After collecting wine for 30 years, Peter Kitchak, president of Keewaydin Real Estate Advisors in Minneapolis, decided to take his passion to a new level. He went back to school—in viticulture—and is studying and living part-time in California.
“When my wife,
Patricia, and I started talking about where we might want to live when we
retire, we were interested in northern California. We liked the lifestyle of
Napa Valley. We said, ‘If we’re going to be there, we’re going to have some
property and be in the middle of grapes.’ So we bought a 15-acre vineyard north
of Napa in 2006. Each acre can produce approximately four tons of grapes; each
ton produces two barrels; and each barrel produces 25 cases of wine.
“I enrolled in a two-year graduate-level wine course at the University of California at Davis. We started making our first wine from grapes picked in 2005, and released it in June of 2007. It sold out in two weeks. It was a blend of 47 per-cent Marsanne, 47 percent Roussanne, and 6 percent Chardonnay. We tested the combination with some friends and wine connoisseurs, [using] eyedroppers and test tubes and mixing various combinations.
“I’ve learned how much I can enjoy sitting on a tractor and looking at what’s happening to the grapes. I am 66 years old. This spring, we’re planting 4,000 grape vines. We probably will not have real high-quality grapes until 2013. I’ll pick them and make the wine that year. It will go into a barrel and stay there for two years. Then we’ll take it out, put it in a bottle, age it for another year, and release it in 2016. That wine will be the best five or so years after you buy it—in 2021—when I’m 80. I clearly have learned patience.”
