Our Story

We are the David H. Rude, Jr. family.  Wife Roberta and sons David  "Hayner" Rude, III and Robert "Lloyd" Rude.  We live in Houston, Texas  and are the (past) owners (explanation below) of 6 acres of beautiful Napa,  California vineyard property.  

We, David & Roberta have  for decades been visitors to the Napa Valley and travel extensively  world wide visiting wine producing regions as we travel. So on a very  hot day in the Fall of 2010, we were on our way to a wine tasting at the  wine cave of well known Napa wine producer John Caldwell (JFC to those  who know him).

Nearing the cave, we passed a house at the top  of the hill and noticed a For Sale sign.  As the wine tasting was  coming to an end, John asked us if we noticed the For Sale sign. He  mentioned to Roberta he was familiar with the property and asked if we  would like to take a look at the house and check out its incredible view  of the Napa Valley.  She said yes, and two weeks later, The Rude Family  from Texas was in the wine business in Napa, California managing a  three acre very high end Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard with the grape  harvest set to take place in less than two weeks!  

We never  dreamed we would be a part of the Napa Valley wine world. We had ten harvests from our vineyard, selling most of the grapes to our  Vineyard Manager Jesus Espinoza for his Scalon Wine and other well known  wine producers in the Napa Valley.

We held back enough  grapes to bottle about 300 bottles of Willow Peak Wine every year.  Willow Peak Wine is 100% produced from our grapes, from our vineyards  surrounding our house at the top of a hill in the Coombsville AVA of  Napa valley.