Ken Laird, ME 57, and his family have been growing grapes for the finest winemakers in the valley for more than 30 years. The journey of a lifetime began with a 1970 family camping trip. He remembers crossing the southern bridge over the Napa River, where he "had kind of a religious experience. I remember it to this day. I said to Gail, 'I think I like this.'"

Laird and Gail, his wife now of more than 50 years, found a real estate agent in the valley and began looking at property. They came back a couple of months later and found a 70-acre farm in Calistoga, Calif., on the northern end of the valley that had 15 acres of old vines but was mostly planted in plum trees.

Laird had the plum trees removed and began planting grapes.

He asked a winemaker in the valley named Robert Mondavi, who had built his winery there in the late '60s, if he could grow grapes for him. Mondavi walked the land with Laird and then gave him a 20-year contract to provide grapes to the winery. With the contract in hand, Laird went to a local bank and got financing to launch Bayview Vineyards.

He says he didn't know anything about viticulture at the time but was committed to making it work. Grape growing isn't the easiest endeavor one can undertake. Complexities of climate, soil and water availability all play a role. It takes eight years for a vineyard to mature and produce a full crop.

"Soils are the key thing. It's a fine balance though. You could put chardonnay in Calistoga if you want to but it won't be very good because it's too hot there. You could put cabernet down in the Carneros but it's too cold and you'll never get sugar. You want to match the soil with what you think is going to grow best there. And you want to anticipate what the world will want — to the extent that you can," Laird says.

The Lairds have used formulas to calculate pricing for the upcoming crop based on historical data provided from the Crush Report published annually by University of California at Davis, which shows prices and yields of all grapes grown and sold in California. These models have provided good returns and good fruit for Laird's customers.

And his customer list reads like a "Who's Who" of California winemaking: Robert Mondavi, Beaulieu Vineyards, Cakebread Cellars, Beringer Wine Estates, Kendall-Jackson, Chateau St. Jean, Far Niente, Duckhorn, Rombauer, Schamsberg, Merryvale, Paul Hobbs and many others.

In 1997 the Lairds decided to build their own winery and a unique concept emerged that set the stage for the family business to grow further. It would be a 250,000-case facility at which Laird could make wine for smaller vineyards that didn't have the capability to build their own wineries and could serve one other important purpose — to produce Laird Family Estate wines, a high-end, small-volume operation that would bear the family moniker. Laird employed Paul Hobbs, one of the finest winemakers in the valley, to work with him in crafting the family wines.

Today the Laird Family Estate Winery has 51 customers for whom the company custom crushes grapes and makes the wines, which are aged in French oak barrels, bottled and labeled, then shipped to distributors nationwide. The family-owned-and-operated company grows grapes on nearly 2,000 acres of prime Napa Valley real estate yielding 9,000 tons of grapes for wine production every year.

©2007 Georgia Tech Alumni Association