2880 Wines

It all began with a family trip to Provence in 1988. After way too many hours of motoring along remote country roads in search of Montbrun-les-Bains, the kids were hot, tired, cranky and hungry, and every restaurant we passed had already closed for the afternoon. The situation was grim. But in the last moments before meltdown, we stumbled across a little bistro with its doors still open. The owner took pity on our young family and to everyone’s great relief, served us steak frites with a bottle of cool Rosé. That bottle started our love affair with the French countryside. Little did we know it would lead us to 2880.

Several summers after the Rosé rescue, we rented a house in Calistoga with beautiful views of lavender, olive trees and the Palisades — a mile-long ridge that bears a striking resemblance to the Dentelles de Montmirail range in Provence. Thanks in part to jet lag, we decided then and there to start searching for a home in Napa Valley instead of France.