By Scott Becker
In 1977, Frank Farella looked at a stretch of land in the cool southern foothills of the Vaca Mountains and saw something almost no one else did. Coombsville, in those days, was not a place you planted grapevines, and certainly not a place to consider for Cabernet Sauvignon. The fog lingers, the afternoons stay mild, and the accepted wisdom was that the region was simply too cold. In 1979, Frank planted Cabernet there anyway. It took decades for the rest of Napa to understand what Frank knew from the start. In 2011, Coombsville earned its own appellation, a recognition that this pocket of the valley grows something distinct. Frank and his son Tom were instrumental in its formation.
Realm's story with the Farella family began in 2003, when Tom placed an advertisement in the Wine Country Classifieds seeking a small winery to buy his fruit, and Realm was one of the first to respond. In the years that followed, Farella fruit became prized by a roster of respected small producers.
I first met Frank in 2007, and he quickly became a mentor and a friend. By then he was a seasoned attorney who had built one of the most successful law firms in the Bay Area, and we would meet for lunch once a week to talk about the business of wine. So when I was thinking about acquiring Realm in late 2011, I naturally turned to him for advice. Tom had a good relationship with Realm's cofounder, but the hard truth was that Realm still owed Farella Vineyard money for fruit from the 2010 and 2011 vintages. Frank knew the business was in trouble and that an acquisition could end badly. Even so, he told me that if I wanted to buy the business, he would help me. In that moment, Frank cared more about protecting me than about being paid for his own fruit. It was a measure of the man.
Frank helped us again in 2015, when we acquired the Moonracer Estate from the Hartwell family. I always thought of Frank as a man of letters because of the way he skillfully navigated contracts. With the Hartwells, it was his understanding of family dynamics that would prove so crucial to a successful outcome. He had seen how deeply we respected the Hartwells' history, and he knew how much we loved the Farella Vineyard — so, not long after the Hartwell deal, Frank asked whether we might have an interest in his own property. In 2018, Frank designed a long-term partnership agreement that let Realm farm the vineyard while his family kept making their own wine on the property. Ownership would stay with the Farellas for a time, then pass to Realm down the road. Frank included language about preservation of the “rustic and sylvan” nature of the place, and that future “improvements would be lacking in pretense.” It was characteristically far-sighted and thoughtful, always putting the land first.
Frank passed away peacefully in April 2025, at the age of ninety-five. Napa Valley lost one of its icons. He was one of a kind. When we say Realm stands on the shoulders of giants, Frank is undoubtedly one of the people who have made the Realm journey possible. What I will remember most, though, is Frank dancing with his wife Amy in the kitchen to Leonard Cohen songs turned up, because Frank was always dancing in the kitchen. He taught me the art of a proper espresso, an education he took seriously. He was a scratch golfer well into his 70s, and he never quite let you forget it. Frank loved to cook, to gather people around a table, to laugh over a good meal with a glass of wine in hand. That was where he was happiest — not being celebrated, just in the middle of it all, music playing, the people he loved close by.
It is in that spirit that we take up what comes next. Today, we are honored to carry Frank's legacy forward as owners and stewards of Farella Vineyard — and to keep his family close to it. Tom will continue making wine in the winery for a few years, and the family will continue to have access to the family cottage for many years to come. The Farellas remain part of this place, as they should, for as long as they wish to be.
We have a lot of work ahead of us. Vineyards age, and this one is ready for renewal. Tom's knowledge and history with the site are invaluable, and his guidance shapes the replant we are now designing — roughly 26 acres, taken block by block, in small and deliberate phases. None of this is fast, and none of it is glamorous. It is the unhurried, unromantic labor that great sites require, and it is how you honor a vineyard — not by leaving it untouched, but by tending it so that it can become greater still.
We take on that work in service of a site we believe to be the grand cru of Coombsville, and in service of the man who saw it first. Realm is not one wine, because Napa Valley is not one place. We have three Estates, each with its own identity and character, and in time the fruit from Farella will be made here on the property, at its own winery, with hospitality all its own — three homes, each a self-contained Estate, each telling their own story. I think Frank would have liked that vision. He always did take the long view.
We first told this story in 2018, when we started the partnership and the journey still lay ahead. In a world that rewards speed above almost everything, there is something rare about the patience, the tenacity, and the creativity it takes to see a thing like this through together. The ground beneath us kept moving. Our word and our bond did not. Frank built this with the long view in mind, and we have carried it forward in that spirit.
For those who would like to taste that continuity and evolution for themselves, it is all here in the glass. We recently shared tasting notes for every vintage of Realm's Farella Vineyard, from the first to the most recent in our cellar notes.
Why do I continue to say that the best is yet to come? It is moments like this that remind me the mantra is still true. We are masters of our own destiny. Frank planted here when others said it couldn't be done, and time proved him right. We intend to honor that faith the only way we know how — by cherishing this land, tending it with care, and building on it, one day, one step, one vintage at a time.
Onward.
