody rushes it along.

A conversation that starts heavy, maybe even a little uncomfortable, and ends the way the good ones do—with both people still sitting there, still willing to stay.

A record spinning somewhere in the background. Merle. Sturgill Simpson, Cash. Something that doesn’t hide behind anything.

Your kids in the next room. Close enough to hear. Close enough to reach. Close enough to remind you why you’re sitting there in the first place.

Father’s Day. Every year from now on.

And sometimes, when the house is quiet and the noise of everything else has settled, maybe just you and a glass and the kind of silence that isn’t empty, but full of someone who isn’t in the room anymore.

Why This Bottle Matters

Because this was never about wine.

It’s about time.

It’s about understanding, while you’re still in it, that these are the days you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing you could step back into. It’s about catching yourself in the middle of a moment and realizing—this is it. This is the good part. And instead of letting it slip by, you stay. You slow down. You read a little slower. You sit a little longer. You let it become something worth remembering while it’s still happening.

Because loving people the right way means you’re going to lose them.

And when you do, something gets taken out of you that doesn’t grow back.

You don’t fix it.

You carry it.

You pack it with gratitude, with memory, with everything you were lucky enough to have while it was still yours. And over time, that becomes what holds you together.

Not whole.

Not repaired.

But built. Built out of what mattered.

This bottle is a way back.

Not to change anything. Not to redo anything.

Just to sit there again for a minute.

To pull up a chair. To pour a glass. To look across the table and say, “Let me tell you about them.”

And mean it.

It’s not a purchase.

It’s a continuation.

A seat at the table for the man who showed you how to be—and the quiet responsibility of carrying that forward whether you feel ready or not.

325 cases made.

And when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Just like time.

Each label carries him. No explanation needed.

Cowboy hat. Half-smile.

That’s the man.

That’s the bottle.

The Toast

We live to honor those who came before us,
and to prepare the way for those yet to come.

That’s not something you say once and forget.

That’s something you live, whether anyone’s watching or not.

And this bottle—

is your invitation
to do exactly that.