J. Rickards Winery a dream come true for the owner

Jim Rickards grew up wanting to be a farmer and at age 11 he applied for a land grant in the Homestead Act, a law that allowed citizens to claim 160 acres of public land for subsistence and farming. The application was rejected and he was told to reapply when he turned 18.

Rickards, 79, spent his first three years after high school assisting with autopsies in a hospital laboratory before leaving for Vietnam.

“I volunteered for the Hospital Corps and then volunteered to receive combat training before serving a two-year tour in the Marine Corps in Vietnam,” he said.

After returning to the United States in 1969, Rickards began a 50-year career as an intensive care nurse in Sonoma County and his farming dream also began to take shape. He bought a cow, moved to Petaluma and began leasing property to run cattle, until the 1976 drought forced him to sell.

That same year he found a 60-acre farm with an old vineyard on Chianti Road in Cloverdale.

When asked how he could afford the property at the time, Rickards replied: ‘I couldn’t. It was a distressed building because there was probably no water. Only after I found water and dug a well did it become viable for agriculture and later for grapes.”

For years he tended the 1908 estate’s Zinfandel vines and planted new vines himself.

He also built his family home on the property.

Rickards and his wife, Eliza, already established as one of the area’s premier grape growers, opened their doors J. Rickards Winery in 2005.

Today, the family-run winery makes 16 red wines and six white wines ranging from $30 to $64, which have won numerous awards, including seven from this year’s Sonoma County Harvest Fair.

Read about other local entrepreneurs with unexpected backgrounds here.