Jane Wyman and Robert Foxworth star as conflicting head members of a traditional California wine-producing family reunited by the mysterious death of one of its members. When Emma is involved in Jason's accidental death, Angela covers for her. Emma withdraws to struggle with her feelings of guilt and her sense of loss. As Chase and Maggie travel to the valley to attend Jason's funeral, Chase is caught up in childhood memories and a renewed draw to the land on which he was born. When Cole suspects Vicky is having an affair with one of her teachers, he is arrested for breaking and entering. Chase realizes that his long absences from his family have taken their toll. He and Maggie decide to move the family west to Falcon Crest, while Angela vows to be rid of them by first earning their friendship.

Paul, an old friend of Chase, rekindles fond memories of flying together in the Air Force and resurrects their dream of starting a flying service together. While Paul mentions that he has the perfect place down in the Caribbean islands, Chase indicates he's found the perfect place, too, at Falcon Crest. We learn that Paul doesn't care about starting a business, but needs a large sum of money to cover his gambling debts. Angela has promised Paul the money if he can get Chase off the land. While courting Julia, Paul learns about a disease called ""bunch rot,"" and by opening the sprinklers in the night, seeks to make sure Chase will be ruined and forced to leave. When Paul demands his reward, Angela angrily accuses him of endangering all of the vineyards, throws him out and calls Chase. After Paul is exposed, Julia helps Chase and Maggie in preserving the vineyard.

Pressured by a $50,000 tax bill and short of manpower, Chase desperately tries to pre-sell his grapes before harvest. Angela offers to buy them at below market value. After Gus informs Chase of another buyer, Chase makes a lucrative deal. Angela buys the mortgage on this man's property, forcing him to back down from the deal with Chase. After a bank loan mysteriously falls through, Chase, Maggie, Cole and Vicky decide to burn their bridges and sell the brownstone in New York to raise the necessary money to stay afloat. Cole, in the meantime, is torn between following his dream to become an archaeologist and keeping Chase's dream alive by helping him in the vineyards.

Tired of Lance's irresponsible behavior, Angela becomes disenchanted with him as heir to Falcon Crest. In order to prove his worth, Lance explodes Chase's pump house, which makes Angela furious, and she threatens to disinherit him. After Lance starts a fight with Mario, Mario requires hospitalization. In order to spur Lance, Angela courts Cole to be the heir to Falcon Crest. While Chase and Maggie prepare to bring in their first harvest, Lance pays off the pickers, while Chase fights to get his son back. After Cole realizes what is really happening at the big house, he returns home to assist his family. When Chase learns about the bribe, he confronts Angela, and regains his pickers. By offering to help secure a university scholarship for Mario, Angela gets the charges dropped. Falling in love, Vicky and Mario have to part so that Mario can start school.

Julia's husband, Tony, who deserted her and Lance twelve years ago, suddenly reappears with the genuine desire to make amends and renew their relationship. Detesting his father for leaving home, Lance agonizes over the fact that Tony can return to Falcon Crest as if he had never left. While Lance is jealous of his mother's attention to Tony, Angela tries to interfere. Tony asks Julia to leave with him to start a new life away from Angela, but Julia finds she is unable to leave. Meanwhile, Chase becomes concerned about Maggie's new job as a newspaper reporter in San Francisco because she will be working for Angela's ex-husband, Douglas Channing.

Chase and Cole accompany Lance on a trip to examine a remote piece of property that Angela is contemplating buying. As the wilderness property is only accessible by horse, Cole is injured in a riding accident. Chase stays with Cole, while Lance goes for help. After running into some problems, Lance finally leads a rescue team to Cole. After Vicky makes an innocent remark regarding a mental health clinic, Emma runs away from home, believing that she is going to be sent away because people think she's crazy. When Vicky discovers Emma hiding in an old springhouse, she befriends Emma, and ultimately persuades her to return home. Worried, Douglas Channing stays by Angela's side until Emma is found.

When Emma's lover, Turner Bates, who was on the scene when Jason died, returns, Chase informs him that Jason supposedly died in a car crash. Knowing this to be untrue, Turner seeks Emma to learn what happened after he ran from the scene on the night of Jason's death, but Angela throws Turner off her property. Turner sneaks back, steals Emma away and romances her in order to learn the truth. Unable to obtain any straight answers from Emma, Turner tries to blackmail Angela, who in turn calls in the police, and Turner, after a car chase, is accidentally killed. Chase and Lance pull Emma out and save her. When Maggie says that she may be pregnant, the Giobertis try to cope with the effects that it would cause.

When Angela takes Cole to Rome to attend an important wine-tasting competition, she is surprised to find that Douglas is there, and hopes to rekindle the memory of their honeymoon spent there years ago. Initially, romance flares between Angela and Douglas; however, Angela devastates Douglas when she refuses his proposal to re-marry. Meanwhile, Cole has been given a collection of mysterious letters, which belong to an Italian relative and which underscore the enduring bitterness between Angela and Jason. Angela leaves Lance in charge of Falcon Crest to test him with the family business, but Lance painfully discovers that he's not as shrewd as his grandmother. Chase learns in the end, however, that Lance is not just a spoiled rich kid, but is a very dangerous person as well.

Angry with her parents for their excessive protectiveness, Vicky runs away from home to San Francisco, where she's lured into a wayward street life that she can't escape. Chase and Maggie frantically search for Vicky, unaware that Lance has introduced their vulnerable daughter to a woman connected with pornographic films. The Giobertis become stronger than ever when Chase and Maggie endure a difficult ordeal before locating Vicky. Angela toys with Douglas's emotions, playing him against a renowned painter and making Douglas look like a fool.

Maggie's news assignment on vineyard worker's lifestyles becomes a personal concern to the Giobertis when Maggie's interviews reveal that an extortionist is terrifying Falcon Crest employees. Puzzled as to why undocumented workers suddenly stop working for him, Chase urges Maggie to find out the reason through her interviews. When Chase learns that a man is blackmailing the vineyard workers with threats of deportation, he, despite Angela's warnings against becoming involved, manages to rout the extortionist. When Emma discovers that she is pregnant, Lance realizes that the last thing he needs is another heir competing for the Falcon Crest fortune. Consequently, Emma tumbles down a flight of stairs and has a miscarriage.

After a bitter argument with Angela regarding plans for him to marry Melissa Agretti, the wine empire heiress, Lance leaves in a fury. After he nearly runs over a girl, he falls in love with her and decides to move to San Francisco to be close to the girl. However, when Angela attempts to stop him, Lance succumbs and leaves the love of his life. In an old room that Jason had walled up, Chase finds some writings, which lead him to believe that Angela may have been involved in crippling a girl forty years ago. Confronted with the evidence, Angela turns the tables on Chase, playing a small excerpt of a recording that leaves Chase believing that his father hated him.

After an eleven-year absence before the camera, Lana Turner, one of Hollywood's brightest film stars, makes a special guest appearance as Jacqueline Perrault, Chase's wealthy mother who mysteriously returns to Falcon Crest. When Jacqueline warns Chase of Angela's treacherous nature and tries to persuade him to leave Falcon Crest, hatred erupts and Jacqueline argues with both Angela and Chase. However, through their conflict, the mother-and-son relationship is strengthened; Jacqueline is convinced that Chase will survive and prosper in the valley.

After Ed McKay, a member of the County Board of Supervisors, is assassinated, Carl Reed, one of the county supervisors, encourages Chase to run for the office. When Chase begins campaigning against Angela's virtual monopoly of the water rights in the valley, she does everything in her power to see Chase defeated, but nonetheless, Chase wins the election. After Emma is caught shoplifting in a jewelry store, Angela threatens the owner that she will destroy him if he decides to prosecute.

Angela, angry that Lance is working for his grandfather's newspaper in San Francisco and determined that he will marry Melissa Agretti, plans to destroy Melissa's budding romance with Cole. Chase and Maggie, concerned about Emma's instability, persuade Julia to take her sister to a local psychiatric clinic. When Angela finds out, she tells Julia the truth about Emma killing Uncle Jason, which turns Julia against Chase and Maggie. At the same time, Chase uses his influence as a county supervisor to discover the real cause of his father's death.

Chase begins to make inquiries into the circumstances surrounding his father's death. Angela, in an attempt to foil Chase, has Philip mislead Chase into believing he might inherit Falcon Crest. However, Chase doesn't fall for her trickery. Following a party at the Gioberti's, Cole's friend is killed in an auto accident after Cole refuses to drive him home. Angela attempts to force Lance to marry Melissa, who instead has become deeply involved with Cole. However, when Melissa learns she is pregnant, she tells no one.

Pressured by Angela, Lance proposes to Melissa Agretti with the consolation in mind that they dislike one another and that he knows Melissa will reject his proposal. When she surprisingly accepts his offer, Lance, shattered, is forced to go through with the ceremony. Melissa has her own cunning reasons for marrying Lance, aside from her father and Angela's scheme to merge Falcon Crest with Agretti Vineyards. When Cole fumes about the arrangement, Melissa assures him that her marriage to Lance won't interfere with their relationship. Another wedding almost takes place as Vicky and Mario decide to elope, but they change their minds at the last minute. Lance discovers that Melissa is pregnant.

While Emma draws closer to revealing the truth about Jason's death to outsiders, Chase steadily draws closer to learning the truth through his investigation. No longer speculating over his father's mysterious death, Chase finally gathers enough concrete evidence to go to the D.A., who in turn, calls for a coroner's inquest into Jason's death. While Angela attempts to impede this, she is forced to testify. Following his release from the hospital, Douglas tries to help Emma and escorts her to the inquest. However, before she can testify, Douglas has a fatal seizure and dies. After witnessing this, Emma runs off while Angela blames Chase. Angela learns of Melissa's pregnancy following a disastrous honeymoon and assumes Lance to be the father, despite his denial.

When Douglas is buried, Angela tries to keep Emma sedated to prevent her from testifying. Angela could lose Falcon Crest to Chase if his attorney can prove that Jason died under suspicious circumstances. When the coroner's inquest resumes, the D.A. mounts a circumstantial case that is easily rebutted by Erikson when Emma is unable to testify. Defying her mother, Emma manages to escape Falcon Crest and arrives to take the stand, confessing how she accidentally pushed Jason to his death while he fought with Turner Bates. The jury rules that Jason ""died at the hands of another,"" thereby giving Chase control of Falcon Crest, but he magnanimously offers fifty percent of the vineyard to Angela. Though Angela detests the thought of sharing Falcon Crest with anyone, she has no choice and accepts. Another threat looms as Angela learns of Douglas's illegitimate son, Richard Channing, who has inherited fifty percent of The Globe.