This is the nicest story. It's about Sonoma County sports photographer/grape grower Jean Fruth - that's a unique combo, sports photographer/grape grower. And she's really good at both.

I got to know Jean at 49er games and now I'd like you to know her. Jean has been into photography a long time but sports shooting is relatively new to her -- she's been doing it a few years. She got interested in photographing sports because she manages her kid's team in the Healdsburg Little League - her 11-year-old son Simon is a pitcher and first baseman.

Before she did sports, she mostly shot landscapes, wineries and black-and-white portraits of kids. She started submitting her work to the Healdsburg Tribune, usually shots of kids playing sports. Pretty soon, the paper asked her to shoot high school varsity sports - football, wrestling, volley ball, basketball, whatever season it was.

"I loved to photograph sports," she told me this morning over the phone. "It's such a good fit for me. I understand it enough to do a good job. I wanted to do pro sports, but it's hard to get into."

She was good friends with Baron Wolman, the famous rock n roll photographer who also did a book of Raiders photos. Wolman introduced her to Michael Zagaris, the legendary team photographer of the 49ers and A's. Zagaris got her credentials to the A's and Niners and became her mentor for sports shooting.

He arranged for her to go to spring training 2008, where she worked on the field five days in a row. "Because it's such a relaxed atmosphere," she said, "I had a lot more access to players. I got candid shots of smiling hopeful new guys just coming up to the A's, but also guys wondering who was going to Japan. Those shots were really special to me. The shots that show emotion in particular, I really like that. When I shoot the 49ers, I get lots of hanging heads - you don't want to see that but it tells the story. I got JTO fumbling the ball, the ball slipping out of his hand and I shot him hanging head and walking back to the locker room."

Through the Healdsburg Tribune, Sonoma West and Windsor Times, Fruth would like to create a place where locals can go online and read stories about pro athletes and how they relate to Sonoma County.

OK, that's half of Jean Fruth's story and it's a story of having an adventure and following a dream. The other half also is about having an adventure and following a dream, but in a different way.

Jean used to run a chain of optical stores in New York called Cohen's Fashion Optical. She was the vice president of sales and operations at a young age. Three Cohen brothers owned Cohen's Optical. They had a simple requirement for Jean - make us a lot of money. She did. They were happy. When she moved west, the Bay Area optical chain Site for Sore Eyes was in bankruptcy and it just so happens the Cohen Bros. bought bankrupt optical chains. If they bought Site for Sore Eyes would Jean manage it for them? Heck, yes. She made them money and she ended up buying three stores from them and they were successful.

Is this the American dream, or what?

Around 2000, she sold them and, as she told me, "That gave me a lot of choices." She also told me, "I was able to go into photography fulltime and buy a vineyard." As choices go, those were pretty good.

Why did she buy the vineyard?

"I was living in Healdsburg - well, actually I split time between San Francisco and Healdsburg. (It was at this point I asked Jean if I could have her life.) With the sale of the stores I had money to invest. I didn't want to invest in the stock market -- it's what you don't know. So I bought this property in Chalk Hill. When you buy property in Sonoma County, you buy vineyard land because there's very little else. My intention was not to buy vineyard. It was to buy property. I have so many friends who are winemakers and they found this property. It's so beautiful, I knew I wanted to build on it eventually and I will. Right now we have a tree house on it. It had a vineyard just starting to produce."

She has 60 acres, 20 of which are planted with room for more. She will eventually plant more but the 20 acres work very well, are profitable and manageable. The grapes grow on hilly land and that, of course, is the key. "That's why the grapes sell for what they sell for," she told me. "The hillside makes them more complex; you get lower yields but higher quality fruit as opposed to the valley floor. The grapes have a more interesting flavor."

Jean grows cabernet sauvignon, syrah and zinfandel and she calls her property the Flora Ranch. "I named it for Flora, the original owner a long time ago," she said. "I named it so I can brand it. I farm it the high-end way to produce the best grapes the land will allow. Farming practices really vary. I tried to go to smaller boutique wineries so they'd make wine from those grapes so I could get a vineyard designate on those bottles - Flora Ranch. This creates demand for my grapes."

Jean sells to Armida, Simi and Saxon Brown. I've had Flora Ranch syrah from Armida and Saxon Brown and they're knockouts.

Jean is a good neighbor. She sells her photos and donates the money to sports programs. She's raised funds for Healdsburg High School and $3,000 for little league. You can check out Jean's photography on her website jeanfruthimages.com. I hope you get to taste her wine.