WASILLA -- City Council member Nancy Hall will step down from her council seat this month to head to greener ... vineyards.
Hall is moving with her husband to Argentina to run a vineyard they call Shadow of the Andes. It's just outside San Rafael, an area she said is similar to California's Sonoma Valley of the 1970s.
Don't think that means you can hit her up for a case of the cellar select.
"We grow the grapes, we don't make the wine," Hall said.
The news that she's now a vineyard owner came as a surprise. She said she and her husband traveled in Chile and Peru in January and February 2009. Hall flew back to Alaska for work but her husband, Gary, a civil engineer, continued to travel. He stopped to visit his son in Buenos Aires and the two got to looking at vineyards for sale.
"I got this phone call that said, 'Honey, I bought a vineyard,' " Hall said.
The vineyard grows Bonarda grapes. According to several online wine guides, it's Argentina's second most widely planted grape, surpassed by the more famous Malbec. Food & Wine called it an "affordable, intensely fruity and very food-friendly" grape on its website.
Hall said her husband has loved red wine since his days as a University of California Berkeley student in the 1970s, when spending a weekend weaving from one winery to the next was a common pastime.
The couple visited the vineyard in December and January and Gary Hall flew back in March for the harvest. He's been there since, learning about the business, which is managed by a couple familiar with wine growing.
Hall said she and her husband plan to keep their home in Wasilla and enjoy a life of perpetual summer spanning the two hemispheres.
Leaving Alaska for months at a time means Hall can no longer serve on the Wasilla City Council. Last week she left her position as the Mat-Su District director of the American Red Cross of Alaska, although Hall said that was a planned retirement.
Linzi Rothermel, former campaign director for United Way of Mat-Su, will be Hall's replacement at the Red Cross.
As for the City Council seat, Hall's departure on July 26 will come just shy of two years into a three-year term.
The council will choose a city resident to fill in until the Oct. 5 municipal elections. People can apply between 8 a.m. Aug. 2 and noon Aug. 13, said Amanda Charles, deputy city clerk. The council will interview applicants Aug. 23.
In the October elections, voters will chose someone to finish the final year of Hall's term.
Candidates for the October election must file for office between July 19 and July 30 at City Hall.
By RINDI WHITE
rwhite@adn.com