The McLaughlin family still lived in Austin, so Dan commuted to Mason every weekend to work on the vineyard, with the agreement that whatever fruit was produced was his to sell. By the end of the 2012 growing season Dan managed to produce Xx tons from xx acres. Dan was unfazed by the low yield in 2012 and he was determined to restore Robert Clay vineyards to its former glory. For the McLaughlin family, that meant moving from Austin and putting down roots in Mason at the end of 2012.

As the Buists were getting older and the vineyard was getting harder and harder to take care of. As luck would have it, Dan Mcglaughlin, an IT developer living in Austin, was becoming more and more enamored with the idea of spending his time sitting behind the wheel of a tractor rather than trapped behind a keyboard. Dan visited the Buists at the beginning of the 2012 growing season with enormous ambition and tenacity.

Cutting back the vines was a big decision that paid off handsomely. In 2012 the vineyard only Produced x tons of fruit, in 2018 the vineyard yielded 47 tons.   The varietals that we are cultivating are Ruby Cabernet, Syrah, Viognier, Grenache, Mourvedre, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo, Chardonnay, Barbera, Merlot, and Touriga Nacional.

 Year by year we’re learning and growing with the vineyard.

It took Dan two growing seasons before he felt comfortable trying his hand at winemaking. In 2014 Dan converted his wife’s storage closet into a wine making space and made 10 cases of Merlot from Robert Clay fruit. In 2015 Dan decided to get more serious about making wine, so he and Robert Parr purchased the old Mason Feed Store and converted it into a wine making space shared by RCV and Parr Vineyards. Dan been making wine since 2015, but holding them back until now.

For milliea wine was made from two ingredients: grapes and native yeast. Over the past 50 years, advancements in food science have given winemakers incredible tools to manipulate the flavor of their wines. We still believe that the best wine is made with the best grapes, therefore we try to limit the amount of intervention we use in our winemaking practices. Some of our wines are natural, all of our wines are minimal intervention.