
Nov 23, 2019
Meet the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Long Meadow Ranch whose collaborative spirit pervades the agricultural community in the Napa Valley.
Like many kids, Chris Hall was expected to play a sport, study an instrument, and speak another language. But his family had a fourth founding principle: Raise an animal.
“I grew up with both of my parents cooking, and almost everything on the table was something that we grew ourselves, whether it was the tomato in the salad or the egg at breakfast or the pork chop,” he reflects. “That was one of the original ideas that has brought us to where we are today.”
Since his parents founded Long Meadow Ranch in 1989 to grow cabernet sauvignon, the business has expanded to multiple estates supporting fruits, vegetables, grass-fed cattle, poultry, olive groves, and bees for honey. Hall now manages the farming operations, which include the use of solar power and biofuels—part of Long Meadow Ranch’s 360-degree view of farming, meaning that they are largely self-sustaining.
As Hall explains it, for example, the stems, skins, and pits from the wine harvest create pumice added into the compositing operation, which gets applied back to the vineyards and orchards. And while a prized heirloom tomato will make it into a salad at their restaurant, Farmstead, lesser tomatoes will be used for gazpacho or to feed the chickens, whose eggs then go back to the restaurant.Hall also has a 360-degree perspective from growing up on the farm. “I’ve basically worked every job across the company, whether that be shoveling horse manure, cow manure, planting the vineyard or orchard, selling the wine and developing some of the new businesses we’re working on,” he says.Sign up for the Daily Wander newsletter for expert travel inspiration and tips
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