Shenandoah Valley's Dillian Wines: Like Father, Like Son

My father was partial to scotch, rather than the restrained subtleties of cabernet sauvignon or grenache. But I am not my father. In the Sierra Foothills, specifically the Shenandoah Valley near Plymouth, CA, generations of farmers have planted grapes for wine since the gold rush times. Initially, the grapes were planted for and by the Italian immigrants who flooded the area in search of the ethereal promise of easy wealth and a better life. But working the mines that were prevalent in the area was neither easy, nor did it promise much else other than back breaking work under dangerous conditions.

Tom Dillian's grandfather came to America, not intent to work the placer mines of the vein rich Sierra Foothills, but to farm. He wanted to grow crops like wheat, corn and grapes. The grapes were for wine, not unlike the missionaries who settled the lower part of California.  “My grandfather, Allesio Dal Porto, worked the local mines because he had to have an avenue to make a living and put money away,” says Tom Dillian, grandson to Allesio. So Allesio worked the mines, saved his money and deliberately waited.

By the early 1900s Allesio had saved enough money to make a down payment on ranch land near Fiddletown, still a lost area even within the vast agricultural wealth of California. "By World War I, he had about 750 acres,” Tom tells me. In my skewed thinking, even one acre, by today’s standards, would be like a lottery wining, with current land prices sky-high for out of the way parcels in even odd sounding places like Fiddletown. 

Alessio was smart, frugal, and most of all, not prone to, fancy clothes and expensive wine. He served in WWI and upon his return, he built a home almost exactly where the Dillian tasting room now stands. Tom built his tasting room in part to honor the legacy of his grandfather, without whom, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

As I sit with Tom on a serene Saturday morning in June, with the fields budding, and spring showing signs of strength, the cool morning breezes under the shade of the overhang of the tasting room causes a chill to run through me. We sit just steps from the door to the tasting room, while birds chirp away incessantly. Tom points behind me.“My grandfather planted these walnut trees, and my grandmother planted these lilacs around 1920 (they are currently about 10 feet tall) and the daffodils about 1920 (yes, they still bloom).” And I seem baffled by the continuity.  After all, my parents came from Indiana and settled near Pasadena; no tales of family working the land, no agrarian connection, and certainly no lilacs.