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Dexter D. Ahlgren was born in 1928 in Berkeley, California where he grew up and received his education. Following army service in post-W.W.II Japan, Dexter attended the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. After graduation, Dexter worked for Pacific Gas and Electric and then spent ten years in government service as an engineer of the Contra Costa County Public Works Department and then, for six years, as City Engineer and City Manager Pro Tem for the city of Los Altos. He then went into private engineering practice, and three years later formed his own consulting engineering firm in Sunnyvale, California. In 1971 Dexter sold his engineering company and began consulting independently. It was this phase in his engineering career that provided him with the time and flexibility to begin his hands-on winemaking. His wife, Valerie, had left her community college teaching career in order to spend more time with her family in 1970. She began experimenting with various winemaking and brewing projects. Some great sparkling mead came out of the tiny winery she had going under the kitchen table, and along with an assortment of various fruit wines, there was a stunning batch of elderberry wine. As the kitchen wines improved dramatically, Dexter became interested. By 1972 another experimental Silicon Valley startup was in its infancy, and he was crushing two tons of Zinfandel in the driveway of the suburban Sunnyvale Ahlgren home. The garage became a wine cellar with its insulated room-within-a-room complete with French barrels. It was Val who started the Ahlgren adventure into winemaking, but it soon became obvious that the gifted winemaker in the family was Dexter. He just seems to have come naturally to knowing how to go about producing excellent wine, and even his "home made" wines were delicious and distinctive. 1972 was the year when the Ahlgrens found the property in the Santa Cruz Mountains north of Boulder Creek. They rented a home in the village of Boulder Creek in the spring of 1973 and began to work on their property and plan the house they ultimately built there. The house was designed by architect Sim Van der Ryn and built of redwood the Ahlgrens milled with an Alaska Mill from logs purchased from a neighbor. It is rustic, comfortable and serves the many interests of its owners admirably well. The winery is in the cellar, tucked into the north side of the hill beneath the house. It was bonded in 1976 when commercial production began. Dexter and Valerie work together in all phases of the business. The three daughters who helped in the early years of winemaking are all grown, and now there are grandchildren who have relished working at crushing, pressing and bottling tasks. Dexter no longer divides his time between his consulting engineering practice and the winery, spending the majority of his time and efforts winemaking and performing his duties as the publicly elected president of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District.
Dexter at work in the Vineyard |
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