Hooked on wine: Betsy's vineyard produces no vin ordinaire.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: INVESTMENTS

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There aren't too many women who can say that both their father and husband are hookers

This is one of Betsy Lawer's favorite lines when talking about Hooker Wines, one of three labels that comprise Lawer Family Wines, along with Three Coins and Duck Shack wines. Vice Chair of First National Bank Alaska, Lawer says that like all the labels, this one too has a family story behind it. Her father D.H. Cuddy, chairman and president of the bank, was the hooker for Stanford University's rugby team. When she was a small girl he would sing her "lullabies"--sanitized versions of bawdy rugby lyrics. Years later as a student at Duke University, she met David Lawer, also rugby hooker, and her future husband.

Duck Shack wines is named for the family's duck shack in Trading Bay. The wine's Web site recounts a story where Betsy's husband David, originally from New York City, accidentally blew up the old duck shack. The Three Coins label goes back to a day when Betsy and David, just newly married, and her siblings were the labor for her father's gold mining endeavors.

Until 2002, Lawer and her husband were wine enthusiasts and collectors who also enjoyed traveling to Napa Valley for getaways from Alaska winters. With a group of investors, they purchased Folie a Deux--a psychiatric term for two people who share a common delusion--a bankrupt winery that seemed to have potential and at the very least would provide an education in the wine business with their investment acting as tuition. Combining hard work with their banking savvy, the group turned the winery around before selling it to Sutter Home.

The Lawers continue to grow and expand their business interests, including working toward a goal of having all their wines made from grapes in Betsy's Vineyard, their wine country property just outside of Calistoga. In addition to renting out the three estates on the 126 acres...