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If Only We Could Run Our Wine Club the Same Way

by Charlie Meeker | Mar 20, 2011 | Charlie's Stories

In 1975 I had the pleasure of hearing Joe Swan speak at the first University of California at Davis winemaking seminar I attended. In my mind, and that of many other aspiring winemakers, Joe Swan was already a living legend who had planted his own vineyard in Sonoma County and established a boutique winery, while continuing to work full time as an airline pilot. His success gave hope to the rest of us who were dreaming of the same thing. Mr. Swan’s speech was focused on making big Zinfandels – something that he was known for. I took copious notes and referred to them many times in the ensuing years.

I left that seminar anxious to taste some of Joe Swan’s Zinfandel, but I soon learned that not even a single bottle was available in our local wine shops. All of the Swan wines were sold only by mail order directly from the Swan winery. I promptly wrote Mr. Swan and asked to be added to his mailing list.

I received no immediate reply and basically abandoned my hope of drinking some Swan Zinfandel. About a year and a half later, however, I received a printed postcard from Swan Vineyards. It was brief and to the point. I had been allocated six bottles of the next Swan Zinfandel vintage. The postcard message explained that the wine was scheduled to be bottled in about six months, but that the winery needed money in advance to pay for the bottling. So if I was interested in buying my allocation, I was to mail a check immediately for the purchase price. In about six months or so, after the wine had been bottled, I would be notified that the wine was available for me to pick up at one of four wine stores located in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Along with my check, I was to select the particular store where I wanted the winery to drop off my six-bottle allocation.

I wasted no time at all. That evening I wrote a check for the cost of my six bottles and the following morning made sure that a properly addressed envelope with my check and pick-up designation was deposited in a mail box. Six months later another post card arrived informing me that my Swan wine was ready for me to pick up at the store I’d designated, which required a 20+ mile drive across Los Angeles to an upscale wine store in Pasadena, California.

At the time I knew nothing about the “bottle shock” that often temporarily affects a wine when it is bottled. Even today, after 26 years as a commercial winemaker, I still can’t tell you exactly why bottle shock happens, or what is the physical or chemical cause. I’ve asked this question of many doctorate level graduates from U.C. Davis, and what I usually get in response is a shrug of the shoulders. (I should note, however, that in recent years I have found that bottle shock does not seem to occur to the same degree with screw capped wines, so the cause is most likely related to the fact that some of the mostly nitrogen gas/air mixture in the neck of the bottle after filling is forced into the wine when the cork is inserted.)

What I do know from experience is this: When a wine is corked and bottled – particularly red wine – the wine usually tastes terrible for one up to three or four weeks after bottling. The good news is that, with time, bottle shock completely disappears, and the wine is as good as ever.

By 1985 when we bottled the first wine I’d made at our new winery in Dry Creek Valley, I was well aware of bottle shock, but a day or so after the wine had been bottled, I couldn’t resist opening a bottle at home before dinner. Despite all I knew by then, I was shocked. It tasted terrible – nothing at all like the fine wine I’d sampled from the tank before bottling. I despaired; what could possibly have gone wrong? What had I done wrong in the bottling process? How could I have screwed things up so badly?

I didn’t sleep well that night, or for several weeks thereafter, but my wine finally started to come around, and by the fourth week after bottling it was as good as ever. The experience, however, was so unpleasant that I learned my lesson well. Ever since, I wait at least three weeks before tasting a newly bottled Meeker wine, and I sleep very well.

I didn’t know all this about bottle shock when I picked up my allocation of newly bottled Swan wine, and when I opened the first bottled for dinner that evening, it was – true to bottle shock form – horrible. In disgust I poured most of the bottle into our kitchen sink, and I put the remaining five bottles in the back of the closet I used for wine storage.

It was almost two years later before I again dared to open one of those six bottles of Swan Zinfandel. It, and the four bottles after it, were fabulous, some of the best Zin I’ve ever had.

Nowadays when I’m preparing the budget for one of our wine bottling sessions, and despairing at the large cost involved for glass, corks, etc., I often think back to that first postcard I got from Joe Swan. Certainly, I muse, the loyal members of our Meeker wine club, the “Tribe”, would be happy to pay for their wine six months in advance – for sure, absolutely, without doubt — don’t you think?

50 Vines in the Country

by Charlie Meeker | Nov 28, 2010 | Charlie's Stories

Within weeks after Philip Spalding and I got our ton of 1975 Cabernet, I took Molly to see Dry Creek Valley, and she too fell in love with it. The valley, which runs northwest from Healdsburg in Northern Sonoma County, is about 11 miles long, but only half a mile or so wide, and the benches and hills on both side of the valley provide a sense of both beauty and embracing comfort.

A few months later Molly and I started thinking about buying a small place in the country. We were both working in high pressure jobs, and the idea of a relaxing weekend retreat was appealing. We visualized a small cabin on an acre of land, and early on we decided to find a location where we could plant 50 or so grapevines to supply our home winemaking hobby. We’d plant the vines, care for them on weekends throughout the year, harvest their grapes, and use those grapes to make a few cases of our own wine.

At first, of course, our thoughts went to Dry Creek Valley, but as much as we loved it, there was an obvious problem – it was 450 miles from our condo in Beverly Hills. So we looked closer to home: Paso Robles, Santa Ynez, Ventura, Cucamonga, Temecula and the avocado-growing areas around Fallbrook. We even considered the mountains above Palm Springs, where I had done some rock climbing on Taquitz and Suicide Rocks. We liked many of these areas, but nothing specific had really grabbed us.

One day in November 1976, I got a call at my office from Gerry Lambert, our new Dry Creek Valley friend who several years before had founded Lambert Bridge Winery. “Charlie, my sister and her husband tell me you’re looking for a small piece of land where you can plant a few grapevines. I just heard about a ten-acre parcel that’s come on the market up here. Maybe you ought to come up and look at it.” It didn’t take a lot to convince me to visit Dry Creek Valley again, and I wasn’t pressed with work that week, so the next day I took an early morning commuter flight to San Francisco, rented a car and was at Gerry’s house by late morning. Molly couldn’t get away from her work, so I convinced one of my long-time friends and rock-climbing partners, Grover Gauntt, to go with me.

Gerry drove Grover and me to look at the ten-acre parcel, and although interesting, it wasn’t what Molly and I were looking for. It was planted to kiwis, not grapes, there was no house of any kind, and the $160,000 price seemed quite high. On the way back to his house, however, Gerry mentioned that a local farmer, Captain Staehr, had recently passed away, and that the Staehr place might be coming up for sale. I showed interest, and we drove by the property at the far end of West Dry Creek Road.

I liked the Staehr property at first glance. It was fairly steep hillside (I later learned the elevation gain on the property was about 650 feet), and reminded me of vineyard land I’d seen in Burgundy and the south of France. It was a large parcel and had both vineyards and prune orchards. Although it seemed to be far bigger than what Molly and I were looking for, Grover and I were in the area for the day, and I thought we might as well investigate further.

When I expressed an interest in the Staehr place, Gerry said the man to ask about it was Americo Rafanelli, a local grape grower who had just started his own winery. Like many new winery owners back then (and now too!), Americo – “Am” for short – was working a second job as a real estate broker in order to help pay for his winery habit. Gerry told me Am was the most knowledgeable broker in the Dry Creek area and could tell me what I needed to know about the Staehr property.

Am was a handsome and friendly man – I liked him immediately. (He and his wife Mary became our great friends, but that’s another story.) At Gerry’s urging, Am explained that Captain Staehr – he was a retired ship’s captain; I never heard anybody refer to him in any other way – had recently passed away. The property he left behind was owned by his widow, Maja Staehr, who lived in a house on the property.

Am explained that the Staehr property was 98 acres with about 20 acres of prune orchards and five or six acres of vineyard. There was not only Mrs. Staehr’s house, but also two barns, a garage, a tractor, a disc and various other pieces of farm equipment. Although the property was not yet on the market, Am thought that Mrs. Staehr would consider selling.

I asked what he thought the property might cost. Am was quite specific; he said that if I was interested, he recommended that I offer Ms. Staehr $132,000 for the property. I was surprised and replied, “That seems too low for all that. Is she crazy or something?” “No”, Am replied, “and anyway she has a fine lawyer in town, Frances Passalaqua, with whom she would consult before agreeing to any sale.”

I again expressed doubt about such a low price, but Am was quite confident about what he thought the property should sell for. “I’m a young lawyer,” I explained, “and even if she’d sell at that ridiculously low price, I don’t have $132,000 in cash.” “Oh no”, Am replied, I don’t suggest you offer her all cash. I think you should offer her 10% down and ask her to carry the remaining 90% at 6% interest for 15 years.”

At that point, I must confess, I began to suspect that I’d entered my own twilight zone. “That’s too good to be true,” I said. “That’s just too good a deal to be real.” But Am remained confident. “Well”, I said to both Am and my friend Grover, “if she really would sell for anything like that, then I’d put together a group of my friends, and we’d buy it for sure. But I don’t want to put together a group and then have her give me a counter-offer at $300,000. I’d look like a fool to my friends.”

Grover (who then owned his own real estate appraisal business) made a sensible proposal. “Well, Charlie, why don’t you make the offer Am suggests, and see what price Ms. Staehr counters at. If the counter is close to what Am suggests, then you’ll have a sound basis for talking to your friends and putting a group together.” Grover’s suggestion sounded like a good one, and Am said I only needed to make a $500 deposit, so we began to write up an offer.

Halfway though preparing the offer, Am made another suggestion. “Ms. Staehr is 89 years old. She’s in poor health and isn’t likely to live much longer. Why don’t you offer to leave her with a life estate in her house, so that she can live there for the rest of her life?” That sounded like a good idea to me – my primary interest was in the vineyard – so I agreed with Am’s suggestion. We put the life estate provision in the offer.

We finished writing up the offer; I signed it and gave Am my check for $500. Grover and I then enjoyed a nice lunch at Gerry’s house and flew back to Los Angeles later that afternoon. I really didn’t give much thought to the offer we’d made. I’d never heard of a real estate sale that happened on the first offer, so I didn’t consider that I’d done anything more than start a process that would lead to a counter offer from Maja Staehr and her attorney.

When I got home that evening, I spent all my time telling Molly about how much I’d enjoyed meeting Am Rafanelli, and how he had started his own small winery in Dry Creek Valley. I told her the property Gerry had showed us was not what we wanted, and I never said anything about the Staehr offer.

I was back in my office at O’Melveny & Myers the next day when Am called. “Congratulations,” he said. “Maja Staehr accepted your offer. You’re going to be the owner of 98 acres in Dry Creek Valley!”

I called Molly right away. “Honey,” I said, “when we get home tonight, we’ve got to have a husband and wife conversation about something that’s happened.”

Next I called my mother, Doris. “Mom, I’m going to need to borrow some money.” She was shocked. “You’re doing well as a young attorney. What would you need to borrow money for?”

It was such a good deal that we decided to try to do it all by ourselves, and with my mom’s encouragement and financial support, we closed escrow in February 1977. We knew from the first that we wanted to start our own winery on the property, and we never looked back.

One more thing: We became good friends with Maja Staehr. She lived in good health to 103.

A Ton of Cabernet in a Beverly Hills Condo

by Charlie Meeker | Nov 25, 2010 | Charlie's Stories

In July 1975, about two months after we had first met, Molly and I were walking in a shopping area near the Los Angeles Airport and passed a home winemaking shop. There was a sign taped besides the entrance: “ORDER YOUR NAPA WINE GRAPES NOW!” Molly saw the sign first and grabbed my arm. “Charlie, we’ve got buy some. You made wine once before; let’s do it together!”

We ordered a hundred pounds of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, to be picked up at the shop when the grapes were delivered by truck during harvest season.

In late October we went to the winemaking store and they crushed our 100 pounds into two food-grade plastic trash cans that we had brought with us. A hundred pounds of wine grapes is enough to make about 40 bottles of wine, so we weren’t dealing with a lot of volume. At the time Molly and I lived in a townhouse-style condominium that I’d bought in Beverly Hills. It was at the corner of El Camino Drive and Olympic – the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was two blocks north, and the famous Beverly Hills shopping area on Rodeo Boulevard was three blocks away.

We kept the two trash-can fermenters in our kitchen, where morning and evening I could use my hands to break up the “cap”. Fermentation is a process where yeasts consume the natural sugars in grape juice and in the process emit alcohol, heat and carbon dioxide gas. With red wine, where the juice is kept in contact with the grape skins, the CO2 gets caught up in the skins and causes them to rise to the top of the fermenting juice, where the cap floats partly in the air and partly in the fermenting juice. This cap of skins has to be regularly broken up and put back into the fermenting grape juice for two reasons – first, because the winemaker wants to extract flavor and color elements from the skins; and second, because the heat and the oxygen available to the part of the cap floating above the juice provide a perfect environment for harmful spoilage bacteria.

Breaking up the cap is no problem with grapes fermenting in a trash can – you can do it with your hands. It’s very different with much larger batches, where the cap can get so thick that a person can comfortably walk across it. Nowadays winemakers normally break up the cap in a large tank by “pumping over” – using a large pump to take fermenting juice from the bottom of a tank and spray it into the cap, thereby loosening and breaking up the thick mat of grape skins.

In books dealing with the history of the wine business, readers will often see pictures where people seem to be swimming in a large concrete-type vat filled with wine and grapes. This wasn’t a pleasure dip. Before the advent of electrical pumps, the only way to break up the cap in a large fermenting vat was to for workers to take off their clothes and jump up and down on top of the cap until they broke through into the underlying juice. Then the workers could use their arms to gradually expand the size of their break-through until finally all of the cap had been once again submerged back into the juice.

After Molly’s and my 100 pounds of Napa Cabernet had happily fermented in our kitchen for a week or so, we borrowed a small wooden basket press from the home winemaking store and pressed our must. The pressing took 30 minutes, and cleaning the press took an hour. The yield was about seven and a half gallons of newly fermented Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, most of which we put into a five-gallon glass carboy (like the large water bottle — nowadays usually plastic — that tops an office water dispenser). A case of twelve standard 750 ml bottles equals 2.37753 gallons of wine, so this was enough for about 36 bottles of wine after a small evaporation loss during aging before bottling. Molly and I were already imagining our first dinner with a bottle of our Cabernet.

That evening Philip Spalding, one of my screenwriter clients, called me at home to arrange a meeting for the next day. Philip was a good friend and another wine aficionado, so I told him about Molly’s and my exciting venture into winemaking. He was fascinated and questioned me at length. In the process I mentioned that we should have bought more than a hundred pounds of grapes, because the major part of the work was cleaning up afterwards.

An hour later, Philip called back. “Charlie, I”ve spoken to my friend Clifford David. You haven’t met him yet, but he’s a great guy and someone you should meet because he’s a fine actor and would be a good client for you.” (I later learned that Clifford sang “Molasses To Rum To Slaves” in the original Broadway cast production of “1776”, and “Don’t Tamper With My Sister” and “She Wasn’t You” in the original Broadway production of “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever”.) Clifford became not only a client, but also a close personal friend.

“Clifford and his wife Elsa,” Philip continued, “own a Cabernet vineyard in Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County. Elsa’s brother Jerry started Lambert Bridge Winery there. This year Clifford and Elsa have delivered most of their grapes to top wineries, but everybody’s tanks are now full to overflowing, and there are still a couple of tons unpicked. They’re giving them to us. All you and I have to do is pay for the picking, then get the grapes down here. So let’s do it!”

A day later Philip and I took an early morning flight to San Francisco, rented a U-Haul truck, bought 17 green, plastic trash cans, loaded some furniture Philip had stored in San Francisco, and drove across the Golden Gate Bridge about 70 miles to Dry Creek Valley. David Rafanelli, then Clifford and Elsa’s vineyard manager and nowadays the principal of A. Rafanelli Winery, had arranged for a ton of the Cabernet to be picked that morning, and when we arrived, David helped us crush the grapes into our trash cans using a hand-cranked crusher. We loaded the trash cans into our truck and prepared to leave for Los Angeles.

We had crushed the grapes in front of Jerry Lambert’s house, on a bench that rose about 50 feet on the west side of Dry Creek Valley. It was the first week in November; late afternoon; fog crept up the valley; the dying grape leaves fluttered red, gold and infinite shades in between. I put my arm around Philip’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for making this possible,” I said. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t wait to show it to Molly.”

Seventeen trash cans filled with grapes wouldn’t fit into our condo’s kitchen, so we put them in our garage. But we hadn’t quite anticipated the elevated odor level of this amount of fermenting grapes, and our condo neighbors were soon stopping by. “Hi Molly. Hi Charlie. Is there something strange happening in your section of the garage?” Fortunately our neighbors were wine lovers too, and the only big problem we had at the condo was with the Beverly Hills municipal garbage workers, who for several days refused to take away our pressed grapes skins, claiming they were “commercial waste”. It finally took a couple of $20 bills to solve that minor crisis.

There was also the night that Philip, Molly and I worked late into the night pressing our grapes and putting the new wine into 35 glass carboys that Philip had managed to buy from a local spring water company. While washing a carboy about 1:30 in the morning, I lost my grip on it, and the bottle, partially filled with water, flew a couple of feet before crashing into the concrete driveway with an explosive sound. The lights of every one of the other nine condos were turned on within seconds. Thereafter we arranged to do our winemaking during more normal work hours.

I can’t tell you that our efforts with these Dry Creek grapes were a huge success. The grape crusher David Rafanelli had borrowed for us to use didn’t also destem the grapes, so wine ended up with a slightly green, stemmy taste element that took the edge off what were otherwise strong Cabernet flavors. But whatever the result of that particular batch, the act of processing this substantial quantity of Cabernet took Molly and me into the realm of serious home winemaking, and we never looked back.

My Co-Conspirator in a Life of Wine

by Charlie Meeker | Oct 25, 2010 | Charlie's Stories

If there’s a point where I first jumped onto the slippery slope that some call “getting into the wine business”, it probably 1975. I was still practicing law with O’Melveny & Myers, but by then I’d moved from the Corporate Department to a more specialized practice, the Entertainment Industry Department, where we represented producers, directors, actors, writers and others involved in the motion picture and television business. This specialized practice went back to the 1930’s, when John O’Melveny started representing Sue Carol, a silent films star and later Alan Ladd’s wife. She in turn introduced “J. O. M.”, as he was affectionately known, to Bing Crosby, and ever since, the firm has had an active entertainment practice.

In 1975 our department’s clients included two related entities, Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin’s Tandem Productions, and Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio’s TAT Communications Co. (“TAT” stood for “tuchas afen tush”, Yiddesh for “put your ass on the line”.) The combined companies had ten television series on the air, including “All In The Family”, “Sanford & Son”, “Maude” and “Good Times”.

Alan Horn was Senior V.P. for both companies, and I met with him regularly to assist in negotiating and documenting deals for actors, directors and other creative talent. Alan’s a good friend and a great guy — as I write this he’s serving as President of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures. One day in May 1975 Alan and I were in a spirited conversation about one of the series stars who was demanding yet another mid-season 400% per-episode fee increase, when a young lady knocked and entered the office. “Excuse me, Alan, but I’ve drafted that memo you wanted a-sap.” She placed the memo on Alan’s desk and left. I was writing down some notes, so I didn’t pay much attention to her unfamiliar voice until after she had closed the door to Alan’s office. “Who was that?” I asked. “A new employee,” Alan replied, “Molly De Hetre.” He paused, smiled at me, then continued: “If we didn’t have a rule against dating the help around here, guys would be chasing her home every night.”

At the time Alan and I were both bachelors. And it’s not like I can’t take a hint from a friend.

I remember my reaction well — it was like an old fashioned ticker-tape message clacking across my brain: “CHARLIE, YOU WEREN’T PAYING ENOUGH ATTENTION!” When the meeting was over, I asked Alan’s secretary to direct me to the new employee. I walked over, sat on the corner of Molly’s desk, stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Charlie Meeker, the company’s lawyer.”

A few days later we spent more time together at a wrap party for another TAT series, “Hot L Baltimore”. Within a couple of weeks we were a steady item, and two years later we were married. This year we’re celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary.

Thanks, Alan!

Present for the Re-Birth

by Charlie Meeker | Sep 25, 2010 | Charlie's Stories

After graduating from Princeton University in 1964 and from the University of Texas School of Law at Austin in 1967, I accepted a one-year clerkship position with Judge Walter Ely of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, whose chambers were in Los Angeles. I moved there thinking that I’d return to Texas in a year or so to practice law in Dallas or Houston. Working for Judge Ely was a life-enhancing experience. He was born in Texas, the son of a well-known state judge from Abilene, Texas, and after joining the Marines and winning a Silver Star on Guadalcanal, the Judge settled in Los Angeles, where he became a successful trial lawyer. He was one of those people who could point his finger at a blazing noontime sun while at the same time convincing you that it was, indisputably, the dark of night.

My clerkship in Los Angeles led to my joining O’Melveny & Myers, one of California’s, and now the country’s, great law firms. I was with O’Melveny, first as an associate and later as a partner, for 17 years – a great deal longer than the “year or so” I’d originally intended to spend in Los Angeles.

In Texas, and while attending Princeton in New Jersey, pretty much all the wine I’d ever heard about in any meaningful way was from France. That changed big time once I was in California. In retrospect, we now know that the decade of the 1970’s brought the first prominent labor contractions of the re-birth of the California wine industry – a re-birth made necessary by the disastrous consequences of America’s experiment with Prohibition from 1920 to 1933. California’s wine revival began in the 1950’s with James Zellerbach’s experiments with European barrels at Hanzell Vineyards, continued with Robert Mondavi’s 1965 split from his family and their Charles Krug Winery, and perhaps reached its zenith with the famous 1976 Steven Sperrier tasting in Paris, where a Chateau Montelena Chardonnay triumphed over famous white Burgundies, while a Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon topped the best that Bordeaux had to offer. It seemed like every local newspaper or magazine had some kind of article about California wine, and I read them all. There was a vibrancy about it, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement.

At a home winemaking shop near where I lived, I bought a winemaking kit that featured a can of Ruby Cabernet concentrate — enough (when diluted with water) to make about eight cases of wine. (Ruby Cabernet was a lesser Cabernet Sauvignon relative that the University of California at Davis had developed to grow in California’s hot central valley.) I made the wine and enjoyed every step of the process, except perhaps the serving of the finished product, for which superb was definitely the wrong word.

I bought every book I could find about California wine, and subscribed to everything from Wines and Vines (an industry trade publication) to Wine Country Connoisseur. Growing up in Texas, I’d had no contact with farming and could barely even deal with the workings of a push lawn mover. So I also grabbed up dozens of “how-to-return-to-the-earth” manuals that demonstrated the workings of farm tractors, harrows, plows and discs.

At O’Melveny I joined the Corporate Law Department and worked on corporate mergers, acquisitions, public offerings and other similar business transactions. Somehow my interest in the California wine industry became known to many of my friends, and one day in 1970 I was sent an Offering Memorandum that captivated me. I still have my copy.

Beringer Winery was for sale! The complete winery, the famous Beringer Bros. house in Napa Valley, and 360 acres of producing vineyard — all for sale for two point six million dollars, cash on the wine barrel head.

Unfortunately (at least for my interest in Beringer), I wasn’t born rich. My paternal grandfather spent most of his life working as a drilling pipe salesman for Oil Well Supply  Company. Mom’s maternal grandfather was a farmer in East Texas, but his farm was nowhere near the famed East Texas Field that made H. L. Hunt rich. Mom’s father was a partner in Blackburn-Shaw, a funeral home in Amarillo, Texas. Dad had done well for himself as Managing Director of the Summer Musicals, but my four years at Princeton had sucked up my parent’s savings, and we certainly didn’t own any shares of oil wells or office buildings. My father did, however, know lots of Dallas people who had been fortunate in the financial world, so I sent him a copy of the Beringer Offering Memorandum.

“This is a chance in a lifetime,” I wrote. “I know you don’t have the money to do this yourself, but please think hard about showing this to a group of your friends and seeing if you can put together an investment group to buy Beringer.” I know now that the super-sized energy waves flowing from the California wine industry had not yet reached Texas, but I didn’t know that then, and I waited anxiously for Dad’s reply.

Soon after getting my package, Dad called. “Son,” he said, “you know I love wine almost as much as I love you. Now this Beringer thing . . . I know you’re smart . . .but have you lost your mind? Some of us drink a fair amount of wine here in Texas, but we drink French wine! I don’t know anybody who’d invest in a California winery. And even if I got a group of friends together to buy it, who’d manage it? Our family knows nothing about the running a winery!”

So I wasn’t able to lead a group to buy Beringer. Some months later, in 1971, I read in the newspaper that the winery and its vineyards had been acquired by Nestlé for the asking price. I was pleased that the winery had found new backers, and not at all disappointed, because back then the opportunities in the California wine business seemed endless.

But what happened with Beringer illustrates perfectly the dynamic growth that was then in store for the California wine industry over the 1980’s and 90’s. Beringer grew and prospered under Nestlé’s ownership, and in 1996, as part of a corporate reorganization, Nestlé put Beringer up for sale. This time the sale price was $350,000,000.

Later, in 2000, Beringer was sold again to Foster’s Group of Australia, this time for $1,400,000,000, more than 700 times what it sold for in 1970.

I guess, by then, even my fellow Texans were drinking a lot of California wine!