Models of Craft: Will Harlan and Promontory

We are going to start a regular series of post to spotlight people, places, organizations that are pursuing craft well.

AoE is about how we can navigate the tricky of waters of midlife by pursuing excellence- specifically by anchoring our lives in service, elevating our efforts through craft, and refocusing our days through the careful stewardship of time

So here we go - we want to start this series by highlight Will Harlan and the Promontory winery. My wife and I were blessed to be able to visit Promontory this summer.

Here is a deeper profile of Will from Forbes.

Here are a few key take-aways:

• Will studied philosophy at Duke - so he’s clearly a critical and first principles thinker

• When they bought the land for Promontory - they realized that the soil was completely different from the family’s other premier properties at Harlan Estate and BOND.

• Navigating this required a deliberate and fresh approach to learn how to master the site - here’s a few fascinating learnings:

  • 90% of the site is unplanted

  • they roll, rather than mow, their cover crops

  • developed a unique way to train their team to the specific needs of each block of vines

  • every vine has its own GPS and they track each vine individually - “we see our vineyard workers as true craftspeople or artists. They are sculpting each vine and understanding it as a separate living being that can live for a long time, with the same care and attention of a bonsai tree.”

What is clear is Will and the team have carefully considered each step along the production path, and asked the question of how do we see improvement in a each dimension. This requires a degree of focus, of creativity, and a time horizon that allows minute, seemingly meaningless improvements bring changes that utlimately transform the product.

I’d encourage you to read the full profile- it’s truly amazing and inspiring to see their dedication and approach.