In 1982, after receiving a small inheritance from his maternal grandfather, Valeriano Jacuzzi, one of the seven Jacuzzi brothers credited for inventing the Jacuzzi whirlpool bath, Fred Cline opened Cline Cellars winery in Contra Costa County in the town of Oakley, California.
In 1991 Fred Cline and his wife Nancy Cline, relocated the winery from Oakley, California to a 350-acre property in the Carneros region of the Sonoma Valley that is the site of a former Miwok village and the original site of Mission San Francisco de Solano.