When John Frohling died in 1862, the company had an inventory of about 500,000 gallons of wine in vaults in Los Angeles and San Francisco. By the 1870s Kohler realized that to keep improving quality and to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for his wines he

would need to open vineyards in northern California. Kohler & Frohling expands by purchasing the "Sierra Vista Vineyards" in the

San Joaquin Valley, Fresno County, in 1878. In order to produce more brandy

and dessert wines, the Sierra Vista Vineyards Company erected a winery of close to a million-gallon capacity which was operated until about 1900, when it was

closed because of phylloxera.