Rossi-Wallace

Five generations of Emmolo men and women have been working the valley’s fertile farmland for nearly 100 years. Cheryl was born and raised on Rutherford’s Galleron Road, where her father, Frank Emmolo, owned one of the largest rootstock and nursery businesses in California. She grew up pulling spray rigs, working in her mother’s gardens and selling rootstock to local winemakers, a childhood that gave her an extraordinary intimacy with vineyards and vines.

Ric’s Napa Valley tenure began over 55 years ago in the vineyards and cellars of Stony Hill Winery, although most people recognize him as the man who helped put Sterling Vineyards on the map. Following his time there and at Newton Vineyard, Forman tacked on several consulting projects with esteemed wineries like Villa Mt. Eden, Inglenook, Charles Shaw and Kendall Jackson, but it was when he started his own label, Forman Vineyard, in 1983 that Forman’s talent for cultivating steep, hillside slopes evidenced itself in his focused, racy Cabernets and elegant, Burgundian-style Chardonnays.