TAHOMA, Calif. – After honeymooning in the French countryside in the mid-nineties, Kelly and Lizzie Ramsey dreamed about one day owning a vineyard and making their own wine. But it wasn’t until their daughter started school at Santa Clara University that their dream started becoming reality.

Kelly, who was born and raised in Southern California, was familiar with the state and the Sierra Nevada but the family lived in Austin, Texas at the time she started school.

“She’s like, we got to have a cabin up in Lake Tahoe,” said Kelly. “And so that kind of evolved into looking around 2015 for a suitable place to build.”

While finding a new place to build around the Tahoe Basin is not exactly easy, the couple settled on a small piece of land in Tahoma on Tahoe’s west shore. Leaning on his building and design skills, Kelly did both to construct their home with the original idea of it being more of a vacation spot and a place for their daughter to visit.

But when COVID hit, the opportunity to capitalize at the peak of the market allowed them to move to Tahoe along with their other daughter.

“We were looking for a place to park the money and we were looking for vineyards from Eastern Washington down to Santa Barbara and our other daughter by that time was going to the University of California Santa Barbara,” added Kelly. “And so we found this vineyard and it was kind of neglected and we thought, well, let’s get this and see what we can do with it.”

With Zinfandel one of the couple’s favorite wines and the bulk of the grapes on the Sonoma County vineyard, they thought the fit was perfect. They even had another winery that was already purchasing their grapes but when that winery suddenly went out of business, it left them scrambling to find someone else who would buy the grapes. When they couldn’t find anybody, that’s when Kelly said they made the decision.

“We’re gonna do three things. We’re gonna make bulk wine, make our own wine, and do bonded winemaking and amateur winemaking at the same time.”

After leasing space at another nearby winery, Kelly, who had done a little bit of grape growing and winemaking in a much more challenged climate in Texas, assumed the role as the winemaker, and with Lizzie handling the marketing, the Terra Amata brand was fully born.

Lizzie, who is a (retired) archaeologist and teacher by trade, explained where the name came from.

“There’s a famous – not super famous – archaeological site that is in southern France called Terra Amata. But it’s not because of the archaeological site, but because of the name and the meaning. Terra is land or of the earth and Amata is love or beloved, so it’s beloved earth. And it just sounded like a good name.”

Living in Tahoe and splitting time at the winery as needed, the couple found their stride. Working on two wines simultaneously, the first to be bottled under the new production schedule were an Old Vine Zin and a Reserve Zinfandel. Then, with the next harvest, Kelly started to think about diversifying and added a Rosé of Zinfandel (or Zin-sé as its playfully referred to) and started entering them into contests.

The results have been successful including wins this year at the California State Fair for both the Old Vine Zin (gold medal and 95 points) and the Rosé of Zinfandel (gold medal and 95 points) and a Best of Show award at the Alameda County Fair for the Rosé of Zinfandel.

And while the wins are nice, one thing other vineyards have that Terra Amata doesn’t is an actual tasting room, making it a challenge to fully carve out their niche with distribution in Tahoe. The couple has been contemplating finding a tasting room location around the lake, but the right opportunity hasn’t quite presented itself – although some additional ideas are also in the works. For now, they are relying on local events for awareness and wine clubs and other locations (restaurants, retailers, etc.) for direct sales.

“What I’m setting up right now is the description of each of the wine clubs and discounts and promo codes that we’re using so people can sign on to create an account and then purchase online,” said Lizzie. “For Tahoe we thought we’d offer free delivery.”

So, if you are a Tahoe resident you are likely to be paid a visit in person by Lizzie and Kelly, along with your order – a service that makes the Terra Amata experience quite unique.

In addition to the current offerings, the plan is to have three more wines to choose from in the coming year: Petite Syrah, a blend of Petite Syrah and Zinfandel, and another 100% Zinfandel. With production Kelly estimates around 1,000 cases in total after the new wines are bottled, the focus will then turn to finding homes for each of those bottles.

Kelly added, “You can’t be impatient because you got to understand that if the other businesses are going through anything like what we’re going through, we’re busy all the time … We’re just really boutique and there’s a lot of handcrafted work going into making the wine.”

For wine club and general information about Terra Amata Vineyards visit them online at terraamatavineyards.com or call them at (707) 955-9166.