Terra Solis Vineyard, in Latin meaning, ‘land of the sun’ was founded by Frank and Emily Bishop in 2018. Frank is originally from Boston, where he completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies before building a career in the technology industry. Early in his career, he worked on projects for Oracle, focusing on portable database systems and supporting clients such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang, and Prime Computer. His role was to ensure Oracle’s databases ran efficiently on their machines. At the time, everything was written in C, and Oracle had one of the strongest C compilers in the industry. Frank frequently commuted between Boston and California, eventually realizing that if he wanted to succeed at Oracle, he needed to be based in California full time.
He joined Oracle in 1998 as one of the company’s early employees, hired by co-founder Bob Miner, incidentally the co-founder of Napa Valley’s Oakville Ranch Winery. Emily works at Stanford University and serves as Director of Finance for the Anthropology Department.
After Frank left Oracle he worked in venture capital and angel investing. Encouraged by Emily, they both began searching for vineyard property in Paso Robles, Sonoma County and Napa Valley. Emily first discovered the Terra Solis property; as Frank readily admits, secretly, she may have wanted something to keep him busy. After visiting the property, they quickly realized it was exactly where they were meant to be.
Nearby neighbors include a vineyard owned by Paul Hobbs, Faust Vineyard, a vineyard owned by Paul & Linda Garvey of (Garvey Vineyard Management) and a vineyard owned by Darioush Winery. And another neighboring vineyard is owned by Paul and Suzie Franks, the founders of Gemstone; their vineyard has produced 100 point wines. Frank considers vintner Paul Frank one of his mentors in the wine business.
Previous owners, brothers Andrew and Walter Noble, each lived on the 6.3 acre property in separate homes on two individual parcels. In 1998, they planted the vineyard’s first vines; many of these original plantings are still producing grapes. An open area on the property once housed their homing pigeons, while a 50-foot trailer served as their office. Frank and Emily have since removed these structures, opening up the view and transforming the space into the vineyard’s staging area. The Noble brothers were world champions in homing pigeon racing, and the vineyard helped finance their passion and competitive pursuits. The ultimate recognition for those in the homing pigeon business is to receive the AU Hall of Fame Award (American Racing Pigeon Union) for a single season of racing competition. Walter received this coveted award in 2004 for his achievement in the industry.
Terra Solis Vineyard is planted to 4.9 acres of clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon on 3309 rootstock. The original cuttings came from John Caldwell of nearby Caldwell Vineyard. Prior to growing grapevines, the property was pasture land. This site is incredibly rocky; one of their blocks is simply called, “the rocky block”. During our visit, Frank showed us a rock that was broken by the tractor; this is a singular representation of the geology of this site. The outer rock is lighter colored and sedimentary, while the lower part of the rock is dark volcanics – formed prior to when this caldera was covered by water.
Soon after the Bishops purchased this property, Frank was wine tasting in Napa Valley with friends from Los Altos. All were at Darioush when the host offered them a Cabernet Sauvignon and indicated it was a special bottling from Curry Lane. The host was surprised to hear that Frank had just recently purchased vineyard property so close to the Darioush Vineyard. But that is how this valley works sometimes – with minimal degrees of separation.
The vineyard is planted with tight spacing; the rows are 5 feet apart while the vines are 4 feet apart from each other. As a result of this spacing, the property provides yields like a much larger vineyard. Despite the age of the vines, they remain exceptionally healthy and continue to produce an abundant crop of grapes. With this spacing there is a high demand for sunlight, water and nutrients, producing grapes of intense flavors.
This vineyard is very much managed by hand. With Frank’s background in technology, he could implement a sophisticated control system including for watering. But that takes the enjoyment out of farming this property by hand. He would rather set a timer, get up late at night or early morning and manually turn on the valves for each block.
The vineyard covers much of their property and is planted on sloping soils. The property features very few level surfaces – as a result, there is excellent exposure. Seven distinctive blocks are each harvested individually, only when the grapes are ready rather than picking the entire vineyard at once. A small Kubota tractor manufactured in Japan, paired with implements manufactured in Italy, works especially well among the vineyard’s narrow rows; this tractor was originally designed for use in rice paddies. The vines are minimally irrigated. As a result of the rocky site, the irrigation line is shallow and the drainage system on the property is lined with rocks from the property.
This part of Coombsville is often blanketed by fog in the morning, so prevalent at times in the San Francisco Bay area that it has earned its own nickname – Karl. And in the afternoons especially, Coombsville commonly is the recipient of cooling breezes. This part of Napa Valley can often be 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than in the mid to northern reaches of the valley. This site is located in the far southeastern part of Coombsville, as a result is one of the closest parts of the sub appellation to the San Pablo Bay. And as temperatures have warmed up over the years, this previously much cooler part of Napa Valley has warmed up accordingly.
The property is in the center of the caldera; the rocks are primarily volcanic in origin but with hard sedimentary layers – as at one time this caldera was flooded with water. As Frank says, “it is hard to put a shovel in the ground anywhere on the property.”
Their first vintage was in 2018; at the time Frank was the winemaker. The wines were produced at Judd’s Hill Winery using their micro-crush services from 2018 through 2020. In 2020 they picked early and made a rosé that year; later they again picked for the still wine. No measurable smoke taint was found in the grapes from either pick.
While their vineyard produces a limited amount of Cabernet Sauvignon each year for the Terra Solis bottling (usually around 4 barrels), Frank and Emily continue to sell the majority of their grapes. In 2020, viticulturist and winemaker Harvest Duhig of Caymus Vineyards visited the property unannounced. Frank remembers he was at the kitchen table paying bills when he heard a knock at the front door. Harvest asked him if he had any grapes for sale because many of the vineyards up valley that Caymus normally purchased from had been smoke tainted, resulting from the devastating Glass Fire that year. He agreed to sell his grapes during her visit and by late afternoon they already had a signed contract. While most things in the wine world move agonizingly slowly, this visit produced a sale that was remarkably quick.
In 2021 winemaker Jean Hoefliger visited Terra Solis Vineyard and offered to purchase all of the grapes. However, some were already in contract at the time. Regardless, the visit was still highly fruitful, Frank asked Jean, “would you be my winemaker?” Jean agreed to take over the winemaking that day and has made every vintage since, starting with 2021.
Vineyard manager Mario Bazaan’s team handles harvesting the grapes and assists with small re-plantings including a tiny block of Cabernet Franc. All replants follow the same tight spacing as the original vines.
There is a sense of place and pride that Frank speaks of when describing Terra Solis Vineyard and the work that he has already put in and continues to do in terms of its farming. He does much of the farming himself. This peaceful and beautiful slice of Napa Valley is located towards the bottom of the Coombsville Caldera in the far south eastern reaches of the sub appellation. The property is framed by the hills of Skyline park to the south and surrounding vineyards.
Select Wines
Terra Solis produces one estate wine a year, a 100% varietal Cabernet Sauvignon and several white wines from the Sonoma side of Carneros including a Chardonnay and an Albariño. The Chardonnay was made primarily for Emily’s palate. And it is Emily who designed their labels. Their granddaughter has finger painted the labels for most vintages of their estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Her first label was in 2018 when she was two years of age. Her nickname is Cabi, the proprietary name of their Cabernet Sauvignon through the 2022 vintage, short for Charleze Alexandria Bishop. And the lower case ‘i’ in CABi is a nod to Frank and Emily’s time working in Silicon Valley.
Reds
The 2023 Terra Solis Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, CABi is 100% varietal. This wine is deep ruby and nearly opaque; the bouquet offers both a simultaneous freshness and ripe fruits. This wine was aged for 18 months in French oak, a combination of multiple toasts, barrel ages and coopers. The nose is red fruited with some Cabernet Sauvignon typicity, often muted by both Napa Valley sunshine, up valley sites and harvest decisions. The nose smells chili spice, tomato leaf, some florals including rose petals and violets, a minerally edge and a note of dried herbs. Its fruit is brambly including of raspberry. And as the wine evolves, it offers a note of cocoa powder. On the palate, this wine is superbly balanced in its youth, only 3 years post vintage. Its fruit includes dark raspberry, Santa Rosa plum, boysenberry, dark mulberry, cherry, and a lingering savory edge including of tobacco and dried herbs, i.e. sage and bay leaf. The oak is complementary here. The tannins are lightly grainy and gravelly textured, finishing with a chalky textured grip. Its ABV is listed as 14.4%. Beautiful. Balanced. Age worthy. The total production this year was only 4 barrels.
The grapes were cold-soaked for three days to enhance color extraction and develop aromatic complexity, followed by skin maceration in stainless steel tanks with pump-overs performed twice daily. After fermentation, the wine was gently pressed and transferred to premium French oak barrels (multiple coopers and toast levels), where it aged for 12 months prior to bottling.
Whites
The 2024 Terra Solis Chardonnay, Doni Las Brisas Vineyard, Carneros Napa Valley, is medium gold in color. Brightly lit in the glass, this wine is a fully ripe expression of the variety, yet it stays far away from the buttery and overly oaked styles that California Chardonnay has become known for. Its aromas reveal notes of pineapple, apricot, banana, ripe papaya, Alphonso mango, yellow peaches, vanilla, and butterscotch. The oak sits quietly in the background, as the wine was fermented and aged in neutral barrels. It went through full malolactic fermentation. Distinctive, fully ripe, and richly layered, the palate is anchored by balanced acidity and flavors of honeycomb, apricot, pineapple, golden apple, yellow nectarine, and vanilla. It finishes with a perceived sweetness of fruit driven by its ripe character. The texture is lightly rounded, yet complemented by a bright, balanced acidity, offering an impressive persistence of flavor. The flower on this bottle is significant in Asia; it is a blue poppy which represents peace, spiritual enlightenment, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness.
Emily and one of her friends accompanied Frank to the winery in Sonoma where this wine is produced with the intent to taste through an assortment of barrels before they blended. They were enjoying their afternoon so much they could they could not agree on the final blend. So at dinner, Emily instructed Frank to make the final blends himself with their winemaker and she said, “make it something I want to drink”. After the blend was put together, Frank presented her with a bottle; she sat quietly for some time and then finally said something like, “you have nailed this, I love it”.
And in 2026 Terra Solis bottled a 2025 Albarino from Las Brisas Vineyard in Carneros.
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Production remains extremely limited, with the estate Cabernet Sauvignon typically totaling only four barrels annually, making Terra Solis one of the smaller estate Cabernet producers in Coombsville. The estate wine has already received accolades from wine writers, critics and the press including from wine Napa Valley Register contributor and independent wine consultant, Alan Balik and wine critics, Lisa Perrotti-Brown and James Suckling.
Frank will sometimes pour the wines at a limited number of charity events including in 2026 at the annual California Winemasters by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation tasting hosted at Warner Brother Studios in Los Angeles.
For more information or to purchase current releases, please visit: www.terrasolisvineyard.com
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