Élevée Winegrowers

The Story

We met in 1989 at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, fell in love, and set out on a life of Adventure. A love of science, deep yearning for connection to the Natural World, and needing an outlet for his creativity, Tom set out on his Winegrowing path. After stints making wine in Washington State, New Zealand, and Napa Valley, Tom completed his Masters degree in Viticulture & Enology at UC Davis, before moving to France to make wine in Burgundy.

Unexpected learnings from Tom’s Viticulture & Enology Masters Thesis research at UC Davis, reinforced by observations made while making wine with Domaine Hubert Lignier in Morey-St-Denis Burgundy, ignited what has become a life-long obsession with Terroir.  Fueled by this obsession and armed with only a dream and our years of professional Winegrowing experience, we ”bootstrapped” our small Family Winery, starting with the purchase of our 25 year old Dundee Hills Estate vineyard from Archery Summit’s Gary Andrus in 2008, which we farmed by hand ourselves, selling all the fruit to other wineries, until we saved enough to make our first 100 cases of wine in 2012.  Believing that great wine is all about “Great Care”, to this day, much of the Work and Care involved in our 1,400 case annual production continues to be performed personally by us… from tractor work, to cellar work, to market work.