Although it's posted with "No Trespassing" signs, Dave's small vineyard doesn't seem like the kind of place you would wander on to by accident. To get there from Reno-Sparks you head out on the Pyramid Highway, past the new housing developments in Sparks and Spanish Springs, and into the still sparsely-populated ranch and BLM land near the Paiute Indian Reservation. You turn right at the
BLM Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Center, then drive up the Palomino Valley. He lives off of a steep, unnamed dirt road in the dry, mostly treeless
Pah Rah range. From Reno the trip takes about half an hour.
The house is flush up against a small mountain, a mountain who's summit he actually owns. Going against all conventional wisdom he's trying to grow wine grapes in this dry, half-wild corner of the Great Basin. To my layman's eyes, at least, it looks like he might be succeeding.
Dave is one of those enterprising, extremely self-reliant guys that you find all over rural America, but in my experience they are much more common in the deserts and mountain ranges of the West than anywhere else. Originally from Virginia, He and his wife live in a small but beautiful home that they built with their own hands on forty acres that were empty when they arrived. They bought the land a few years ago for a price that would today be considered a pittance, and they could sell it now for a huge profit if they chose to do so. But they are determined to root themselves on this mountainside. In their minds, there's nowhere to move up to.
Their property is a monument to do-it-yourself independence. They graded their almost mile-long driveway themselves. They installed their own plumbing and electrical wiring. Their water comes from a wind-powered well. When the electric company told him that it would cost he and his neighbors tens of thousands of dollars to install six utility poles and bring electricity to them, he told them where they could stick those poles and put in solar panels for a fraction of the cost. In an age of office holders and clock-watchers, Dave is the kind of guy I admire most; one who just knows how to get things done.
Five years ago Dave got it into his mind that he wanted to grow wine grapes. This wasn't out of any devotion to wine; in fact, he's not even a wine drinker. He's much more into beer, as evidenced by the bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale he carries around with him as he works his small vineyard. No, his interest in grapes began when a friend from a wine-making family in California told him that he was retiring early by selling out to Robert Mondavi. This got him researching the feasibility of making wine in Nevada. He says that according to his research the soil is perfect here, and at least thus far the results have justified his efforts.
Making wine in Northern Nevada is bound to be a struggle. Although the University of Nevada has been working for years to develop a rootstock that could better withstand our treacherous climate (we had snow this past Memorial Day weekend, for God's sake) and some have theorized that parts of the state might one day prove to be very productive wine producing regions, most experts seem to be of the opinion that our unpredictable weather and vicious winds make growing high-quality wine grapes nearly impossible. Nevertheless, Dave is confident in his research and he believes that Northern Nevada's can produce good wine. When he heard through friends of friends that Melissa and I hoped to have a place like his ourselves one day, he invited us out to have a look at his operation and his methods. That's how we found ourselves driving up to the Palomino Valley this morning.
His tiny, two-acre vineyard is now in it's fifth year. In further defiance of conventional wisdom he's growing a number of varieties, everything from Reisling to Syrah, in an attempt to discover which one will give him the best results. So far the Syrah seems to be doing particularly well, but it will be many years before any firm conclusions can be drawn. But that's okay. "I got nothing but time", Dave says. Living in the desert will teach you that.
Just because we felt like helping out, Melissa and I worked in the sun and wind for a couple of hours today, pruning dead shoots and training up the more promising vines, and talked about the ingenious ways he overcomes barriers both natural and economic. For example, in the finest "waste nothing" tradition of the super self-reliant, Dave's trellising system utilizes dozens of used drive chains from electric garage door openers for support. His operation is completely organic ("I'm not into poisons") and thus comes under constant attack from all manner of wild creatures, particularly rodents. He's buried chicken wire around the vineyard two feet high and two feet deep, but still the little buggers get in sometimes. When I suggest that keeping a few cats might help with that problem, he tells me a story about a cat that he and his wife kept for a time that, one day out of nowhere, started crapping in the guest bedroom. "The litter box isn't even on that floor," he says with exasperation, "So f--- cats." Besides, in addition to the coyotes and the birds of prey, the vineyard falls inside the hunting territory of an old mountain lion that patrols this part of the Pah Rah, and so it's doubtful that an outdoor cat would last long out here.
Despite all the obstacles, the grapevines are green and thriving. Dave says he's gotten a good harvest every year for the last five years, and at this point 2006 looks to be no exception to the trend. When you ask him if he really believes that this high, windy corner of the world can become a genuine wine producing region, he looks at you with the assurity that only a man who has built his own house on a wild mountainside can muster and says "Oh yeah, absolutely." I'm still not completely convinced myself, but standing there in the middle of his growing fields I wasn't about to argue with him.
From the vineyard there's a spectacular view of the farms and ranches of the Palomino Valley and the forested Virginia Range to the east. Suburban development is slowly lurching this way, and the valley won't retain it's rural character much longer. Although all that exists below him right now are small farms and ranches, from his land Dave can point out where in the valley the master plan calls for schools, roads and the inevitable housing developments and retail outlets. But he seems to accept this the way he accepts freezing fog in the winter or relentless, high desert sun in the summer. Although he says he can't stand people ("but you guys are an exception", he assures us) and avoids going to town whenever possible, I get the sense that he knows in the end there isn't much that can be done to stop "progress"; I think that like the rest of us, he's just hoping that it's accomplished with at least a modicum of intelligence and foresight.
Driving home, I couldn't help staring out at the dry, empty brown hills along the Pyramid Highway and wondering what they might look like covered with well-tended vines instead of the suburban sprawl that will probably claim them first. I still remain skeptical that this region could become a wine-producer. After all, getting grape vines to grow isn't really the tricky part; it's growing good, high quality grapes that's the real challenge. But I can't think of anything that I would more love to be proved wrong about, and if it can be done I'm absolutely certain guys like Dave will figure out a way to do it.
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