The seeds for McIlroy Wines were planted in 1972 when Will McIlroy and his family purchased a fifty-two acre farm on Westside Road in Sonoma County. They planned to clear the existing prune orchard and grow premium wine grapes. With a small investment of money and a lot of work, what is now known as Aquarius Ranch was born. Today the McIlroy's grow some of the best wine grapes in the Russian River Valley Appellation.
Will received a degree in winemaking from U.C. Davis in 1982. Merry and Will met at Davis and were married in 1983. In 1990 while working at Davis Bynum Winery, Will had the chance to make wine commercially. The first crush yielded 290 cases of Chardonnay. The 1990 Aquarius Ranch Chardonnay won 3 gold medals and 7 awards overall.
The McIlroy Family - Julia, Katrina, Will, Merry, and Nicholas
Today McIlroy Wines has accumulated more than 50 Gold medals and 150 awards in ten years of wine competitions. The McIlroy Aquarius Ranch Chardonnay was the White Wine Sweepstakes Winner at the 1998 Los Angeles County Fair Wine Competition. The McIlroy Zinfandel was named the Best Zinfandel in California at the 1998 State Fair and was the Grand Champion at the 2000 Pacific Rim International Wine Competition.
Aquarius Ranch
We are a small winery and Will does all the winemaking and most of everything else with help from Merry and his daughter, Julia. We take pride in making unique single vineyard and small-lot wine at reasonable prices. Today our production is around 4000 cases and we source grapes from our family vineyard and other small independent growers in Sonoma County. Every year we make Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Zinfandel as well as small lots of other wine.
We hope you enjoy our wine, and that it makes your celebrations or quiet dinners more special.

From our family to yours,

Will and Merry

Russian River and Aquarius Ranch