"One spring day in 1972, while piloting my plane in careful circles over the Russian River, I caught my first view of Chalk Hill and I knew, instantly, that this was a special place - a natural amphitheater of hills where I could set down solid personal roots, find a peaceful home for my family, and weave a few grapes into the landscape."
- Frederick Furth, Founder & Proprietor
Chalk Hill's potential as a world-class wine estate began eons ago in the geologic timeline that lifted, folded, fractured, and weathered this terrain on the slow march to terroir.
Grape growing on Chalk Hill began by the 1860s with the first pioneering family to homestead this land, Sarah and John Rich. After John's death Sarah married widower Lorenzo D. Latimer, a successful local lawyer, whose lofty legal duties often drew him away from the ranch. Sarah invested her sturdy spirit in their successful family farm, and their Glen Valley Resort developed by the family around the natural hot springs - the vestiges of which are at Chalk Hill. In the early 1900s, travelers and the San Francisco elite, made the full day rail-and-wagon journey to share the bucolic calm of its healing waters.
One of Latimer's sons, Lorenzo P. Latimer, grew to appreciate the vistas and redwoods, becoming a renowned landscape artist. A special collection of Latimer paintings are on display at the Chalk Hill Winery and others are on loan to art exhibitions in California.
