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History

In 2005, as David Wilson and Chris Alheit were learning their craft, they met while working a harvest together at Flagstone in Somerset West in South Africa, and a deep and meaningful friendship was formed.  The very next year, Chris and his now wife, Suzaan, traveled to Napa to work a harvest alongside David. The two young men talked about one day making a wine together.

 

David grew up on the family ranch, Rancho Chimiles, where he resides now with his wife, Christine, and their two children. David studied fruit science with an emphasis on wine and viticulture at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and is currently the Director of Vineyards and Grower Relations at Pahlmeyer.   Christine grew up in the Sierra Foothills town of Murphys.  She graduated from St. Mary’s College of California with a degree in Law Studies and later transitioned into the wine industry to focus on consumer direct sales. 

 

Chris and Suzaan studied winemaking at the prestigious Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape, South Africa.  They worked harvests together in Napa Valley, Bordeaux, Germany, Australia, and gained years of experience in their native South Africa before Alheit Vineyards was founded in 2011.  They produce wines from throughout the Western Cape where they reside now with their three children. 

 

The two couples worked to gain experience at some of the most prestigious vineyards and winery estates in the world.  Then, on the ten-year anniversary of that harvest in South Africa, Chris picked up the phone to tell David it was time for the foursome to create a label together, and Wilson Foreigner was born.  

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Vineyards

Rancho Chimiles

Rancho Chimiles is located in the southeastern hills of Napa County, in a bench of the Vaca Mountain range. It was part of one of the original Mexican land grants in California, and the property has been owned and farmed by the Wilson family for over 60 years. The first vineyard planted by Terry and Virginia Wilson in 1972 was a ten-acre block of Valdiguié, known at the time as “Napa Gamay.” The variety was widely planted in the Napa Valley prior to the late 1980s and was favored for its ability to produce table wines with great color, concentration, and acidity. Before Wilson Foreigner came to be, it was always a desire to make a wine from this block. We are fortunate that two acres of the original block still remain, planted in marine sediment and sandstone.

 

Rorick Vineyard

When discussing potential vineyard sites to source from for Wilson Foreigner, our goal was to find a white grape variety grown in a unique site in the Sierra Foothills. We found that in a block of Albariño at the Rorick Vineyard in Calaveras County, just outside the town of Murphys. The block is situated along a steep and eastern facing spine of quartz and mica soils at 2,000 ft. above sea level. The mica is formed in sheets and can be broken easily by hand, revealing layers of ancient sediments. Intense sunshine moderated by cool alpine nights through the growing season build beautiful characteristics in the fruit. We are grateful to work with such an amazing property. 

 

"Murphy’s Camp is a curious old mining-town in Calaveras County, at an elevation of 2,400 feet above the sea, situated like a nest in the center of a rough, gravelly region, rich in gold. Granites, slates, lavas, limestone, iron ores, quartz veins, auriferous gravels, remnants of dead fire-rivers and dead water-rivers are developed here side by side within a radius of a few miles, and placed invitingly open before the student like a book, while the people and the region beyond the camp furnish mines of study of never-failing interest and variety." – John Muir, The Mountains of California (1894) 

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