Harvest is the season when the entire year finally stands before you. Every day, every decision, every drop of sweat and sleepless night comes to collect its due. The frost that almost took the crop in spring, the heat waves that pushed the vines to their limit, the mornings when the alarm clock was nothing but a suggestion and you got up anyway — all of it has been building to this. This is the point where the weight you’ve carried all year becomes something you can set down on the table in front of you. Here, the work becomes visible. Here, you can taste what you’ve been fighting for.

Around here, we call it Delivery Day — not harvest, not crush, not the technical name for what we do. Delivery Day, because that’s what it feels like: the delivery of a year’s worth of faith, grit, and stubbornness, arriving all at once. In the middle of the chaos, there’s a quiet truth to it — a sense that this is why you kept going when it would have been easier to stop.

That’s why this allocation carries these three bottles: Family, Honor + Prepare, and Courage. They are more than wines. They are the distilled answers to the questions that find you in the middle of the season when you’re bone-tired and wondering if it’s worth it: Who do I do this for? What is it all for? How will I keep going?

Family is the who. The people whose faces you see when you close your eyes at the end of the day. The ones you’re willing to disappoint the world for, but never them. Honor + Prepare is the what. The work you take on, knowing you’ll never finish it, because it was started before you and must continue after you. The understanding that you are here to honor those who came before and to prepare the way for those yet to come. And Courage is the how. The force you summon when you’re not ready, when you don’t feel strong enough, but you step forward anyway because the work and the people demand it.

Together, they form the backbone of my life. These aren’t just three wines in a box — they are the map I follow when the road gets foggy. They’re the reminder that harvest isn’t just about pulling fruit off the vine; it’s about gathering up everything you believe is worth keeping and carrying it forward.

This allocation is not simply a celebration of what’s been made. It’s a reflection of what has been endured. It’s proof that we are still here, still working, still believing in the who, the what, and the how. These bottles are the way I choose to tell that story. And if I’m lucky, when you open them, they’ll help you tell your own.

FAMILY

FAMILY is a Grenache / Syrah / Mourvèdre blend made from six different wines across all of our vineyards — three Syrahs, two Grenaches, and a single Mourvèdre — each one with its own story, its own temper, its own truth. Alone, they are strong. Together, they are unforgettable. Like the people who raised you, the people you raise, and the people you choose to keep around, every grape here has its own role. The Syrah brings the depth, the gravity, the shadow in the photograph. The Grenache adds brightness, the kind of light that filters through a kitchen window in late afternoon. The Mourvèdre is the quiet hand on your shoulder, the one you didn’t notice was there until you realized you needed it.

This wine is the family portrait hung in the hallway, the one you pass every day and never stop to study — until one day you do, and you see the way everyone was leaning just slightly toward one another. It’s all there: the stubbornness, the tenderness, the history, the little inside jokes caught mid-smile. It’s not perfect, and that’s what makes it perfect.

Family is the who in the question of why we do this work. It’s the reason you keep going when it would be easier to quit. It’s knowing that a single voice — or a single grape — can be fine on its own, but the real magic happens when they’re together, holding each other up, turning individual strengths into something layered, textured, and whole.

Pouring a bottle of FAMILY is a quiet act of gratitude. It’s the toast before the meal, the pause before the first bite. It’s for the birthdays and the Tuesdays. For the big news and the hard news. For the people you haven’t seen in too long, and the ones you see every day but sometimes forget to look at.

This wine was never meant to be just tasted — it’s meant to be felt. To remind you of the hands that planted the vines, picked the fruit, and blended it all together so that, years later, you could open it in a room full of voices you know by heart. It’s a moment trapped in glass, waiting for you to make it part of your own story.

Family isn’t perfect. But it’s everything.

HONOR + PREPARE

HONOR + PREPARE is a Petit Sirah that refuses to whisper. It’s bold, structured, unapologetic — a wine with a backbone, the kind that stands up straight even when no one is looking. It carries our family creed in its name:
We live in order to honor those that have come before us + to prepare the way for those yet to come.

Those words aren’t decoration. They’re a job description, a daily assignment that doesn’t clock out. I’m here because generations before me made decisions that shaped my life before I even drew a breath. Immigrants who left behind the safety of “known” for the danger of “possible.” Farmers in Iowa and Minnesota who packed up everything they could carry and chased a better life west. They didn’t know me, and they couldn’t have imagined what this valley looked like — but I live on the harvest of their choices.

When I pour a glass of HONOR + PREPARE, I taste every mile they traveled and every calloused hand that built something out of nothing. It’s not about nostalgia. It’s about stewardship. About recognizing that the tools in my hands were handed to me by people who worked too hard for me to let them rust.

Petit Sirah is the perfect voice for this creed. It’s strong, unflinching, yet full of quiet depth. It doesn’t ask to be noticed; it earns it. It grips the glass the way a man grips the handle of a well-used tool — not for show, but because it knows the weight and the purpose of what it’s holding.

To honor is not to romanticize. It’s to remember truthfully — the sacrifices, the hard calls, the nights they must have questioned everything but kept moving forward anyway. To prepare is to make sure my children, their children, and even the family I’ll never meet have something worth standing on. It’s planting trees whose shade I’ll never sit under. It’s building a table sturdy enough to hold the weight of their dreams.

When you drink HONOR + PREPARE, you’re holding more than wine. You’re holding the miles walked, the fields plowed, the storms endured. You’re holding proof that we are not here by accident. That we are part of something that began before us and must continue after us.

It’s easy to say. It’s hard to live. But that’s the work. And it’s the honor of my life.

COURAGE

COURAGE is a Cabernet Sauvignon named for my great-uncle, John Saarloos — a man who never got the chance to grow old, but whose story has grown larger with every year that’s passed. His courage didn’t begin on D-Day, though that’s where the history books would place it. It started much earlier, when he was just thirteen years old and my great-grandfather died, leaving behind a wife and five children.

At thirteen, most kids are thinking about school, or baseball, or trouble. John was thinking about how to keep his family alive. He took over the farm alongside his brothers, guiding them through the Great Depression — seasons of drought, worry, and not enough of anything. He became the man of the house before he had a chance to be a man at all. That’s the kind of courage that doesn’t get medals. It doesn’t get parades. But it changes the shape of a family forever.

Years later, when the world went to war, John enlisted. And the same courage that had held his family together in Iowa carried him up the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. Six days later, in Cherbourg, France, he gave his life. He died for the same reason he had lived — to protect the people he loved, to make sure they had a chance at a life beyond fear.

When my grandfather spoke about his older brother, his voice would change — softer, but heavier. It was the sound of remembering someone who set the bar for what it meant to be a man, and what it meant to give everything for others. That’s what COURAGE is about.

This Cabernet Sauvignon holds that weight. Strong but not harsh, structured yet generous. It’s the kind of wine that makes you slow down because you know it deserves it. Every glass is a reminder that courage isn’t the absence of fear — it’s stepping forward anyway. It’s putting yourself between danger and the people you care about. It’s carrying the load when no one else can.

John’s life embodied all three of these wines: he was Family, he lived to Honor + Prepare, and he met the world with Courage.

Eighty years later, I farm this land with his name in my heart. I try to live in a way that keeps his story alive — not as a chapter in a history book, but as something living, breathing, and poured into a glass. COURAGE is more than a wine. It’s a promise to remember. And remembering is its own kind of bravery.

So here we are — another harvest, another season written in the rows. These three bottles are more than wine; they are reminders. They carry the stories of the people we love, the values that keep us steady, and the strength to keep moving forward even when the road feels too long. My hope is that when you pull the cork, you’ll pour more than a drink — you’ll pour a piece of your own story into the glass. You’ll see your who, remember your what, and summon your how. And in that moment, maybe you’ll understand what I mean when I say these aren’t just wines. They never were.

– Keith Saarloos