It didn’t start with a vineyard.

It started on someone else’s back deck.

A glass in hand.
The valley stretched out in front of us.
Time moving a little slower than it usually did.

We found ourselves coming back to those moments more than anything else. Not for the wine alone, but for what happened around it. The conversations that picked up easily. The way people lingered. The way strangers didn’t stay strangers for long.

At some point, we realized we weren’t just visiting vineyards.
We were returning to a feeling.

We started spending more and more time in Sunnyslope. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with people we had just met. It didn’t seem to matter. There was something about the place, and the people in it, that made connection feel natural. Unforced. Honest.

Wine was always there.
But it was never the point.

It was the reason people gathered.
The thing that brought everyone to the same table.

In 2016, our friends Jay and Shelly bought a piece of land here. The kind of place where you can see the valley stretch out in every direction. It was beautiful, of course. But what stayed with us wasn’t just the view. It was how the valley lived.

People here are easy to know.
Easy to connect with.
Open in a way that feels increasingly rare.

Over time, Sunnyslope stopped feeling like somewhere we visited.
It started to feel like somewhere we belonged.

After years in our careers, we made a decision that felt both unexpected and completely obvious. We stepped away. Slowed down. And began building something of our own here.

A vineyard, yes.
But more than that, a place.

A place where time stretches a little longer than planned.
Where conversations matter more than what’s being poured.
Where the experience around the table carries as much weight as what’s in the glass.

That idea became Gem 73.

The name comes from an old telegraph code.
“73” meant “all the best.”

A simple sign-off. A quiet wish sent from one person to another.

That’s what we kept coming back to.

Not just the wine.
Not just the land.
 But the act of reaching for each other. Of sharing time. Of creating something that feels like it’s meant to be experienced together.

Gem 73 is our way of building that into a place you can return to.

We’re here to care for the land.
To learn its rhythm.
To grow something slowly and intentionally.

And to create space for the kind of moments that first brought us here.

A glass poured.
A chair pulled closer.
A conversation that goes a little longer than expected.

It was never just about the wine.

It still isn’t.