Visit the open-air tasting room to learn the stories behind the names of their wines
Published in the Oct. 2-15, 2013 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Staff Report
John Aver planted his first vineyard, 300 vines on a hillside in northern Marin County, in 1991 as a landscaping project. He fell in love with the idea of making fine wine and jokingly told his wife Carolyn that he knew what he wanted to do when he grew up.
John Aver strolls through the Aver Family Vineyards grapes on Watsonville Road. He and his wife Carolyn have been in the wine business since 2005 when they purchased the property.
That passion for the sweet nectar of the grape eventually led the couple to the Watsonville Road wine-making region where they started Aver Family Vineyards.
“I started taking weekend courses up at Davis learning about viticulture and oenology,” Aver said, describing how he trained as a winemaker more than two decades ago. “That led to me using vacation days from work to go to industry seminars to learn everything I could about the wine industry.”
Aver started looking around for just the right property to make the leap into the wine business. In 2005 while living in Los Gatos, he opened the San Jose Mercury News and saw an advertisement for vineyard property in Uvas Valley west of San Martin. On a lark, he and Carolyn drove to the property. They found themselves enchanted by the Tuscan-like location.
“We stayed for four hours and at the end Carolyn jokingly said to me, ‘OK, time to quit your day job and become a manual laborer,’” he said. “We quickly made an offer and started our journey into the wine business.”
Aver converted the vineyard from primarily Cabernet to four Rhone varietals – Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Petite Sirah. He changed the varietals because Rhone wines are his love and he knew that the Rhone varietals did very well in the location.
“Plus there is an old adage in the wine industry: you should make what you like because you never know, you might have to drink it all,” he said jokingly. “I took that to heart.”
Aver Family Vineyards also specializes in farming organically. Aver decided to go that route because he kept hearing from winemakers at seminars that many of the best wines from the top wineries come from organically-grown vineyards.
“I am in the vineyard just about every day and Carolyn likes to joke that by the end of the season I know every grape by name,” he said. “We are always striving to make the highest quality wine, ones we are proud to put our name on.”
Aver Family Vineyards has fun with the names that it puts on its bottles. With its first vintage, Aver wanted to dedicate the wines to his and Carolyn’s fathers, both of whom had passed away.
As they worked on coming up with a label name, he read about the long wine growing history of the Santa Clara Valley and its rich wine-making heritage.
“That was when the idea struck that we would dedicate our first wine to our fathers and to all those that came before us in giving the Santa Clara Valley a deep and rich history in the wine world and call it ‘Heritage,’” he said.
The winery’s other labels include: Blessings, Inspiration, Homage, Faith, Benevolent, Exuberant, Grace and Hope. Each label name has its own special story that the Avers are glad to share with wine lovers who visit their open-air tasting room with its magnificent hillside view of a valley full of vineyards.
Aver Family Vineyards
Location: 2900 Soma Way, Gilroy
Hours: Noon to 5 p.m., the first and third weekends of the month
Contact: (408) 203-8575 or visit www.averfamilyvineyards.com
