Decades of farming is a lot. How about a century? How about more? The Munselle family has been farming in Sonoma County for 150 years – that’s since 1876, the same year the telephone was invented, the typewriter was revealed to the world, Colorado was admitted to the Union as the 38th state, and Budweiser was marketed nationally.

America’s first centennial, it’s also the year Mark Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, baseball’s National League began, and Heinz Tomato Ketchup was created.

It’s also the summer of 1876 that is pivotal in amping up the myths of the American West, the era of Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, and Jesse James.

During this one season occurred the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Hickok’s killing at the Number Ten Saloon in Deadwood, Earp and Masterson becoming the lawmen of Dodge City, and Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang running for their lives after a botched robbery of the Northfield First National Bank in Minnesota.

It was during this time in America that Shadrach Osborn found his way to Alexander Valley. Railroads were transforming the West and California agriculture was in a boom, with growers adding an array of market crops from vegetables, fruits, nuts, and wine to the more standard beef and wheat. The city of Sonoma was connected by rail to ferries that crossed the bay. Osborn opened the region’s first commercial winery, Lone Pine, in 1889.

The second generation, Osborn’s son William James married Reta F., the daughter of Broder Frellson, winemaker for a winery called Red, another of Alexander Valley’s earliest, which opened in 1893. Broder was married to Anna Margaret Frellson, a native of Germany who came to California at the age of six, first settling in Napa before moving to Alexander Valley, where she spent all of her years until passing in 1942.

Reta and William Osborn had two children, Shirley and Ruby, the third generation.

Through all those years the Munselles figured things out, going from winemaking and grapes to hops, prunes, dairy, prunes again and back to wine grapes, the main focus since 1972 when Fred Wasson, who married Ruby Osborn in 1940, converted remaining orchards to vineyards. The Wassons’ daughter Reta is the fourth generation.

Munselle Vineyards now looks after some 700 acres of grapes. The fifth generation, Bret, and his wife Kristen, farm all of that and added a wine label in 2006, full-circle back to the beginning. The sixth generation is next.

This is a huge achievement. Congratulations to the Munselle family and all who came before and are yet to come.

Photo By: Munselle Vineyards