Our Roots
The family, the land, and where this all started.
Built for the long haul.
The man it's named for
Oliver Raab's father, Opa, arrived in the United States from postwar Germany in his twenties with nothing but curiosity and the willingness to follow it. He became an electrician. He learned to weave. He built a self-sustaining home in Montana with his own hands, pumping water up from the creek and planting a garden big enough to live from, with his wife beside him raising the walls.
He didn't set out to do any of those things. He just kept asking "what if" until the answer became obvious.
That's the inheritance he left Oliver. Not a blueprint, but a way of moving through the world.
The place today
Today we farm 27 acres of vine in the Van Duzer Corridor, with room to grow to 100 as the right partnerships take shape. The property also gives the family apple trees for cider and calendula flowers Paula turns into salve. Eagles and falcons fly overhead. In spring the cherry blossoms come in and remind you the land is already doing something beautiful, whether you're watching or not.
The vineyard is named for Opa, the grandfather who believed a life well-lived is one spent following your curiosity.
We grow grapes the way Opa built things: with intention, with attention, and with deep respect for what the land is already trying to tell you.
Finding the land
When Oliver and Paula found this land —189 rolling acres in the kind of country that makes you dream big — he didn't arrive with a plan. He arrived with the same question his father always asked: what does this want to be?
The land answered. It had the soil, the elevation, the light. It was meant for grapes.
Oliver sometimes describes it the way Michelangelo described sculpture, that the form was already inside the marble and the job was simply to uncover it. He didn't choose wine. The land chose it. He just paid attention.
The land chose this. We just paid attention.
What we stand for
Integrity of the land. We dry-farm by choice, not necessity. The belief here is that dry farming develops better fruit, so that's how it's done. This is a legacy property, and every decision in the vineyard is made with a fifty-year horizon in mind.
Integrity of the relationship. Oliver has been in business long enough to know that the partnerships that last are built on trust. We're honest about a difficult vintage, transparent about what the land is doing, and clear about what we can and can't deliver.
Renaissance curiosity. Opa became an electrician, then a weaver, then a homebuilder, all because he was curious. Oliver inherited that. You can see it in the apples being trialed for cider and the slope earmarked for Riesling. The farming is serious. The brand doesn't have to be.
Proven performance. We chose Results Partners to manage the vineyard not because they were affordable but because they're excellent. The site was planted right, on the right rootstock, with the soil work done properly before anything went into the ground.
