Patriarch // My GRAND FATHER // Estate Mourvèdre // 2013

This wine is a dream made real. 
Dream as much as you can, you never know where it will lead.

What can I say about a man that gave me most of the direction in my life. 

He lost his father as a child, and was raised by his mother and older brother John.

When my grandmother remarried both he and John enlisted to fight the 2nd Great War. 

They took the older brother (John) and told my grandfather not to re-enlist. 

My Grandfather, then 17, felt he was a man. One who could not go home to his mothers new family, without a father, and in the throws of the depression without a way to serve. He was in Iowa and for all intents and purposes, Alone. 

So he made his way to California to build Liberty ships in Long Beach. 

On his way out from Iowa to Long Beach, he stopped in by and Orange Stand and had a glass of Orange Juice in the middle of winter. He thought to himself, If I can drink this whenever I want, I will consider myself a Rich Man. 

He made a stake in california. 

My grandfather met my Grandmother at Church and they were married on May 11th, 1945.

He received the news that his brother John was killed in France.

Now he was without a Father, or the Brother who raised him to become a man. 

He became the Patriarch of the Saarloos Family.

He and My grandmother had 2 sons. 

Larry and Harvey. 

He set out to be the father to them that he never had. 

Not having a father most of his life, I believe he made it up as he went along. 

But I believe he raised them in the best way he knew how. 

He forged a bond between them that remains to this day. 

He wasn’t the kind of loving mush parent we see common place today. 

But he gave them freedoms and responsibility beyond their ages. 

It was him that loved the ground. 

He wanted to raise something from it, and raise livestock. 

He never did. 

But it was that passion for the land that overcame my father to find a patch for himself when he could. 

To fulfill his fathers dream. 

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My Father stood on his hill here in the valley, showing his own father the land. 

Explaining it in just that way that a son talks to his father, both trying to impress him and gain his approval…  

The sun was setting and they stood there, and after all it… 

My father turned and asked my grandfather a leveled question.

“Dad, why didn’t you do this, why did you never buy your own place,  I know you always wanted to, You could have done it 20 times. Why didn’t you do it.”

My grandfather responded.

“I was too busy raising you boys.”

My father said.  “But Dad, we are over 40….” 
the Patriarch responded. “I guess, I, just wasn’t done, raising you boys”

Then they stood on that hill, 
A father who didn’t, because he wanted to be the dad he never had.
a Son that did, because he was fulfilling his fathers dream. 

In this bottle is the work of his grand children, 
put in motion by his sons, 
that was once only a dream, of our Patriarch. 

Honored + Prepared.