About us
- Home
- About us
About Mauritson Wines
Winemaking may have been the logical evolution in our family’s long history of farming in the Dry Creek Valley. However, it took an absence from the valley and attention to those inner voices that led our winery founder Clay Mauritson back to the same vineyards he spent planting, tending and picking as a teen. What he came to realize was that he already had a lifetime of understanding about the subtleties and strengths of each micro-climate within the Dry Creek, Rockpile and Alexander Valleys. The only thing left was to DREAM BIG!
A Passion for Winemaking
Winemaking may have been the logical evolution in our family’s long history of farming in the Dry Creek Valley, however, it took an absence from the valley and attention to those inner voices that led Clay Mauritson back to these same vineyards that he spent planting, tending and picking as a teen. What he came to realize was that he already had a lifetime of understanding about the subtleties and strengths of each micro-climate within the Dry Creek, Rockpile and Alexander Valleys. The only thing left was to DREAM BIG!
150 Years of Farming
Since 1868, the Mauritson family has been growing grapes in the Dry Creek Valley. Our great-great-great grandfather S.P. Hallengren, a grape growing pioneer in the Rockpile region, first planted vines in 1884, shipping every ounce of his wine back to Sweden. Our family’s Rockpile homestead and ranch grew to 4,000 acres by the early 1960s when all but 700 ridgetop acres was acquired by the Army Corps of Engineers in order to develop Lake Sonoma. The vineyards shown in many of our historical family photos are now under water! For the next 30 years, the Rockpile property would serve mostly for sheep grazing.
Photogallery rendered here.