A bold, passionate toast to rugby, love, life and wine!

As much as she loved a good fairy tale, one of Betsy Lawer’s most cherished memories from her childhood in Alaska were the lullabies her father sang to her at bed-time.

Over hill, over dale
As we hit the dusty trail,
And the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout,
Counter march and right about,
And the Caissons go rolling along.

Not just any lullabies, mind you, but lively songs from his days playing rugby for Stanford University, along with spirited military tunes he’d picked up overseas during WW2. Needless to say, these “lullabies” were sanitized versions of the original songs, especially the notoriously bawdy rugby lyrics. And so, in the lively songs of a loving father and the carefree dreams of a young girl, the seeds of Hooker Wines were planted.

If I were the marrying kind,
Which thank the lord I'm not sir,
The kind of man that I would wed,
Would be a rugby hooker!

The years, like those caissons her father sang of, rolled on, and Betsy found herself thousands of miles from home attending Duke University. It was there a young man with curly blond hair and steely blue eyes caught her attention and stole her heart. Certain her former rugby playing father would approve, Betsy called home one evening to share the news of her budding romance. The announcement went reasonably well until she revealed - with a hint of pride - that her suitor was a stand-out hooker on the Duke Rugby team.

Her enthusiasm was met with silence. An epic silence in light of the fact this was a long-distance call from North Carolina to Alaska. Assuming her father was speechless with delight, Betsy went on to share that she and David had just returned from a post-game Rugby party. (For anyone not familiar with post-game rugby festivities, these celebrations would make a Las Vegas after-hours club look like a Presbyterian church social).

The silence now had become an abyss, and then abruptly, with all the till-hell-freezes-over paternal authority her father could muster, he decreed, “You will never, ever see that young man again. No gentleman takes a lady to a Rugby party.”

I've been a wild rover for many a year
And I spent all my money on whiskey and beer,
And now I'm returning with gold in great store
And I never will play the wild rover no more.

And it's no, nay, never,
No nay never no more,
Will I play the wild rover
No never no more.

Love conquers all. And despite her father’s ultimatum, Betsy married David Lawer, her rugby player. In time, her father discovered there was more to this devil-may-care rugger than scrums, rucks, drop goals and wild victory celebrations. The rugby player had also become a promising law student with the kind of credentials Betsy’s father could approve, albeit grudgingly.

There once was a Hooker named Dave
Who kept his wine in a cave
It fermented a bit
Then he let it sit
It’s a vintage that’s now all the rave!

While David was attending law school in California during the 70’s, he and Betsy explored the extraordinary beauty and became enchanted by the fine wines of Napa Valley. Over the years they have spent more and more time in the valley, and began looking for property there. Soon, along with an eclectic group of investors who hailed from Jacksonville to Hong Kong, they purchased Folie a Deux, a bankrupt winery rich in potential but low on capital.

The Lawer’s saw Folie a Deux as their education in the wine business, their investment as the tuition. And so, with a lot of work and this talented group of investors, Folie a Deux rose from the ashes, began to prosper, and was recently purchased by Sutter Home.

By now, the Lawer’s were hooked, so to speak. And from the vineyard of their imagination, the seeds, planted by those childhood lullabies decades earlier and David’s memories as a hooker for Duke on the rugby pitch, took root.

The name and the spirit of Hooker Wines is a celebration of the heart, David and Betsy Lawer’s toast to love, rugby, life, and wine!