2017 Shafer TD-9 Red Blend

ABOUT THE WINERY

In January of 1973 at nearly 50 years of age, John Shafer walked away from corporate America and moved his family to a new home in Napa Valley. He’d never grown grapevines or made wine in his life. In fact his only agricultural experience had been raising flowers in the front yard of the family home in Chicago.

With the purchase of the property John inherited a number of sheds and outbuildings, which held a trove of aging farm equipment. Among them he found an International Harvester tractor, an old TD-9 from the 1950s. One of his first challenges was teaching himself to drive and maintain his tractor.

It was all new to him and he would make some rookie mistakes. But that spring there he was in his Napa Valley vineyard and he thought back to how just months before he’d been going to work in a suit, tie, and hat with a newspaper under one arm riding a commuter train into downtown Chicago.