On Thursday night, my father was awarded 2009 Wine Industry Person of the Year by the California Mid-State Fair. It was a really nice presentation, with my dad's introduction given by Steve Lohr of J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines.
He was previously committed to a dinner in Vermont, so I accepted the
award in his place. There was good symmetry, as the son of last year's
recipient (Jerry Lohr) presented the award to the son of this year's
recipient.
In his generous introduction, Steve Lohr spoke about my dad's career,
which has spanned more than 50 years in the wine business as a
retailer, an importer, a wholesaler, and
now, with Tablas Creek, as a vintner. He has had tremendous impact on
how Americans buy, drink, and think about
wine, and has had an even greater impact on Paso Robles and the rest of
the Central Coast. I wrote about his varied career (which I still
think is under-appreciated) on the occasion of his eightieth birthday a few years ago, so I won't repeat that here, but I do want to reflect a little on his impact on the local community.
- At the time when he and the Perrins together decided to buy
property in Paso Robles, it was on no one's list of up-and-coming
California wine regions. Monterey, Santa Barbara, the Sierra
Foothills, Mendocino, even Lodi were thought of as more compelling
regions to explore. Now, Paso is the third-largest (after Napa and
Sonoma) and fastest-growing wine region in California, and has more
wineries than all of Santa Barbara County. I don't think it's possible
to overstate the importance for the Paso Robles area of the decision that my dad and the Perrins made to choose Paso Robles for their project after looking all over California.
- In 1989, no Paso Robles winery was producing any Rhone variety,
and the total footprint of Rhone varieties in the AVA was just a couple
of acres of Syrah. Now, nearly 90% of Paso Robles wineries produce at
least one wine from Rhone varieties, and the Paso Robles AVA is the largest home in California to nearly every major Rhone variety (including Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Roussanne, and Grenache Blanc).
- The decision to import new cuttings of Rhone varieties, and to
then make these cuttings available for sale to other producers, changed
the face of the Rhone Rangers movement in California. There were only
six Rhone grape varieties in California (Mourvedre, Grenache, Syrah,
Cinsaut, Viognier and Marsanne) and Mourvedre, Grenache and Cinsaut had
mediocre reputations due to the inferior clones that were here. The
decision that he and the Perrins made to accept a five-year delay in
their planting to bring vines in through a USDA-mandated quarantine and
then, even more importantly, to make these clones available to other
interested vineyards, gave the Rhone Ranger movement a critical boost
at a time when its membership included only a few early pioneers. We
believed that getting these clones in more widespread circulation would
help us (in classic "rising tide lifts all the boats" manner). The
fact that this prediction has turned out to be true should not obscure
how extraordinary and generous this decision was.
- When we decided in 1989 that we would follow the lead of the
Beaucastel estate and farm our vineyard organically, there were only a
handful of vineyards being farmed organically in California (Paul
Dolan's experiments with organic viticulture at Fetzer had just begun
in 1986). None of these organic vineyards were in Paso Robles, and the
consensus of the major American viticultural universities was that
farming grapes organically was pointless and difficult. Yet we were
convinced that organic viticulture was an essential element of our
effort to express the place in which our grapes were grown. The
movement toward organic (and even biodynamic)viticulture is now widespread among the best vineyards of California.
- Similarly, we decided that we would ferment with native yeasts, use a minimum of new oak and age our red wines in 1200-gallon foudres. Using native yeasts was unusual (enology professors tended to call it "Russian roulette"), new oak was in fashion, and foudres were unheard of in California. We had to import ours on container ships from France. Now, all three practices have gained dramatically in popularity, as California winemakers have come around to the Old World goal of elevating the expression of terroir to paramount importance.
In addition to these far-seeing decisions that he helped make at the
beginning of the Tablas Creek project, he has made a point of working
to unify and promote the Paso Robles wine growing region. At the time
when the PRVGA (Paso Robles Vintners & Growers Association) was
weak in the early years of this decade, he resisted calls to split off
and form an association of westside-only wineries, and instead made
sure that Tablas Creek participated (and continues to participate)
fully in the region's local and national promotional efforts. When a
Paso Robles Westside AVA petition was introduced, he recognized it as a
mistake and began rallying opposition to put together a more
comprehensive proposal of AVA's for the Paso Robles region. He serves
on the board of the Paso Robles AVA committee, and has consistently
been willing to donate his own time and resources in the push to have
our viticultural designations be meaningful and scientifically-based.
In addition, he has been very active in the local community, involving Tablas Creek as major sponsors of the arts, including Festival Mozaic, the Paderewski Festival, and the Foundation for the Performing Arts Center.
He serves on the board of this last organization, and patrons of the
PAC will enjoy some major changes this year (including wines from some
of the region's best wineries at the performances) as a part of the
$50,000 in new support he coordinated from the Paso Robles wine
community.
There is something fitting about the fact that my dad was not there to
receive his award. By the time we learned of the award, he had already
committed to a dinner at Hemingway's Restaurant
in Killington, Vermont, and so asked me to accept the award in his
stead. It seems appropriate that, at age 82, my dad would have a work
commitment that would keep him from receiving a lifetime achievement
award. His acceptance speech, which I delivered for him, is below:
I am honored and pleased to accept this award voted by fellow members of the Paso Robles wine community. Thank you.
And what a great and growing wine community this is! I feel privileged to live and work in this mixed agricultural setting with its rural atmosphere with its fine California weather, earthquakes and all.
I am often asked if our venture at Tablas Creek in partnership with our good friends, the Perrin family of Château de Beaucastel, is the realization of a dream. Actually, it was more of an itch than a dream. For many years while selecting and marketing other peoples’ wine I had been tempted by the idea of owning vineyard and making wine.
However, it took until 1985 and our and the Perrins’ confidence in California, its climates and soils, and the inspiration of Roederer’s vineyard and winery investment in Mendocino, for me to scratch that itch and say to myself. “We can do that.”
We then started to look for a California property that would be suitable for growing Rhône variety grapes. After spending several years stalking the state looking for high pH soils with a Mediterranean climate we ended up in 1990 with 120 acres of pasture in Adelaida and a long term lease for another 30 acres from our neighbor Alan Ramage. Needless to say to those of you who know the area, we did end up with calcareous clay soils with a vengeance. We had to rip before we could plant.
We then brought in cuttings from France, went through the USDA indexing program, started a nursery to multiply and graft, and began to get some grafted vines in the ground in 1996. We now have about 100 acres planted with another 15 to go.
Of course, the Paso Robles wine community grew along with us. When we got here there were some 17 wineries producing. Now, there are over 200. Thanks to a spirit of community cooperation and endeavor, great soils and climate and excellent work by the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, Paso Robles has become one of the prime AVAs of California.
What a great place to be! Thank you again.
