ART SEAVEY, POLYFARMER OF THE OCEAN AND HILLSIDES

Art Seavey is a man who slips comfortably between his water-based businessMonterey Abalone Company and his family’s devotion to farming grapes on steep hillsides for Seavey Vineyard.

Much more than just my boss, Art is the general manager at Seavey Vineyard, a small estate vineyard and winery in the eastern hills of Napa’s Conn Valley.  In this episode Art discusses the path that led him to found the Monterey Abalone Company, which sustainably farms abalone on the commercial wharf in Monterey on California’s coastline.  Fans of the show Dirty Jobs may have seen the Monterey Abalone Company featured on one of the past shows.

Here’s a clip from when Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs visits Monterey Abalone Company.

Once a week Art drives from his home in Monterey up four hours north to Napa in order to check in a Seavey Vineyard.  In our conversation I ask Art to describe the early days of Seavey – a time when he was just out of college and making trips back to help during harvest and bottling.  Art does a great job of describing how the winemaking at Seavey Vineyard has undergone an evolution from the conventional to the very cautious approach we employ today.

The property that is now Seavey Vineyard is steeped in history and I ask Art to tell the story of the wines that were made on the property 130 years ago.  For those want to visit Seavey, just take a left once you come to the old falling-down barn which was the Franco-Swiss Wine Company in the 1880′s.

WineSearcher.com recently ran an article titled Napa’s Next Cult Cab Waiting in the Wings that has a nice mention of Seavey Vineyard as a wine to watch at the upcoming Premiere Napa Valley wine auction.

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: