At the time, the closest commercial vineyard was hundreds of
miles away in northern Nevada. But that wasn’t going to stop the
man known as Doctor Gehring. “Roger is a true pioneer,” says Bill
Loken, the owner of Nevada Wine Cellars in Pahrump, which part-
ners with Gehring harvesting his grapes for their wines. For
Roger, “This was a complete leap of faith,” says Loken. “There
was nothing out there. But the last thing you want to tell Roger is
that he can’t do something. It’s just not in his nature. He’s going
to do it anyway.”
Gehring couldn’t understand why California had so many wineries
and southern Nevada had none. So he visited wineries in Paso
Robles to study how things were done. In the end, his teachers
were not encouraging. “We’ll sell you everything you need,” they
told him. “But you’re going to be all by yourself out there.” Indeed,
it was Roger Gehring’s one-man show.
The vineyard-to-be started off as a weekend project. After all,
Gehring was still working for the school district. His wife wanted
nothing to do with the Amargosa Valley land and would wave her
husband off each Saturday to go pursue his pipe dream in the desert.
And the dream grew, piece by piece.
First, Gehring ringed his stake with 600 Mondale pine trees as a
wind break and as property markers, amazing his golf buddies
with tales of his progress. “Are you going to build an expensive
house out there?” One asked. “No,” Gehring answered. “I’m going
to live in a metal shed.” “I’d like to see that,” the friend said.
Soon afterward, Gehring saw a large metal structure for sale in Green
Valley. He bought it, had the shed dismantled and rebuilt in the desert.
He still laughs at the venture: “I do everything the hard way.”
Slowly, he went to work on the land. He planted 40 acres of alfalfa
as a way to keep his water rights. He eventually planted five acres
of grapes. His first harvest was in 2005, when he produced 10 tons
of grapes. Last year, the same five acres produced nearly 30 tons.