THE BEGINNINGS
Fran and I came to the Napa Valley because my business career required it, but from the day we arrived, there was no doubt that we would grow wine grapes. It was a dream for me for more than thirty years. I was never quite sure it would actually happen, but I never stopped hoping.

When we first saw the Napa hillside that would become our home and vineyard, we knew it was what we had sought. It was seven acres of undeveloped hillside alongside two idyllic vineyards growing grapes for two esteemed Napa Valley wineries. The high slope made an ideal perch for our home site and a perfect vineyard location. The vineyard would drain well down the slope, and the vines would be situated high enough to sit above the ground fog in the early morning sunlight. At 300 feet of elevation, it was on the instep of Mount Veeder, facing in three directions: east, south and west; and protected from the harsh north. The soils varied from gravelly loam to alluvial clay and there was shale below the hilltop soil.

The high hillside, diverse soils and sweeping exposure to the sun provide a wonderful combination: good drainage, a lot of warm sunlight and soil complexity. The result has been that our wine grapes effortlessly form the ideal chemistry for making a wine unique to the terroir. In sixteen harvests, our grapes have always developed the requisite sugars and chemical balance that is near perfect. Winemaker Alison Doran has not had to compensate for acidity or to artificially adjust the juice in any way. A smokiness originating from the shale in the high ground is clearly discernable in the wine. So is the spice that is derived from bay leaves that fall from trees that line the vineyard to the west.

We decided early on that we would name the vineyard Don Raffaele, a translation to Italian meaning Sir Ralph, in honor of my father, who was knighted by Italy for heroism in World War I. That was just prior to his emigration to the United States. He often compared the Don Raffaele Estate to the land he had known, growing up in a small Italian village. Our Crane Family name comes from Fran, my spouse of 56 years, whose maiden name is Crane. We are proud of what we have accomplished in the relatively short timeframe of our vineyard's existence and hope that future generations of our family will continue the effort.
Peter Chiarella, winegrower