First Pass

A Sicilian family, a hillside in Temecula Valley, and 375 Nebbiolo vines. Every bottle carries a virtue on the front and the reason for it on the back.

Every bottle we release carries a Latin virtue. The first is Patientia — patience. It takes three years in the ground and two more in barrel to earn that name, which is roughly the point.

We are a Sicilian family. We planted 375 Nebbiolo vines on a hillside in Temecula Valley and then did the hardest part, which was wait.

This is not a large operation and it is never going to be one. We make a few hundred bottles a year, we put something worth reading on the back of each one, and we drink the rest ourselves.

Every release takes its name from a virtue worth arguing about. The first one is on the shelf. The rest are still being argued about, mostly at our own dinner table.

We are a Sicilian family, which is most of the reason this vineyard grows what it grows.

The world's foremost producer of Nebbiolo is Piedmont, in northern Italy. The second is Valle de Guadalupe, in Baja California. We learned that second fact while we were actually down there — along with one more: Temecula and Valle de Guadalupe are considered sister regions. Same maritime pull, same hot days falling into cold nights, same decomposed granite underfoot.

Which raised an obvious question. If the best Nebbiolo in the world comes from Italy, and the second best is growing an afternoon's drive south of us in a valley that is effectively our valley's twin — why is almost nobody in Temecula planting it?

So we did. Three hundred and seventy-five vines, March of 2025, on our own hillside. It is a famously unforgiving grape: late to ripen, thin-skinned, and completely uninterested in anyone who is in a hurry. It also closes a circle — an Italian grape, an Italian family, and a valley nobody expected to find it in.

They are about eighteen months old now. Slim trunks on bamboo stakes, canopies still modest, nothing on the wire worth picking. First real harvest is 2028. Two years in barrel after that. Which means the first glass of our own wine is somewhere around 2030, and there is no version of this where that goes faster.

In the meantime we make wine the way nearly every small label starts: purchased fruit, a good production partner, and a label that says exactly what we mean. Patientia is that wine. The name was never a marketing decision. It is a description of what this requires.

Made in memory of Sandi Joyce Winger. Made in support of the people who cared for her.

Sandi always said to get your ducks in a row. She did not mean it the way it usually gets said. It was never about control or tidiness. It was how she looked after the people she loved — quietly, in advance, so nobody else had to carry it.

When cancer unexpectedly shortened her journey, Hospice of the Valley stepped in to hold our hands. They gave our family the priceless gift of comfort, compassion, and the freedom to just be a family — to spend her last days being her daughters and her grandchildren rather than her caseworkers.

Hospice of the Valley serves Temecula Valley families and never asks the family to cover the cost of that care. Not a dollar. Whatever a family can or cannot pay is simply not part of the conversation, which is the entire reason it works.

We did not walk away afterward. One of us now serves on their board of directors, and this bottle is the other half of that commitment — every one sold sends a portion to Hospice of the Valley so that other families get what ours did.

From our family to yours, we invite you to raise a glass to a life well lived, a legacy carried forward, and the moments that matter most.

Zeno taught on a painted porch in Athens — the Stoa Poikile. A covered walkway where people stopped to argue about how to live. The philosophy is named after a place where people gathered and talked. So is the club.

This club does not exist to move inventory we could not sell. We make a few hundred bottles a year — there is no warehouse to clear. It exists because the people who like what we are doing should not have to refresh a page to get a bottle of it.

Two bottles, four times a year. Whatever we think is drinking best, plus the mission bottle when there is one. Shipped March, June, September, December.

Ten percent, always on. Not a welcome offer. A standing member price on every order, club shipment or not.

First claim on small releases. When the estate Nebbiolo arrives it will be roughly sixty cases. Members get the first look, and there may not be a second.

The back label, early. Each new virtue gets argued over for months before it goes to print. Members hear the argument and get a vote before the label is set.

A one-bottle membership for Temecula locals is noted on the page as under consideration, per your suggestion.

Patientia (Latin for patience) is the quiet force behind every great wine. Vines wait years for their first harvest, and the wine then rests in barrel until time has done its work. In our family we teach the same virtue to our kids: think in decades, not days.

Release I of the virtue series. Paired with Marcus Aurelius, who wrote the book on doing the next right thing without complaining about it.

Created in loving memory of Sandi Joyce Winger, whose gentle reminder to get your ducks in a row was never about order — it was about looking after the people you love.

Every bottle supports Hospice of the Valley, so other families get the same care hers did.