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Wine growing and winemaking are such important parts of Anderson
Valley today that it seems strange to realize that they are
relative newcomers.
White men first came to Mendocino County in the 1830s, when
Mexican officials made several large land grants in the Russian
River Valley. Throughout the Mexican era in California history,
Anderson Valley remained undisturbed as a homeland of the native
Pomo Indians. Even the U.S. acquisition of California by the
United States brought few changes.
What did bring about rapid change in the state--change which
eventually reached even a tiny, remote Mendocino valley--was the
discovery of gold. People rushed into California from all over
the world in an effort to strike it rich in the foothills of the
distant Sierra Nevada. More people meant more pressure to find
new land for farming and ranching.
One group that felt the lack of elbowroom was the Walter
Anderson family. Walter and Rhoda Anderson had left Missouri and
crossed the plains and mountains with their children in 1845,
seeing new land and new opportunity. They had settled in the
Sacramento Valley, several days' ride northwest of Sutter's
Fort.
Two of the Anderson boys had been among the couple dozen daring
Americanos who had taken part in the Bear Flag uprising at
Sonoma in June of 1846, when they declared California to be a
republic independent of Mexican rule. These same two went on to
fight under John C. Fremont and other American officers in the
war that wrested California (along with Nevada, Arizona, Utah,
New Mexico and parts of Colorado) from Mexico.
Not long after the fighting ended--and even before the peace
treaty was formally signed--John Marshall made the fateful gold
discovery in the tailrace of John Sutter's lumber mill in
Coloma. By the middle of 1848, sailors were jumping ship in San
Francisco to try their luck in the gold fields. Within a year,
tens of thousands were leaving their homes in Europe, South
America, China, and all parts of the United States, seeking the
quickest route to the riches of California.
Most of them found more disappointment than gold. Lack of
success didn't send all of them back home, however. Many former
gold seekers decided to stay on in California and send for their
families. The first great California land boom had begun.
To people like Walter Anderson, the prospect of having
"neighbors" within a few miles was most unwelcome. He had
already wandered from Kentucky through Indiana, Illinois, and
frontier Missouri before coming to California, and again began
to feel the need for more elbowroom. In the spring of 1851, he
loaded his family, livestock and possessions and headed west
once again.
The Andersons considered settling in the Clear Lake area, but
kept moving when they found out that the local Indians were
angry about a recent massacre by the U.S. Army at "Bloody
Island." The pioneer family eventually stopped in a small valley
in northern Sonoma County, near Cloverdale.
The three eldest Anderson boys went on ahead hunting for game to
feed the family. The young men wounded and tracked an elk for
quite a distance, when they came to a rocky ledge on a
ridge-top. What they saw below both astonished and delighted
them. It was a long valley stretching to the northwest,
surrounded by dense woods on the southwestern side, and grassy
hills to the northeast. The young hunters descended to the
valley floor and found the valley to be a veritable Eden. There
was abundant meadow grass, and water for livestock. Deer, elk,
bear, and small game animals roamed the valley and surrounding
hills. They camped for several days, exploring and taking in the
natural wonders that had perhaps never before been seen by white
men.
As soon as they rejoined the rest of the family, the young
explorers told of their find. Within a few days, the Andersons
were on their way to make their home in the small, jewel-like
valley that was to be known afterwards as Anderson Valley.
The same beauty and abundance that had attracted the Andersons
to the valley soon drew other settlers. By the following year,
even old Walter was happy enough to have a handful of
neighboring settlers, since the local Pomo band had shown little
enthusiasm for welcoming the newcomers. Within a few years, a
small but thriving agricultural community had grown up in and
around Anderson Valley.
In the year 1856, a group of Swiss immigrants (who had
originally homesteaded in Illinois) settled in the lower end of
the valley, between the present-day towns of Philo and Navarro.
The Gschwend, Gossmand and Guntley families brought with them
Old World skills and know-how. They planted orchards--and
perhaps vinifera grapes--on their homesteads. John Gschwend
built the valley's first sawmill the year he arrived, and
neighbor Andrew Guntley brewed some grain from the first harvest
into beer. Soon, Guntley was distilling some of his fermented
grain and fruit into brandy. The beverage industry in Anderson
Valley had begun.
There is no mention of wine in early accounts of life in the
valley. It is difficult to believe that none of the
settlers--especially those with European backgrounds, like the
Swiss--made and consumed wine North American native (labrusca)
grapes were as abundant as other wild fruits in Mendocino
County. However, whatever wine was made by the early settlers
must have been limited and kept for home consumption. No written
account of commercial winemaking in Anderson Valley during this
period has come to light thus far.
There are several mentions of Anderson Valley pioneer families
growing grapes. Like other agriculturalists, valley people grew
grapevines around their farmhouses for beauty and utility. In a
1982 remembrance, old-timer Alva Ingram said he remembered
seeing a small (20 vine) vineyard at the old Ball ranch near
Boonville in 1897. He estimated--from the size of the
vines--that they were then about 20 years old. He mentions
having seen gnarly old vines that must have been planted in the
1860s or 1870s at several other valley homesteads.
There are even suggestions that a few families may have tried to
set out sizable vineyards, just as they had planted orchards.
Apples soon became the mainstay of Anderson Valley's export
economy, but peaches, pears, prunes and hops were all grown with
greater or lesser degrees of commercial success during the first
half-century of settlement.
Two factors seemed to have limited the growing of grapes and
winemaking in the early years. The first had to do with the
people themselves. Except for the Swiss families mentioned
earlier, most of the early settlers in Anderson Valley were from
the Eastern U.S., where there was no tradition of winemaking or
drinking. Andrew Guntley probably had no trouble finding takers
for his homemade whisky (at least until 1866, when new tax laws
put an end to his commercial distillery) because that is what
the people from Missouri and other Eastern states traditionally
drank. There wouldn't have been much demand for wine in the
valley during those years, and remoteness from larger
communities combined with primitive transportation shut off
potential outside markets.
In fact, it was difficult to ship any agricultural products from
Anderson Valley to the outside world. Most of the apples and
other fruitis shipped outside the valley in the 19th century were
dried before shipping. It wasn't until 1868 that the first toll
road was completed, linking the valley to the seat of county
government in Ukiah--only 25 miles away.
The second problem was the climate. Those few who had tried to
grow European (vinifera) grapes in Anderson Valley had
experienced problems with ripeness and frost. Most of the
homesteads and farms were located on the valley floor, where
sub-freezing temperatures often occur on spring nights.
Springtime frosts rarely damaged apples, but they usually
resulted in low or even non-existent yields for wine grapes.
Except for native or a few ornamental vines, old-timers in the
valley were inclined to state that "you can't grow grapes in
Anderson Valley," and leave it at that.
The first change in this situation took place in the 1890s. In
the late 1880s, L. E. White had begun turning sleepy Greenwood
(the present-day town of Elk) into a major coastal lumber hill
and shipping point. White built a new mill and wharf, and began
building railroad tracks up the Greenwood and Elk Creek
watersheds. This new activity brought an increased need for
labor and agricultural goods from nearby Anderson Valley. As it
happened, there was a group of people ready and willing to fill
these needs.
Italian economic and political unrest fueled immigration to the
United States during the 1890s and early years of the 20th
Century. Although many Italian immigrants settled in urban areas
of the Northeastern U.S., a sizable number made their way to
Northern California. A few of them had been in California since
the gold rush days of the 1850s, and they encouraged their
relatives and friends to settle on the West Coast. They brought
with them a number of old-country ways, including winegrowing
skills--and a taste for wine.
A number of Italian immigrants came to Greenwood from San
Francisco in 1894. Among them were Angelo and Rosie Frati,
Demeterio Tovani, Fansto Guisti, John Frati and Giovanni
Giovanetti. These people homesteaded on Greenwood Ridge, high
ground with a good road that connected the port of Greenwood
with Anderson valley, a road distance of about 18 miles.
Greenwood Ridge has a very different climate from Anderson
Valley proper. The broad ridgetop plateaus and benches sit at
elevations of up to 1600 feet above sea level. This puts them
above the persistent coastal fog that hangs in the canyons of
Greenwood Creek and the Navarro River, fog which can chill lower
portions of Anderson Valley in summer as well as winter. Ridge
lands are drenched with sunlight. However the close proximity of
the Pacific Ocean keeps ridge top temperatures from rising--or
falling to valley extremes. Occasional summer heat waves drive
Anderson Valley temperatures well into the 90s, or even 100s.
Ocean breezes reaching Greenwood Ridge often moderate these
highs by ten degrees or more. Springtime frosts are virtually
unknown to many parts of the ridge, where cold air drains down
the steep slopes into the canyons below.
These were the climatic conditions the Italians encountered when
they arrived on Greenwood Ridge in 1894. They had come from an
area where grapes were traditionally grown on hillsides, with
the richer bottomlands reserved for more demanding crops. The
climate and the rich clay soils reminded them of their native
Northern Italian homelands. So, to make themselves feel even
more at home, they cleared the wooded slopes and planted their
native vinifera grapes. Since few of the pioneer vines have
survived the ravages of time and replanting, it is not known
with certainty what varieties of grapes were planted in the
1890s.
Unlike today, most early viticulturists did a certain amount of
"blending" in the vineyard. The primary black (red wine) grape
in most of these early plantings appears to have been Zinfandel,
with some Carignane and an occasional Alicante thrown in for
balance. For white wine, Golden Chasselas (Palomino), Malvasia
Bianca and Muscat grapes were the favorites. The cuttings for
most of these early grapes probably came from established
vineyards in neighboring Sonoma County.
Angelo and Rosie Frati, like many of the Italian-Americans of
Greenwood Ridge, made wine and bread to sell in Anderson Valley
and Greenwood. As more Italian immigrants came to cut timber,
work in the lumber mills and perform agricultural labor in
Anderson Valley orchards, Greenwood Ridge vineyardists found an
increasing market for their products. The Fratis reportedly sold
their wine for a dollar per gallon, and bread for fifty cents a
loaf. As the logging railway pushed its way up Greenwood Creek
from the coastal mill, it brought customers closer to the
budding wineries of the ridge.
Italian-Americans weren't the only people to grow grapes, or
make and sell wine in the early 1900s. Charles Hagemann bought
the John Studebaker property next to Giovanni Giovanetti's about
1910. Giovanetti had been growing grapes and making wine for
years. A land survey made at the time of the sale showed that a
good-sized portion of the Giovanetti vineyard had been planted
on Studebaker's land. Hagemann is said to have given the crop to
his neighbor for five years--and then claimed the vines and
fruit as his own.
While Giovanetti mourned his loss, Hagemann was planting more
grapes. Zinfandel and Alicante reds were set out, along with
Riesling, Malvasia Bianca and Sweetwater whites. The
enterprising Hagemann reportedly carved and burned out a large
redwood tree stump to use as a wine press, and built a
1900-gallon fermentation tank. By the end of World War I, he was
delivering wine to Anderson Valley and Greenwood by car. His
neighbor Giovanetti kept up a lively business with his remaining
vineyard, delivering five and ten gallon barrels and
wicker-covered demijohns to his customers by horse-drawn wagon.
The quality of the wine produced on Greenwood Ridge must have
varied according to a number of conditions--including
transportation--prior to its sale. The ridge was certainly
famous on the coast and valley for its wines; Greenwood Ridge
was referred to in the vernacular of the region as "Vinegar
Hill." Boontling, the elaborate local language developed in
Anderson Valley at the end of the 19th Century, recognized the
importance of the Italian wine growers and makers. Boont
speakers called the winegrowing ridge "Iteland," and referred to
winegrapes as "Frati shams" in recognition of the Frati family's
pioneering contributions to winegrowing.)
Customers who liked their spirits but found the sourness of wine
disagreeable had another choice. Several of the winemakers had
also built stills, which produced "grappa" brandy. Prices were
accordingly higher. Since several of the school districts in
Anderson Valley had voted to outlaw the sale of alcoholic
beverages in their areas (by 1914 both Boonville and Navarro
were "dry," and the saloons were out of business), business on
Vinegar Hill must have been brisk.
The success of the Greenwood Ridge vineyards led to plantings in
other nearby areas. On ridges south of Anderson Valley,
Italian-American families found similarity suitable conditions
for growing grapes and making wine. There may have been as many
as 150 acres of wine grapes growing in the Fish Rock Road area
of Mendocino County during the World War I era, and portions of
two of these high-elevation vineyards--about 14 acres in
all--survive and produce high-quality Zinfandel to his day.
Greenwood Ridge probably was home to more than 200 acres of
winegrapes at that time.
Ridges weren't the only places to be planted during early years
of the 20th Century. The Pinoli family began buying property in
the Mill Creek-Lazy Creek area between Philo and Navarro, and
they planted grapes on sloping hillsides above the creeks. Joe
Pinoli began planting his vineyards in 1911 or 1912, and is said
to have founded the first bonded winery in the valley. Jon and
Charles Pinoli bought land nearby and began planting grapes in
1917. Zinfandel, Alicante and Sweetwater were the varieties
chosen for their venture. These vineyards, situated on warm
south-facing slopes, survived the frosts and showed that
winegrapes planted in some valley locations, at least, could grow
to maturity.
Just when things were looking up for Anderson Valley growers and
their wineries, Prohibition brought down the curtain. It was one
thing to work around the local ban on the sale of alcoholic
beverages, quite another to take on the U.S. government. By
1921, making and selling wine had become a federal offense.
Federal agents came calling on winery owners--with axes.
Although some of the older residents could speak little English,
they soon got the point. Olga Tovani Hill recalls the Feds
making a raid and smashing her family's wine tanks. She
remembers the wine running down the road, where it collected in
ruts and potholes. As soon as the agents were out of sight, the
children collected it and put it in small barrels for later use.
According to most accounts, the raids did put a dent in--but
never really stopped--winemaking. Most of the old winemakers
still sold wine and grapes "through the back door." Hard times in
the lumber industry and the fear of federal action certainly
clouded the outlook for the local wine industry during the 1920s
and 1930s. Many vineyardists let their vines fall into neglect
or pulled them to make way for orchards or open grazing land.
Some sold their land and moved on to other parts of California.
Still, there were a few people who believed that the future
would be brighter.
The Cameron family sold its ridgetop land to John and Rosier
Padini about 1922. Despite the recently-enacted prohibition, the
Pardinis planted some new vineyard. The family cellar was soon
converted into a winery, where John made three wines. Bruna
Pardini Slote remembers that the red was made mostly from
Zinfandel, the white from Golden Chasselas and Sweetwater. Her
personal favorite at the time was the sweet "pink," a rose
probably made from a blend of red and white grapes. When the
house burned in 1927 or 1928, John built a new home nearby and
continued to make wine in the cellar of the old house.
By the time Prohibition ended as a national experiment in 1933,
winegrowing and making had undergone such an eclipse that it
could not recover. The railroad that had once brought lumbermen
and their families up Greenwood Creek for weekends of camping,
music and wine drinking was only a memory. Greenwood (renamed
Elk to avoid postal confusion with another California town of the
same name) was itself more of a ghost town than anything else,
and Anderson Valley was no more prosperous than other rural
depression-era communities.
About the only thing had had improved during the 1930s was
transportation. Public roads were being upgraded as part of the
get-America-back-to-work projects, and Anderson Valley got a
good, all-weather surfaced road. For the few growers left in the
valley and surrounding ridges, this meant that grapes could be
trucked and sold to wineries in Cloverdale and other Northern
Sonoma communities. The Pinolis began selling to Bandiera, Sink
and Seghesio instead of making their own wines, and other
growers did the same.
Weather took its toll on the vines, too. The 1940s saw a number
of killing frosts that hit hard even the oldest vineyards. The
Pronsolino family (which had bought the neighboring Pardini
place in 1944) had to pull the 50 year-old vines from its old
home vineyard in 1949 because of frost-induced losses. John
Pardini's choice of a well-drained hilltop site had proven to be
a wise one. The five-plus acre block of Zinfandel planted by the
Pardini family in 1922 is still producing award-winning
winegrapes.
The post-World War II period was an exciting time in Anderson
Valley. The housing boom of the post-war years hit Mendocino
County square in the timbers--and that was just fine with the
loggers, mill workers and timberland owners. For the first time
in decades, more people were coming into the valley to work than
were leaving. Philo, Navarro and Boonville each sported several
sawmills, and the stores, gas stations, and bars prospered.
One business that was not improved much was winegrape growing.
The newcomers were mostly from the heartland of America,
and--like the original white settlers--had no tradition of wine
drinking. Most of the vineyards fell deeper into neglect, and
acreage continued to drop.
The only exception to this trend was an experiment conducted by
Italian Swiss Colony, a winery located in the northern Sonoma
County town of Asti. Colony was looking to expand (it went on to
become a giant in the wine industry in the 1950s and 1960s), and
figured the nearby Anderson Valley was a promising location. In
1946, the company and its associated growers bought 200 acres of
flat land (where Anderson Valley High School is presently
located) and began planting about 100 acres of Ugni Blanc and
French Colombard the following year.
Italian Swiss Colony also signed contracts with a number of
Anderson Valley land owners, guaranteeing to buy their grapes
for 15 years. Colony agreed to pay freight charges plus a
two-dollar-per-ton premium if they would plant certain
high-yielding varietals. Several valley owners accepted Colony's
offer. Among them was Ranking Rickard, who planted ten
acres--five each of Golden Chasselas and Carignane--on his ranch
just north of Boonville.
Unfortunately, things didn't go well for Colony or its growers.
The company had guessed wrong on its varietals, and most of them
were never in great demand at the winery. But the biggest
problem was that the grapes never developed enough sugar to
satisfy Colony's need. At that time, many wineries were looking
to harvest grapes that were extremely high in sugar
content--very ripe or mature--in order to make the sweeter wines
popular in those days. Anderson Valley, with its coastal
marine-influenced weather, just couldn't deliver.
Cool evenings and warm days yielded fruit with relatively high
acid and moderate sugar. Worse yet, the fruit ripened slowly and
late, often falling victim to early autumn rains before harvest.
Springtime was no better. The low-lying vineyards Colony and
most producers planted were hit by repeated frosts, and the only
method of frost protection at the time was the expensive--and
often ineffective--smudgepot.
Some of the damage that was attributed to frost was later found
to be a result of phylloxera infestations. Mendocino County Farm
Advisor Bruce Bearden reported that he saw considerably evidence
of damage from these pesky root lice when he examined Anderson
Valley's vineyards for the first time in 1954. He speculated that
the insect pests were brought into the Valley on the roots of
the young vines planted in 1947. With economics and nature
united again/st it, the first post-war winegrape experiment in
the valley was a failure.
Colony sold its 100-acre experiment to the Anderson Valley
School District about a decade after it had begun, and most
growers pulled their vines. Rickard harvested the last grapes
from his ranch in 1973 and pulled the vines. Colony sold off the
remaining 10 acres for residential use about the same time. Only
one small block of vines (then owned by the Goodhue family)
remains from this ambitious attempt to re-establish Anderson
Valley as a winegrowing area.
The modern area of winegrowing and winemaking in Anderson Valley
began in 1964. That was the year Dr. Donald Edmeades, a Southern
California physician, planted 24 acres of premium wine grapes
and hung up a sign that read, "Edmeades Folly." Judging from
experience the Edmeades sign was not just self-deprecating
humor.
However, the doctor had experts--if not experience--on his side.
Viticulturists from the University of California at Davis had
recently completed a survey of Anderson Valley. They had
concluded that with the right varietals Anderson Valley had the
soils and climate to be a successful premium winegrape growing
area. No matter that the valley was one of the coolest (and
certainly the rainiest!) areas, with a high probability of frost
damage, and a low potential for ripeness. The UC Davis experts
recognized some of the limitations of Anderson Valley's climate
when they classified the valley a Region I (Philo or lower end)
and a cool Region II (at the upper, Boonville end).
Edmeades decided to hedge his bet by planting four winegrape
varieties. Gewurztraminer was one of those recommended by UC
Davis as well suited to the climate, and French Colombard and
Chardonnay were expected to do fairly well. Edmeades’ real
gamble was in choosing Cabernet Sauvignon as his major red
varietal. Cabernet is now regarded as a slow-ripening grape, one
that needs more than average heat to mature.
The skeptics -- of whom there were many in the valley -- sat
back and waited for Edmeades Folly to fulfill its own
prediction, while the young vines grew toward maturity. Within a
few years, the Edmeades gamble had company. Tony and Gretchen
Husch bought 60 acres near Edmeades and planted Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer,
and Pinot Noir in 1968. They crushed their first ripe fruit in 1971 -- founding Husch Vineyards -- Anderson Valley's first winery since prohibition.
The Husches also hedged their bets in a different way -- they bought
a second parcel of land high on Greenwood Ridge. Betting that the
success of the early Italian winemakers was no fluke, the couple
planted an eight-acre vineyard with blocks of Cabernet
Sauvignon, Merlot, and White Riesling.
For the first few years, Dr. Edmeades sold the fruit from his
family vineyard to wineries outside the Valley. He soon decided
to crush and ferment the winegrapes on his own. Although the
doctor himself did not live to see his dream of producing his
own wine come true, his son Deron guided the fledgling winery
through its first crush in 1972.
With two family wineries producing premium wines for
high-quality fruit, the modern renaissance of Anderson Valley as
a wine-producing area got underway.
Winemaking efforts of the 1970s were not carried out on a grand
scale, or with state-of-the-art equipment. Both Husch and
Edmeades used makeshift facilities and equipment for their
wineries--a remodeled chicken coop and an old apple dryer,
respectively. Early tasting rooms were places where customers were
so novel that they might have to wait 15 minutes for someone to
show up to open a bottle for them. The quantity of wine the two
pioneer Anderson Valley wineries produced was small, with
bottlings of less than 10 cases not at all unusual.
Having such limited-scale production turned out to be fortunate
for Anderson Valley's unequipped winemakers, as Tony Husch
discovered during a hard freeze in the winter of 1972-73. It got
so cold that Husch resorted to using electric blankets to
protect the wine he was fermenting in wooden barrels.
Improvisation--along with trial and error--characterized those
early years.
Still, the quality of the early Anderson Valley wines showed
promise, and encouraged others to try their hands at winemaking.
Within a few years, Ted Bennett and Deborah Cahn had planted a
vineyard across the highway from Edmeades, and began producing
wine under their Navarro Vineyards label.
Realizing that the Mendocino Coast was a good place to sell
wines to affluent visitors, Edmeads and Navarro put heir heads
together in 1976 and created the Mendocino Wine Guild. The Guild
was a cooperative arrangement, with its own label appearing on
wines produced by each of the two wineries. These wines were
sold at the Guild tasting room, located above the delicatessen
on Main Street in the town of Mendocino.
Hundreds of tourist climbed the stairs to the cozy second-floor
tasting room to sip wine and enjoy the view. Among the novel
offerings at the Mendocino Wine Guild were several apple wines
made by Edmeades, and varietal grape juices produced by Navarro.
Although the Mendocino Wine Guild experiment lasted only a year
or so, it helped make Anderson Valley wines an important part of
the visitor scene in Mendocino, and introduced them to many
vacationers for the first time. Returning home through the
valley, coastal visitors began stopping at the wineries for
newly-discovered wines to take home.
During the 1970s, Edmeades introduced several other innovations
into the California wine business, including the reproductions
of watercolor paintings by local artists on its labels.
Proprietary wines were big sellers for Edmeades, with its "Rain
Wine," "Whale Wine," "Queen Anne's Lace," and "Opal" breaking
new ground in the marketplace.
Edmeades entered several years of turmoil and restructuring
during the early 1980s, and ultimately ceased production
altogether. Kendall-Jackson Vineyards and Winery of Lake County
purchased Edmeades in 1988.
The last years of the 1970s saw other Anderson Valley grape
growers become involved in the winemaking business. Lazy Creek
Vineyards and Greenwood Ridge Vineyards began producing
estate-bottles wines from their own grapes, so there was finally
a true handful of Anderson Valley wineries. In 1979, Anderson
Valley began a tradition of hosting the Mendocino County Fair
Wine Competition, where wines produced from grapes growing in
Mendocino County are judged by a panel of wine experts.
Another milestone was passed in 1979, when Tony and Gretchen
Husch sold their winery to the H. A. Oswald family. The Oswalds
were already in the Mendocino County grape gowing business, with
extensive vineyard plantings at La Ribera Ranch in Talmage.
The 1980s saw expansion of Anderson Valley wineries on a scale
that would have seemed almost impossible a decade earlier.
During the early '80s, wineries seemed to spring up like
mushrooms all over California, and Anderson Valley was no
exception. Handley Cellars, Christine Woods, Pullman Vineyards
and Pepperwood Springs Vineyards all began producing wine during
those years.
Pepperwood Springs was in some ways typical of the new wineries.
Larry and Nicki Parsons had bought their hillside vineyard land
in 1980, and had turned to winemaking as a way to make the most
of their wine grapes. They got the name of the winery from
springs that had been developed for livestock that were grazed
on their land during the depression of the 1930s. What wasn't
typical about Pepperwood Springs was that winemaker Larry
Parsons was blind.
Pepperwood Springs won design awards for its labels, but they
were also unique in that they contained Braille writing. The
small, family winery attracted a lot of attention in the news
media because of Larry's blindness.
In 1986, Larry Parsons was killed in a tragic automobile
accident, and ownership of Pepperwood Springs was eventually
transferred to Gary and Phyllis Kaliher. Recalling one of the
more unusual aspects of their pioneer efforts, Nicki Parsons
remembered that Larry often had to jump-start their 1938-vintage
tractor while she towed it with their pickup truck. She also
recalled that they got plenty of help and helpful advice from
neighboring winemakers, that a sprit of cooperation and mutual
assistance was very much a part of the scene during those years.
An important moment in Anderson Valley wine history took place
in 1982, when the French firm Champagne Louis Roederer announced
its plans to build a California sparkling wine facility in
Anderson Valley. Valley grapes had been going into sparkling
wine production for several years. In fact, Scharffenberger
Cellars of Ukiah and several other Mendocino County producers
had selected Anderson Valley as an area ideally suited to
growing top-notch Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for their sparkling
wine cuvees. But Roederer's decision to locate its vineyards and
sparkling wine production facilities there gave a big boost to
Anderson Valley's prestige as a premium wine-producing area.
Those pioneer winemakers of the last century would have a
difficult time understanding how their modest efforts started a
tradition that would eventually see Anderson Valley recognized
as one of California's finest winegrowing areas. Like the
highway that runs through the valley, getting to this point in
the valley’s viticultural history has taken some ups and downs,
a few twists and turns. But the results of those years of work
have proven well worth the effort.
--Neill Bell
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