I’m sixty-nine years old now, and when I pour a glass of Morrison Estate Reserve Pinot Noir for visitors to my tasting room, they often ask me about the property—the rolling hills, the perfectly aligned vine rows, the beautiful stone winery building with its cathedral ceilings and French oak barrels. I smile and tell them the truth that I couldn’t tell anyone five years ago.
“This is my estate,” I say. “I bought it. I built it. I own it. Every vine you see—mine. Every bottle—mine. Every acre—mine.”
What I don’t usually tell them is that keeping that secret nearly cost me everything, but also saved me from becoming the third dead wife of a man who made widows wealthy just long enough to rob them blind.
Let me start at the beginning, when I was Katherine Morrison, a thirty-four-year-old single mother working as a real estate agent in 1989, walking into a bank in Sonoma Valley to ask for a loan to buy five acres of raw land. The loan officer actually laughed when I explained I wanted to plant wine grapes.
“Ms. Morrison,” he said, not even bothering to hide his condescension, “do you have any experience in viticulture? Any background in agriculture? Any business partner with expertise in the wine industry?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I have a vision, I have the down payment, and I have a work ethic that will outlast anyone’s doubt.”
He denied my loan. So did the next bank, and the one after that. It took me four tries before I found a lender willing to take a chance on a woman with more determination than credentials. The interest rate was punishing, but I signed those papers with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking—not from fear, but from the sheer electricity of possibility.
My daughter Emily was seven years old then. Her father had left when she was three, deciding fatherhood wasn’t compatible with his dreams of becoming a musician in Los Angeles. His child support checks were sporadic at best, nonexistent at worst. It was just me and Emily against the world, and I was determined to build something that would give her a future.
Those first five acres were nothing but dirt and possibility. I worked my real estate job during the day, showing houses and closing deals, then spent every evening and weekend on my land. I learned to read the soil, to understand drainage and sun exposure, to plant vines in straight rows that looked simple but required mathematical precision. Emily would come with me after school, her small fingers learning to tie the young vines to their support posts while I explained what we were building.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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