First, he learned, since the vines were on a hillside they don’t need frost protection. The frost zone exists in low-lying valleys and depressions in the valley floor, not at higher elevations. Second, the sprinklers were a terrible waste of water, dumping gallons upon gallons on the vineyard, when all we needed were small, controllable amounts. As soon as possible we switched to drip irrigation, a then-new system pioneered by the Israelis, in which you dole out micro-sips of water to individual vines.
We hadn’t started with proper deer protection. We hadn’t needed to rip the soil. We didn’t need overhead sprinklers. It seemed at this point that rather than embarking on something that had been done since ancient times, planting a hillside was some kind of exotic experiment, which left Dad feeling his way forward in the dark.
1. Aldo Delfino, Agricultural Commissioner, 1974 Napa County Agricultural Crop Report, Napa County Department of Agriculture, Napa, CA, 1975, accessed June 28, 2011, www.countyofnapa.org/AgCommissioner/CropReport.
2. Stephen J. Bardessono, Agricultural Commissioner, 1985 Napa County Agricultural Crop Report, Napa County Department of Agriculture, Napa, CA, 1986, accessed June 28, 2011, www.countyofnapa.org/AgCommissioner/CropReport.
3. Louis P. Martini, “A Family Winery and the California Wine Industry,” an oral history conducted in 1984 by Ruth Teiser, The Wine Spectator California Winemen Oral History Series, Regents of the University of California, p. 46.
4. Rootstock is a grapevine root system that you source from a specialized wine industry nursery. You plant it in the soil, get it established for a few months, and then graft on a cultivar, or cane, such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, etc. This technique of grafting rootstock to a cane was developed in France as a way of outwitting phylloxera in the 1800s. It was discovered that the root systems of some species of wild grapevines from North America were resistant to the insect, and the French vignerons realized that they could graft their French vines onto American roots and thus establish vineyards that were phylloxera-resistant. Today a wide variety of rootstocks has been developed to resist disease and to offer desired results in a variety of soil types and climate conditions.
EIGHT
Grape Future
In 1974 I graduated from St. Helena High and had to start thinking about “real life” and my future. I started paying more attention to what was going on in my dad’s world. I’d cruise up our driveway, which cut through the vineyard, and there he’d be out on a tractor—which he was still learning to operate—in jeans and beat-up hat. He’d give me a big grin and a wave, and it was hard to reconcile this image of him with the dad I’d known back in Chicago—the corporate guy in the three-piece suit. I’d never seen him so happy. Dad, his grower buddies, and the consultants he worked with would drive around the Valley in their old Jeeps and their pickup trucks and they’d talk about the weather and grapes and local politics. This way of life appealed to me a lot more than the prospects of living in a city and sitting at a desk all day.
I was accepted into U.C. Davis and signed on to major in viticulture, the science of cultivating grapes. This meant a lot of math as well as a great deal of chemistry and plant biology—the hard stuff. At the same time I enjoyed picking up the basics of pruning and trellising in the school’s teaching vineyard and reading up on the latest research on vineyard cultivation. Davis was, and is, the leading school for anyone interested in the wine business. In one or two of my undergrad classes I remember observing a group of graduate students in the front row (I was usually found in the back) asking questions, making notes, and taking things way too seriously, in my opinion at the time. It was a group that turned out to include Cathy Corison of Corison Winery, Tony Soter, Soter Vineyards in Oregon, and Richard Ward and David Graves, both of Saintsbury.
The summer after my freshman year, I secured my first winery job. It was in Calistoga working at Kornell Champagne Cellars, a producer of sparkling wines, with the unforgettable Hanns Kornell. It was my first taste of responsibility. I’d have to get myself out of bed at 6 A.M., fix my own breakfast, pack my own lunch, and blaze up Silverado Trail on the forty-five-minute trip to Kornell, arriving a little before 8 A.M. If you were even a few minutes late, Hanns would give you a blistering earful, if he didn’t simply fire you on the spot—which I saw him do a number of times.
Mine was the gruntiest of grunt jobs, made worse by the wearing of a mandated nerdy blue jumpsuit. Each day entailed jobs such as hauling hundred-pound bags of sugar into an upstairs storage area, cleaning up after another bottle of sparkling wine had exploded in the cellar, and working on the bottling line. (Never in all my life has the clock moved more slowly than when I worked on the bottling line at Kornell.) You learned never to be idle. The lowest form of humanity, as far as Hanns Kornell was concerned, was an employee with his hands in his pockets. If there was a minute in which you weren’t occupied, you’d better grab a broom or you’d get a rain of fire from the boss.
Hanns Kornell terrified me. I’d never met anyone so tough. As a teenager in Germany he’d survived the Nazi’s Dachau concentration camp and had come to the United States with only $2 in his pocket.
He’d beaten brutal poverty, he’d stared down Hitler; he wasn’t about to take anything from a lazy college kid.
I had several surprises the following summer when he rehired me. Well, I guess the first surprise was that he rehired me. Beyond that, though, I realized that he actually seemed to like me (by now he’d nicknamed me “Professor”) and that under his rhino hide was a sweet, decent guy. One afternoon I was inside a fermentation tank, cleaning it out, and for some reason the small, round door swung shut. I panicked. It was dark, hot, and small, with a limited supply of oxygen; then from outside I heard a chuckle—“heh, heh, heh.” It was Hanns’s idea of an affectionate prank. Later I knew I was in his good graces, because he’d started saying in his thick German accent, “Hey Professor you should marry Paula (his high-school-age daughter)—stay and work with me!”
Years later I took my young children, Katie, Kevin, and Stephen, up to Kornell just to say hi. We walked in and the hospitality guy at the bar said he’d watch my kids while I walked around looking for Hanns. I poked my head in the cellar and got that familiar scent of wooden riddling racks and sparkling wine. I walked around outside and couldn’t find him. As I was approaching the hospitality room again I heard the sound of giggling. I walked in and there was Hanns Kornell on the floor playing with my children. Then he looked up and said to his hospitality guy in that great accent, “Get these kids some chocolates!”
It was the last time I saw him. But to this day I still hear that voice in my head telling me to get my hands out of my pockets.
Throughout this period Dad was juggling two careers—education and grape growing. His first classroom stint was at a new continuation school in Napa called Temescal, created for students who, for a variety of reasons, weren’t succeeding at the local high school. Most had gotten into trouble and had spent time in juvenile hall. Dad believed the work there was important and could have a positive impact, but it was not an easy year. For his efforts there, Dad got his tires slashed and his brake lines cut.
The following year he transferred to St. Helena High, where things went so well he was offered a full-time position. But by this time, Dad felt he was doing two jobs poorly and had to make a choice. Fortunately, the vineyard won.
NINE
