The Serendipitous Origin of Hatfield Creek Winery
$600,000, a Free Area Map and Still Counting
This joyful tale will tell you how the desire to work only part-time (or only during tax season) and enjoy camping more, morphed into owning and operating a winery in Ramona! Yes, this is a great story!
From Carlsbad to Ramona- the long way
Elaine Lyttleton, co-owner and executive winemaker of Hatfield Creek Winery worked as an accountant and had just sold her practice and still worked as an Enrolled Agent in 2006. Her partner Norm Case, who she met in 2004 at a Teardrop Trailer gathering (he built his about 30 years prior and she had just purchased a new one). “It was the first time we had been to a “gathering”. He lived in San Dimas and I in Carlsbad, but we started long-distance dating soon after that first meeting,” Lyttleton said.
Serendipity?
“One weekend in mid-January 2006 when my partner, Norm, was down in Carlsbad I suggested the idea, that we drive to Valley Center to look at potential real estate that I might purchase for income property. I reasoned that real estate was certain to be less than in Carlsbad, where I currently lived. I could buy a duplex and rent out the other side. That would help pay the mortgage and I could reduce my work hours. It had been 20 years since I’d been to Valley Center and forgot how to get there. We didn’t have Google Maps back then. I had a vague recollection it was behind the Wild Animal Park. After driving around trying to get there, we wound up in Ramona, having breakfast at the Kountry Kitchen. We were a long way from Valley Center and couldn’t figure out how to get there,” Lyttleton laughed.
“After breakfast, we were on the sidewalk trying to figure out what to do next and saw a real estate office down the block with a big sign in the window offering “Free Area Maps”. Since we were lost, I told Norm I’d go get a map. The nice realtor greeted me and I asked for her free area map. I also told her we’d heard that Ramona was a new AVA, and asked if there were any wineries open on a Sunday, and if so were they on the free area map? A new AVA? What was that? My daughter had just told me a few days prior that Ramona had been granted its own AVA. In fact, she had asked me if I knew of any wineries up there. I hadn’t and I told her that,” Lyttleton said.
Serendipity?
“The realtor told us about Schwaesdall Winery and the free area map guided us there. I tasted wine, and Norm got into a long conversation with Johnny Schwaesdall about vineyards and wineries. (By the way, I’m the designated drinker, Norm doesn’t drink.) On our way back to Carlsbad, Norm suggested I look in Ramona for a duplex, with maybe a ½ acre to plant a few vines and get involved in the industry, because ‘You like that stuff’,” Lyttleton said.
“So, Monday morning I called the realtor who’d given us the free area map and told her what I was looking for. Every weekend thereafter we came to Ramona to look at properties. One weekend she brought us to 1625 Highway 78. Six acres (not ½), one small 1,120 sq. ft. house (no duplex). Turns out Norm had contacted her. He’d been researching on the UC Davis website and bought a book at Barnes & Noble on planting a vineyard, and he was quite insistent that this was the property I wanted,” she continued.
“I explained to him, that I could sell the condo in Carlsbad and get into the property, but that I’d still need to work full-time to pay for it. And where was the renter? I added that I had no idea how to plant a ½ acre in vines let alone 6 acres. He told me he loved a project, had some financial resources, and would be my partner. Having been single for about 12 years, my mind went to a romantic partner. Which he is, but he primarily went to a person on the other end of the 8 x 8 beam. My first Valentine’s gift after we moved in was a red trenching shovel!” she laughed.
And that free area map? Cost $600k and counting.
Starting a Winery
“Before we even closed escrow, we began attending RVVA (Ramona Valley Vineyard Association) meetings to try to figure out what we were getting ourselves into. It was all fun but they did a lousy job of warning us. It appeared the added value of a winery was the direction many were headed so we made an uninformed decision to jump on the train. Norm drew up a site plan, with buildings laid out, the vineyard, and other features. The final result nearly 20 years later is almost exactly what he planned then,” Elaine said.
“We were starting with six acres of bare land, and an 1,120 sq. ft. house. Norm commuted from San Dimas for 5 years, before he moved in full-time here. We were doing all the land clearing, irrigation, trellising, and planting by ourselves with the help of dear friends and relatives who worked for wine and food. We have a lot of those kinds of friends thankfully. Aside from the fact Norm was caring for his parents in Glendora until they passed, he couldn’t move in with me until he built a building for his “treasures”. I managed to get all my possessions into the 1,120 sq. ft. but he needed to build a 2,300 sq. ft. building for his,” Elaine laughed.
We planted 1,000 Petite Sirah vines and 1,000 Zinfandel vines on three acres of the land, over three years, 2007-2009. I knew I wanted Zinfandel grapes, but not how many and what else. I had a good friend who worked for Francis Ford Coppola at Rubicon Winery in Rutherford. She arranged for a lunch meeting with the winemaker, who suggested the other varietal should be Petite Sirah. (If doing it all again, we would have chosen just 500 vines each of those two, and 500 each of two other varietals.)
While they watched their grapes grow, Norm built and Elaine worked for a CPA in Julian, helping Norm build on the weekends and taking classes in vineyard management and winemaking.
“Our first small harvest was in 2009, most of which was sold to others (Ramona Ranch, Turtle Rock) with enough held back for Elaine to begin winemaking in the kitchen. We continued winemaking in the house, and by 2011 the wine took up the kitchen dining and some of the living room. In 2012 the first building was finished, Norm moved in and we made our first commercial wine in the cellar of the new ‘barn’”, Elaine said.
Studying winemaking and opening a winery
Elaine, along with other local winemakers studied at Mira Costa College earning a certificate in Wine Technology. Over several years of taking these classes, Elaine met Susan Pacheco, a home winemaker from Carlsbad who became the assistant winemaker at Hatfield Creek.
Meanwhile, they couldn’t turn the barn into a tasting room until Norm built another building to house all of his “treasures”. The Carriage House was completed in 2014, at which point the “treasures” were moved and the tasting room opened. Elaine had to quit her day job since organizing a tasting room, making wine and serving in the tasting room on weekends didn’t leave time to do income taxes.
Norm Case is such an interesting man
Elaine’s partner both in life and in the winery, is an interesting man, a Jack of all Trades, for sure. Here’s a bit of his story.
Norm Case was with the City of Monterey Park for 30 years as a firefighter and arson investigator. He began investing in rental units early on, doing all the repairs and maintenance himself on his off-shift days. That experience and talent was absolutely necessary to embark on a project like this one. There are so many moving parts, something always needs to be fixed.
Other than the metal building contractors, he has built everything else on the property. He did all the interior finish work on the buildings (windows, doors, insulation, drywall, wall sconces) and built the wine bar, farmhouse tables, deck, masonry wall around the courtyard tree, retaining walls on the property, the water tower (with Elaine’s help), owl boxes and porch covers.
He’s not in very good health at age 82 now, but give him wheels and he’s still good to go: grading the driveway with the tractor, mowing the property with his zero-turn ride-on mower, spraying the vineyard with his ATV pulling the spray tank trailer. He’s even modified his walker with a platform over the seat to hold his toolbox!
Hatfield Creek Winery’s Future
“We are still finding our way moving forward. We have quite a lot of wine, and some still to be bottled. We want to make people aware of the lovely spaces we have created here, which are available for their small wine-related events. The courtyard, wine tasting room, Carriage House, vineyard dining pavilion, etc. We’ve hosted small engagement parties, rehearsal dinners, corporate meetings, and 50th birthday parties and hope to do more of that. We have a great caterer in Something Delicious and a generous parking lot,” Lyttleton said. Who knows, maybe she’ll “retire” also.
Elaine is a mover and a shaker in Ramona. She started The H.E.A.R.T. Mural Project and the Art, Wine and Music Festival, but that’s a whole other story! See https://ramonamurals.com/ and https://ramonaartandwinefest.net/
