Our Story

Bill & Roxanne Wolf Make Beautifully Balanced Wines

Couple toasting glasses of wine on outdoor patio with vineyard and hillside scenery in the background.

How it All Started

Living in the Napa Valley, we fell in love with the idea of growing grapes and making wine. In 1998, we decided to bring our dreams to life and enrolled at UC Davis, completing over 75 classes covering everything from soil to finished wine. We continued our education internationally, spending 10 days in France, four weeks in Tuscany, took a 19-day Viticulture tour in Australia with Dr. Richard Smart and finished our trip in New Zealand wine country for 16 more days.

Roxanne is an artist and Bill was a trained chef (which explains why he's so adept at creating beautifully balanced wines that pair so well with food), but by 1999 we felt ready to make the leap to full-fledged growers/winemakers/producers. We left our corporate careers and purchased a 13-acre property with 5 acres of old walnut trees, grapes and a house that was vacant for 15 years and built in 1976.

In June of 2003 we completed the Level 3 Advanced Certificate in Wine and Spirits from the Wine and Spirit Educational Trust. As Bill always says, “We now know enough to be dangerous!”

In October of 2004 we released our first wine under our Eagle Eye label. Roxanne is the artist and designer of our labels. Our Extra Virgin Olive oil followed under the AlphaWOLF label in 2008. AlphaWOLF Vineyard & Olive Ranch is the name of our 13 acre ranch. We grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

AlphaWOLF Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil is made from our Tuscan Varietal olive trees, which surround our vineyard, and is certified “Extra Virgin” by the California Olive Oil Council and bears the seal.

Our working vineyard dog is a Standard Poodle…Bacchus, named after the Roman God of Wine, who keeps the wild turkeys, deer, foxes, rabbits, skunks, raccoons and rodents from consuming our bounty.

An old brick building with a sign on top, advertising imported and domestic wines, liquors, and a liquor dealer, with a dirt ground in front.

The Family Business

The story starts in the early 1900s when my great grandfather came over from Germany and opened a bakery in Blair, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh, which is now called Clairton, PA. His son, my grandfather, did not want to be a baker so he opened M.F.Wolf Wholesale Liquor Dealer a few blocks away from the bakery (more photos below). 

Back then you could sell wholesale as well as retail. You could buy a bottle or bring your own jug and get it filled. As time moved on he moved his store to Duquesne, PA and his father, the baker, went into the business with him. One year he applied to the state to renew his license and was told he had to be married to then hold a liquor license. This is why at 37 years old he got married so he could keep his liquor license. He had 5 sons of which my father Bill was the youngest. By the time he was born in 1922, the family was out of the business and working on the farm as well as in the steel mills.

The wine was delivered by horse and carriage. See them all lined up. The barn for the horses was in back of the store. The young boy in the carriage would make the deliveries. Note the inside of the store where you would pick up a bottle and fill it from the barrels. Today Pennsylvania is a state run distribution. Times have changed.

AlphaWOLF Vineyard and Olive Ranch was up and running when my estranged cousin sent me these photos and told me the story of our family background. Needless to say, Doug and I are now best of friends and I learned that wine business was in my blood!.

Black and white photograph of an old building with a sign that reads 'Liquor Dealer,' horse-drawn carriages parked in front, and people standing outside.
Interior of an old, possibly abandoned store with shelves and a sign that reads 'Christ'.
A man riding a horse-drawn carriage with two horses, in a rural outdoor setting during the early 20th century.
Historical sepia photo of a horse-drawn wagon with a person sitting under an umbrella, two children standing nearby, in front of a wooden building.