Halley

Halley from Maine

No one can do everything alone--and this summer the Griggs of Cove Crest Vineyard have had the expert help of an agriculture student from Maine, Halley.

This is the second summer Halley has helped at the vineyard--this summer she has had the experience of ordering seeds, laying out, planting and nurturing a vegetable garden which allows she and the Griggs to "live on the land".

For Halley, this experience will count as credit work at her university--for the Griggs it provides another capable and willing farm hand.

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Time

Cove Crest wine aging.

Time

I have heard that nothing worth while happens quickly and most of the work I have done in which I took pride also took time—sometimes years or even decades longer than I expected.

Anyone who has done any gardening knows keenly the excitement that arrives with the spring catalogs and the hard work and long waiting for any flowers or fruit.

So Al and Mineca Griggs must take special pleasure in the years of working for their own vineyard. And their good wine!

As all discriminating people have different palates and requirements for the wine they buy and drink— one thing is acknowledged by everyone—NO good wine is quick!

Have the inspiration—wait.

Learn the processes—wait.

Find the land and buy it when you can—wait.

Prepare the field and the soil—wait.

Secure and plant the right vines for your vineyard's special requirements—wait.

Harvest and crush the grapes—wait.

Age the wine—wait.

Bottle the wine—wait.

Sell and deliver the wine—wait.

But to drink the wine of your own field, your own dream and your own effort. Too rare, too rare--far too rare in this day of fast food and instant gratification!

Bravo, Al and Mineca!

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Cove Crest Vinyard 4

Allan Griggs and me as frog at the Redding, CA Saturday Farmer's Market


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Cove Crest Vinyard 3

Tanya watching Al

Allen Griggs has milled much of the lumber he needed from his own forest with his own mill.

Effort

Making a home and a vineyard—developing a self-sustaining farm—doing “all the work ourselves" and taking “pride in keeping our lifestyle simple and low impact” is a dream for so many thoughtful people these hectic days but so very few make the sustained effort to actualize their dream.

Allan and Mineca Griggs have had the strength, fortitude, time and good luck to be able to accomplish it at Cove Crest Vineyard.

As we toured their dream we could imagine the hours of hard work—the months of hard work—the years of sustained and skilled hard work necessary to realize their dream.

I have enough experience myself with remote country plumbing, carpentry, machine repair, constant problem solving and work, work, work to appreciate their wonderful little experiment in living at the end of the dirt track.

It is the difference between a person that diddles at chopsticks on the piano at family parties and a concert master that has devoted his life to perfecting his skill.

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Mineca and Tanya at Cove Crest Vineyard

Work!

When I say Cove Crest Vinyard is out in the country—I mean it is at the end of an unpaved lane far out in the sticks—just as far out as you can get without walking a footpath.

In this forested vale, Allan and Mineca have wrought a little miracle,

Allan showed us photos of the few shabby farm buildings when they bought the property—and they have transformed it into an awfully nice small country cottage with all the essentials of a small winery—a barn, a tool shop, grape crushing shed, bottling room. storage room—and even a small pond, and, of course, several acres of healthy-looking vines.

There is also a nice kitchen garden, a chicken pen with some fine Rhode Island Red hens for good brown eggs and a whole mini-field of potatoes. .

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WINE!

Allan Griggs and his vines

Wine!

Wine is the thing most important to the Griggs duo at Cove Crest Vinyard, and the making of it has pretty much formed their unique lifestyle!

Allan Griggs was raised in Santa Rosa, California in the days when it was a small, prosperous agricultural town—the home of one of America's most famous gardeners Luther Burbank.

Allan joined the Future Farmers of America club at his high school and was enthusiastic about the many field trips his Italian farmer mentors took the member upon.

“One thing I noticed way back then was that all the field trips seemed to finish up at some winery or other. I thought being a vintner must be good fun and profitable too so I decided back then to become a wine grower someday.”

It took Allan many years but he eventually manifested his youthful dream with the help of his willing wife and partner from The Netherlands, Mineca—and that dream is their very fine little vineyard at Cove Crest.

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Cove Crest Vinyard

Allan and Mineca Griggs and Tanya

Cove Crest Vinyard

Tanya and I recently visited a couple of new friends way out in the country.

The new friends were a couple we met at the Redding, California Farmer's Market.

Allan and Mineca Griggs are regulars at the market because that is the only place in the world where they sell the product of their farm, the Cove Crest Vinyard.

We got to know them as we discussed their wine and were invited to lunch at their vineyard to explore and see how two ordinary but not so ordinary people made their dream come true.

The Cove Crest Vinyard is established in what is known as The Cove in Northeastern Shasta County—out Burney way.

It has a remote feel and different weather than Redding since it is considerable higher—at 2300 feet elevation.

The fertile acreage is just about perfect for the vines Allan and Mineca have planted and tended for several years now—and they do the whole process by hand: “Our wines are produced by hand, from planting and nurturing...harvesting, crushing, pressing and fermentation to the bottling and labeling process.”

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