Steve and LInda Tenbrink are farmers from Suisun Valley, a hidden paradise a dozen miles east of Napa. They are famous around their valley as farmers, parents, entrepreneurs–loving, wise, courageous. Linda sold tomatoes like no others at the Napa farmers' market for years, and after two seasons of badgering me to take a look at their vineyards–in the barbarian wastes east of Napa–I finally did, and was overwhelmed. Their Babylon vineyard is one of the two best that I work with, a naturally excellent site farmed to perfection by Steve, who combines punctilious care with a daring willingness to experiment and work on the margins of what is accepted.

In the summer of 2005 they proposed that they would build a winery for the Scholium Project on the site of an old fruit barn of theirs. It was an incredible financial risk for them, but in many other ways an act of courage and imagination. There were no such wineries in their valley, producing very small amounts of very expensive wine, eschewing normal marketing categories, and hewing to some kind of individual vision of excellence. This was a Napa winery, but one separated from Napa by the Vacas mountains, connected only by a couple of roads, both narrow; one serpentine, the other straight but congested day and night. No fancy restaurants nearby, no B&Bs, no wine train. Walnut orchards, tractor dealers.

And none of us had ever designed or built a winery.

It is now nearly the end of harvest, all of the fruit is in and we have even had one bottling. It is easy for me to say I have never worked anywhere better in any way.