Nestled in the rolling foothills that rim Suisun Valley, in northern Solano County, California, Bella Vista Ranch is a 77-acre vineyard where Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, French Colombard, and Gamay wine grapes are grown. The ranch is operated by Bob and Jean Carty who market their grapes to a number of California wineries including Sebastiani and Beringer.

Bella Vista Ranch has a long and fascinating history. Once home to the Suisun Indians, stone morter holes beneath nearby ancient oak trees, and obsidian arrowheads in the rich soil between the grape vines, belie the presence of this now extinct Patwin Indian tribelet. The Suisune leader during the mission period was Sem-Ye-to, better known as Chief Solano, and he briefly held a Spanish Rancho, the Suisun land grant, which by 1847 was in the hands of General Mariano Vallejo.

Bella Vista Ranch came into being on September 6, 1866 when Joseph Cooper Wolfskill (1843-1914), a nephew of Solano County pioneers and grape growers John Reid and William Wolfskill, bought a 700-acre strip of contested land between the Suisun and Armijo (Tolenas Grant) Ranchos from Benecia businessman and land investor Samuel C. Gray. Joseph, with his father Mathus (1810-1891), planted wheat, oats, corn, and barley in the flats between steep ridges that bordered their acreage. Joseph probably also grew Mission grapes brought over from his uncle John's ranch at nearby Putah Creek. But prior to World War I, the vineyards and field crops gave way to orchards of apricots, prunes, pears, and walnuts. Bob and Jean Carty purchased the old Wolfskill ranch house and the flat lands below it in 1963 from widow Ruth Gaston. They replaced the Wolfskill homestead with a modern Spanish-style house, and replanted the land in grapes.

The name "Bella Vista" is Spanish for "good view" and stems from the expansive view to the south of Mt. Diablo. This peak figured prominently in the creation myths of many local Indians, and it was known to the Spaniards as "the high hill of the Bolbones", the latter being a tribelet of Ohlone Indians that once lived in its shadow.

An unpublished history by General Vallejo claims that the name Mt. Diablo derives from an 1806 skirmish between the Bolbones and Spanish soldiers. During the battle an Indian, adorned in feathers and paint, suddenly emerged from the bushes waving his arms and screaming wildly. The dance of this shaman excited the Bolbones to such a fever pitch that they fought with renewed vigor and routed the Spaniards. The thicket of shrubs from whence the wildman appeared became known as "monte del diablo", or the "devil's woods". Later non-Spanish speaking settlers, confusing "monte" with "mount", corrupted this to Mount Diablo and assumed that it applied to the high hill of the Bolbones.

Today "the high hill of the Bolbones" overlooks a thriving agricultural community, the mainstay of which is the growing of wine grapes. New vineyards appear every year, and Solano County, of which Suisun Vally is the heart, supports a number of fine wineries. Bella Vista Ranch is proud to contribute to that industry and maintain the tradition of farming that has been the hallmark of Suisun Valley since the first Spanish settlers arrived here nearly two centuries ago.

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