LOS ANGELES — Donna Mills’ happy place is sitting in her backyard, drinking wine.
What if the bottle runs out? No problem.
She and her life partner, Larry Gilman, have loads of things close at hand, just a hop, skip and a three-minute walk to their own Mandeville vineyards.
“I’ve always loved wine, but I never thought I’d have a vineyard,” Mills said.
She said Gilman kept talking about making one with all the extra land behind their Brentwood home.
“I started seeing clear paths and rebar going on. And so he did it. And I said you could do it, but that has nothing to do with me,” Mills said.
But eventually, she fell in love with it and got very involved.
“There is weeding to do, pruning to do, folding,” she says.
Mills rose to fame as one of the most well-known soap opera stars of her time with “Knots Landing”, the longest running primetime soap opera set in Southern California.
“It’s another chapter. It’s a whole other world that has nothing to do with my acting world,” she said.
And it’s something she and Larry share a passion for.
“With the 431 factories we have, we will make between 50 and 75 cases per year. It’s between 600 and 900 bottles. Last year was our best year. We have processed 100 cases,” Gilman said.
Their vineyard is home to the only Malbec grown in Los Angeles — and it’s become their main hobby during the pandemic.
“As crazy as I thought it was at first, I’ve come to love it.”
It turns out she’s come to rely on it during the pandemic — even calling it her savior.
“There’s something about working the soil, with things growing, that’s just very fulfilling, very calming,” she said.
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