In 1972 the family put in the first wine grapes anyone had planted in the Horse Heaven Hills, and that fruit went to other wineries for more than thirty years before the Mercers made any wine of their own. Bud's son Rob and his wife Brenda opened the winery at Prosser in 2005, and their daughter Reagan runs direct sales out of Walla Walla. Their son TJ works the farm.

For a hundred years, a tree stood at the edge of our farm, and no one paid it any attention. It survived without irrigation, without pruning, without anyone's help. 

Then one spring, we noticed blossoms on its branches. It was an almond.  Most people think you can’t grow almonds in Washington, but this tree had stood, unattended, producing fruit for over a century. 

In Hebrew, the almond is called “shaked”—the watchful one—because it blooms first of all trees, flowering before winter ends. 

Since 1886, five generations of Mercers have farmed and watched over the same ground in Horse Heaven Hills. We like to think that this tree has been watching over us, too. 

It reminds us that nature needs less than we think, and that our highest calling is to tend to what we may never harvest, leaving the land better than we found it for those who follow.