WILLIAMSBURG— Owner of Hampton Roads Vineyard & Winery and Williamsburg Farmers Market attendee, David Sheldon, is an author who has been noted as an International Best Seller with his book “You Can Wine Too”.
Sheldon said when he married his wife Diane back in 1973, he made a promise that he would retire at 55 and become the president of a Fortune 500 company, which made her roll her eyes and say, “Okay, Dave, let’s go for it.”
The duo ended up in the corporate field for a while. Sheldon would continue to offer up activities for them to do when he was 55 and ready to retire, and she would generally turn down the idea. After a while, as the two reached closer to retirement, Sheldon came home one day and told her they had to make a decision for retirement.
“I say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to make a decision. I’m retiring in a couple of months. What are we gonna do?'” Sheldon recalled that before he gave her a choice. “I told her we could either sell everything and sail around the world the rest of our lives, or we’ll have a vineyard winery. Well, her first response was that she wasn’t gonna sail around the world the rest of her life.”
After that conversation, Sheldon started looking for land. After a few disappointing leads, an agent approached them about selling the building that the plastics business Sheldon owned was in. Sheldon told him that if he wanted a finder’s fee to find someone who knows about vineyards in Virginia. Soon enough, the guy returned, having found him an agent. And that was how they eventually purchased the vineyard for the Hampton Roads Vineyard & Winery in Surry County.
That was back in 2007. Since then, they purchased the land to open the winery part, which has now been open for 10 years this past November. His book, “You Can Wine Too,” follows the memories of his various trials and tribulations he experienced on his journey.
Sheldon says that the book came about because people wanted him to do a blog. However, Sheldon didn’t feel a blog was a good fit for him as he didn’t want to struggle to find something to say and then start saying nothing.
“A blog isn’t my thing, but I could go on for hours with all the experiences that I’ve had and share those. And I think part of it was also, I want to leave a legacy to my sons,” Sheldon said. He hopes that his children will read the book and understand their father and what he went through with their mother to get to where they are now.
The book is now available in 3 formats at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For more information about the winery, please visit the official website.
