A legacy of hard work.

Vern Garvin could’ve retired, but he decided at age 70 to add one more business to his portfolio – a vineyard. The family’s business ranged from a cable company, to radio communications, and 24-hour answering services. They branched out into farming and raising cattle when they bought their property just outside of Gold Hill in the 1990s. But in 1999, the Garvin family planted wine grapes. Today, they’re up to 70 acres of grapes – and they can’t grow enough to meet demand.

Vern and his wife Dorothy passed along their passion for the land, their community, and entrepreneurship to their children. Active in the family businesses from a young age, you could always find Lee, Roy, and Ruth pulling cable, working a switchboard or doing whatever needed to be done – and the three of them jointly manage the vineyard today.

As farmers, growing grapes comes naturally. But there was a young winemaker, a rising star named Herb Quady, who kept coming back to buy grapes. It didn’t take long before Quady proposed a partnership – he’d make the wine, and the siblings could finally sell the fruits of their vineyard labor under the Cliff Creek name to honor their father and his love of the land.