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| OUR STORY |
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Arlene bought the land that part of the vineyard is on in 1969 with an idea that she would build a home on it sometime in the future. After marrying and moving to Cleveland, Ohio with Gerry for fourteen years, they returned to build their dream house. After construction of their home, the next logical step seemed to be to add a vineyard in an old olive orchard that existed on the property.
After working with several consultants, Arlene attended Napa Valley College taking most of the vineyard and winemaking classes which allowed her to feel confident she could manage the vineyard herself. She was working as a bilingual kindergarten teacher at the time, making communicating with Spanish speaking workers very useful. Arlene taught school full-time in Napa and managed all aspects of the vineyard spraying, mowing, pruning and watering usually early evenings, early mornings and weekends with part-time help.
An Oakland, California native and graduate of Mills College in Oakland, her love of growing things and gardening began as a child growing up in an Italian immigrant family where a large garden always was plentiful and homemade wine was on the table every night.
Gerry grew up in Canada, Montreal and Ontario where he went to high school and college. He moved to the United states after he and Arlene married in 1972 in Napa, California.
The adjacent property became available and was acquired by the Phelans in 1996 and they immediately planted to grapes.
Gerry and Arlene believe that great wine begins in the vineyard. For this reason Arlene monitors the watering schedule carefully and checks to be sure each plant receives water at the crucial times during the growing season. Some leaf pulling occurs on the shady side of the rows, some thinning is done in heavier crop years. In the beginning in 1992 to 1995 Arlene did every vineyard job in an effort to understand what was involved and the time it took to do it. She sprayed by hand, pruned, picked up the prunings and hauled them out and burnt them. Now she has the vineyard mowed and pruned, but continues to discuss daily during the growing season the best practices fort what is going on in the vineyard. No vacations are taken during the growing season, generally March 31 through October 31.
After a difficult process the Phelans received all the necessary permits to build a wine cave which is now in place, and is where the wine is stored and racked. A consistent 58 degrees keeps the wine naturally cool and minimizes the need to top and eliminates huge electrical use.
 The Phelan Label
The Phelan label was worked on by Gerry and Arlene and a designer from St. Helena. Gerry has spent the last thirty years, since college, working in the copper business. The label is etched in pure copper foil. The shape of the label is the side of Mount George, where the vineyard is located in southern Napa county. Red is Arlene’s favorite color.
The small sculpture on the top of the foil is an Eskimo sculpture the Phelans bought on a visit to Montreal almost thirty years ago. They feel the determination to catch his fish and survive represents the difficulty and many hurdles they encountered in starting a winery and wine business.
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