Silverado Trail is lined with splendiferous wineries that pay tribute to the wine grape. John and Margaret Hoffman’s farm is not one of them.

John, 92, and Margaret, 89, are old school. They harken back to an era when wine was not king.

When a reporter dropped in last week for a tour, John popped in a hearing aid and armed himself with a cane, while Margaret switched from her house walker to her yard walker. Off we went, across the gravel driveway, past weathered picnic tables to the edge of a vast orchard.

This is the Hoffmans’ pride and joy — a great sprawl of walnut trees interspersed with some 60 other varieties of fruit and nut plantings. There is nary a vine in sight.

In a county where 98 percent of the agricultural production today is wine grapes, these trees are an anachronism. They don’t make financial sense. The farm hasn’t made a profit in years.

The Hoffmans don’t care. They have been offered fortunes to sell or lease their property for grapes. “We don’t pay any attention to them,” John said.

On May 4, the Napa County Historical Society will honor the Hoffmans at a luncheon at Compadres Rio Grille on Lincoln Avenue for perpetuating a type of farming that is virtually extinct.

“It’s one of the last remnants on the valley floor of what made this valley: the cultivation of fruit trees,” society spokesman Wendy Ward said.

Window to the past

The Hoffmans’ U-pick customers are “looking through a window to the agricultural past of the Napa Valley,” said Greg Clark, the assistant agricultural commissioner for Napa County.

The Hoffmans were a young couple with children when they bought 23 acres north of Trancas Street for $18,500 in 1949. “We came here with the intention of living on the farm and making a living. I was naive,” John said.

The orchard was planted in prunes in those days, as was most of the Napa Valley. The value of the county’s prune harvest in 1949: $1.4 million. Wine grapes were second at $1.3 million.

During the September harvest, teenagers would come up from Napa to pick prunes for 25 cents a box. A good picker could earn $5 a day. After a hot day in the orchard, everyone would march to the Hoffmans’ Napa River swimming hole and wash the dust off.

When he struggled to support his family with prunes, John took a full-time gardening job at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Fifteen years later when another opportunity arose, he moved his family to South San Francisco to become parks superintendent. On weekends, the Hoffmans would return to Napa to watch over their trees.

Those were tough years, said Margaret, a Nebraska farm girl who missed living on the land. “You know what they say, you can take the girl out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl,” she said.

She’s always practiced the domestic arts. Over the years she’s made hundreds of quilts and canned thousands of gallons of fruits and vegetables.

Although she’s had to give up quilting due to arthritis, Margaret still cooks up a storm. She offered her guest fresh brownies made from Hoffman walnuts and a glass of well water. The night before she had made wine jelly.

When John retired in 1981, the family moved back to the farm and built a modest new house that sits next to the original 19th century cottage.

By then, the Sunsweet plant in downtown Napa that had processed their prunes had closed, so the Hoffmans transitioned to Hartley English walnuts, planting apples, pears and peaches between them.

Dueling for ribbons

Walnuts had the advantage of not needing pickers. They fell to the ground on their own. “We had the ambition to run the farm without any help. I was pretty good at it,” John said.

The Hoffman Farm was a mainstay of Napa Valley Farming Trails, an association of some two dozen growers who sold produce and Christmas trees from their driveways.

Ruth von Uhlit, whose farm near Trancas/Soscol is now apartments and a housing subdivision, was the spark plug behind Farming Trails. When she folded shop, Farming Trails’ days were numbered, Margaret said.

Through the 1980s, the Hoffmans and the von Uhlits would duel it out every summer at the Napa Town and Country Fair to see who would win the most blue ribbons. Margaret said she has several trunks full of fair honors.

The orchard gets minimal care these days. John, who tootles about in a five-wheel John Deere, said he watches over his trees as best he can, given his strength and mobility limitations. His son Andrew, who lives in the old house with his wife Lindsey, helps out with tractor work and the removal of dead trees.

“We have a motto,” Margaret said. “If it can’t get done, it can’t get done.”

John once sprayed for bugs and diseases, but the cost became prohibitive. His fruit and nuts are now organic.

The farm attracts several hundred u-pick customers each fall for whom a blemish is a badge of quality, he said. “Margaret guarantees a worm in every apple,” he said.

Despite their advanced years, “we’re excited to be here,” said John, who has been married to Margaret for 68 years. “Life is good.”

Three of their four children live nearby and provide support services. When John needs to get to a Master Gardeners meeting, a friend will offer a ride. Their church sends a van on Sundays.

“I think Margaret and I are surprised,” John said. “Most people don’t live as long as we do. We find ourselves in the amusing situation of outliving all our friends. It’s very interesting.”

As much as they love their orchard, John said the walnuts, pears and apples have an uncertain future. When he and Margaret die, their four children will inherit the property. He expects they will sell it.

“It’s their business,” he said. “We’re not going to live their lives when we’re gone.”

“When we’re gone they might convert it into grapes. We don’t talk about it,” he said.