Happy New Year! We hope all of you enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with loved ones and celebrated a year well-lived. The Compton family, of course, rang in 2024 with our new Compton Sparkling Brut. Enjoying your own personalized bottle of bubbly is a delicious reward for all the hard work of making wine. We also celebrated Matt’s 50th birthday in December, as well as our middle and youngest sons excelling at wrestling tournaments.
Winter at the winery is “Cellar Season” when most of our labor is done indoors. The 2023 growing season yielded high quality fruit and the biggest harvest since 2016. Every possible vessel we could fill with wine has been filled with wine. Now the vineyards are getting pruned and will lay dormant until spring bud break. Red wines are aging in oak barrels and we have bottled the first of our 2023 white wines (Pinot Gris) on January 5th.
2024 marks the fourth year of our stewardship of Compton Family Farms and Vineyard. The hard work we put into our farm and animals each day is born of passion and love. Matt had been managing the vineyard portion, then known as Deerhaven Vineyard, for many years before we had the opportunity to buy the whole parcel and move in. Even after all those years observing and working the vineyard, we are learning so much more about the land and the rhythms of nature from being present every day. We farm regeneratively, which means we always focus on the overall health of our ecosystem from the soil up. Incorporating animals for adaptive grazing has been a big piece of the puzzle. The goats will start kidding (having babies) in late February and the sheep will start lambing in March. We learned to breed the goats ahead of the sheep so we will have extra milk available for the lambs if needed. We also enjoy the goats’ milk for Matt’s cheesemaking.
The small business of our wines is also one that we work from the ground up, from growing the grapes all the way to the finished product. When we started our winery in 2003, I never imagined we would learn so much about all the aspects of bringing a product to the final market to sell. I have learned about glass, paper, glue, website design, accounting, grapes, soil, wines, restaurants, grocery stores, wine tasting, people, relationships, and so much more. Every day is so fun and I’m thankful for the gifts and education that I have been given. I tell our sons we are meant to meet all the different people in our lives – good or bad. We can and will learn from everyone. I am thankful for all the conversations shared with my customers each day and feel energized by the time we spend together. Relationships are what make people and small businesses like ours thrive. Thank you for sharing your time, knowledge, stories and presence with us. We couldn’t do it without you.
Cheers!
Matt and Tabitha Compton
