Winemakers
Stephen Hawkes
Born NYC. Left for boy’s school in CT at 11. Left for more school in CA at 17 this time with women, who required extensive study. Gave up and moved to DC in ‘69. Got married and returned to CA. Moved to prune ranch in Healdsburg in ‘71. Changed from prunes to grapes and from guitar to cello. Ate dirt, fixed machinery and learned a little Spanish. Backed over cello in driveway by mistake, and in ‘90 took up sax. Went queer for old saxes and then for anything old. Got tired of selling grapes in ‘02 and was rescued by Jake, who promised to sell wine if we made it. Love our wine, but can’t drink it all myself. Time will tell.
Jacob Hawkes
Jacob Hawkes is a bald man in his early thirties. He wears glasses and a beard and has a sort of athlete-gone-to-seed figure. He was born and raised on the farm on Chalk Hill Road, where his mother and father still live.
Jake never thought he would make wine for a living. His greatest aspiration was the same as every other child in America: to live anywhere but here. To that end, he left home and bumped around from place to place starting at the age of seventeen. His occupations were various. A construction worker in Rodarte, New Mexico, nightclub doorman in New York, woodchopper in California, grape-picker in Australia, alcoholic in Mexico, metal worker in Oakland, English teacher in San Marcos, Texas, but one common thread ran through all of this: wherever Jake went, he failed. And, when he failed, he came home and worked in the vineyard.
Today, Jake has resigned himself to permanent failure. He will not be this country’s first African American president. For one thing, he’s not African American. The upside is, to his great surprise, he loves what he does at Hawkes. He believes the wines are splendid. In his dreams, he wanders alone on the landscape of great American Cabernet, listening to the wind blow on the stripped branches of the birch trees and looking out on the scorched and empty plain. “I will make great Cabernet for our time”, he shouts into the emptiness. “Pipe down,” his wife says, “You’ll wake the baby.”
Vineyard Keeper
Alberto Rodrigo Silva-Lopez
Alberto Rodrigo Silva-Lopez was born in the small town of Silacayaoapan, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca in 1942. At the age of 15, he left Silacayaoapan to work in the cane fields of Veracruz. He eventually moved to the city, where he sold popsicles and worked on the bottling line of a local liquor producer. From Veracruz, Alberto found his way to the city of Oaxaca, and from there to various parts north, working in the fruit farms of the Central Valley and returning to Silacayaoapan each year.
In the fall of 1980 he came for the harvest at the Home Ranch where he has continued to work ever since, and now lives. Alberto is not only our longest-standing and most expert vineyard worker, he is our great friend. His work ethic is an example to all the field laborers who come so far from home to make the wine industry in Alexander Valley possible. His uncompromising patience and 25 years of experience with our land and vines are essential to the quality of our wine.
Alberto’s wife, Virginia Miranda Quiñonez, lives in Silacayaoapan, where she spends half of every year. His 33-year-old daughter, Sandra Silva-Cruz, lives in the city of Oaxaca.