Darcie Kent is the fifth generation of her family to make both wine and art, and the two have never been separate. Her great-great-grandfather Fritz Ruegsegger came from Switzerland in 1875 to pursue winemaking and in 1883 founded the Alpine Winery in Missouri, holding U.S. bond number 62 until Prohibition closed it. Darcie met her husband David at the University of Colorado Boulder, and in 1996, inspired by the garagiste movement then upending Bordeaux's right bank, they bought a ten-acre block of Merlot in the Livermore Valley and built a house among the vines. She painted the labels herself, as her great-grandfather had, and still does. In 2013 the family acquired the former Cedar Mountain property on Tesla Road and renovated it; the estate now runs to some 70 acres around Crane Ridge, with Hungarian-born Julian Halasz making the wines and Darcie's paintings hanging in the converted barn.