Vintner’s Hall of Fame
March 12, 2011
The history of the wine industry in California is made up of hundreds of stories of memorable characters who came here to follow a dream and try their luck with the grape.
One of the best ways to explore it is with a visit to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone’s Vintners’ Hall of Fame.
Itself a historical building dating to the 19th century and the beginnings of winmaking in the valley, Greystone houses an intriguing collection of wine country tales. All are told on the plaques in the second floor Barrel Room, which is open to the public to visit.
On giant antique wine barrels, these plaques introduce the characters whose contributions to the wine industry have earned them a place the Vintners’ Hall of Fame, established by the CIA in 2007. Here, you can learn about the early pioneers of the industry, like Charles Krug, the Beringer brothers and Count Agoston Haraszthy, as well as the 20th-century giants, both the well known and the lesser known.
Each year, inductees are selected by a panel of more than 75 national wine writers, critics and historians. This is the fifth year the board of trustees of the Vintners Hall of Fame will introduce a new class of nominees, and the public is invited to join the festivities at the induction, which also provides money for supporting a new generation of winemakers and enthusiasts.
The fifth annual Celebration of California Wine & Food and Induction of the Vintners Hall of Fame Class of 2011 will have a distinctly presidential flavor this year, taking place, as it does on Feb. 21, Presidents Day.
In the spirit of the day, the event begins at 4 p.m. with a reception that will feature hors d’oeuvres from food and wine pairings from past state dinners at the White House.
After introducing the new members of the Hall of Fame, guests are invited to enjoy a walk around dinner, prepared by a team led by chef Walter Scheib, former White House chef and CIA graduate.
Tickets are $175, of which $100 is tax-deductible. Proceeds from the event support the Vintners Hall of Fame and contribute to scholarships for the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the CIA at Greystone.
It all adds up to an opportunity to be a part of wine history in the making. For more information about the Vintners Hall of Fame, visit ciavintnershalloffame.com.
The new inductees
The class of 2011 for the Vintners Hall of Fame includes Richard Graff, Joel Peterson, August Sebastiani, Vernon Singleton and Bob Trinchero.
Richard Graff
Richard Graff was a pioneer of California pinot noir. With a loan from his mother in 1965, Graff bought Chalone vineyard, which had been producing mistletoe.Recognizing that the limestone soil was similar to terrain he had worked on during a year spent in Burgundy, he restored neglected grapevines. He also introduced Burgundian methods of winemaking: fermenting in oak barrels imported from France, aging white wines on their lees, and encouraging malolactic fermentation – all anathema in California at the time. He took pains to preserve the character of Chalone’s unusual microclimate and produced finely crafted pinot noir of a quality now taken for granted in California. As demand for his wines exceeded the supply, he brought in partners and expanded. Later, the enlarged company acquired Acacia, then a leading producer of pinot noir in Carneros.
Joel Peterson
While working as a microbiologist, Peterson co-founded Ravenswood Winery in 1976 with $4,000, no vineyards and no winery. He had worked with Joseph Swan for five vintages and wanted to make great wine from older vines planted in the right locations, which is how he became a Zinfandel expert, were the oldest vines in California. At the time, Zin was mostly known for making sweet pink wine. With his single-vineyard Zins, Peterson was instrumental in showing how well the grape reflects its terroir. Peterson’s wines helped preserve some of California’s oldest vineyards. In 2001, Ravenswood was sold to Constellation Brands for $148 million, but unlike many winemakers who struck gold, Peterson stayed with Constellation as a senior vice president and Ravenswood’s head winemaker, where he has continued to promote and produce the excellence of single-vineyard Zinfandel.
August Sebastiani
The youngest of three children, he purchased Sebastiani winery from his father’s estate in 1952, and developed it into what was, at the time of his death in 1980, the sixth largest winery in the U.S. Like his father, Sebastiani sold mostly jug wines, increasing production by more than 100 times over three decades. The first California vintner to make affordable varietal wines in magnum sizes, Sebastiani was an enormous source of support for major growers in key wine growing regions including, Alexander Valley, Lodi, Napa and Sonoma Valley. For many of these growers, his support came at a time when they had no other home for their grapes. He played a major part in the economic development of the town of Sonoma, and was a significant philanthropist whose charitable gifts included the property for the Sonoma Valley Hospital.
Vernon Singleton
An expert on wine chemistry, Prof. Singleton spent more than four decades in the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, retiring in 1991. He published more than 220 papers and four books. “Wine: An Introduction for Americans,” co-written with Maynard Amerine, remains among the most widely read books of its kind, even decades after its last printing. “Principles and Practices of Winemaking,” co-written with three UC Davis colleagues, is a textbook used worldwide. Singleton is best known for his identification, characterization and transformation of the many phenolic substances in wine, including tannins. He also studied the contributions of barrel aging to wine phenolic composition and the role of oxygen in wine maturation.
Bob Trinchero
Bob Trinchero took over Sutter Home Winery in the 1960s, inheriting a mom-and-pop operation that sold generic wines to their Napa Valley neighbors, who filled barrels and bottles at the winery’s back door. In 1968, he began making Amador County zinfandel, purchasing fruit from some of the oldest vines in California. In 1972, looking for a way to make the wine more intense, he drained off some of the juice before fermentation and left some natural sugar in it, calling it “Oeil de Perdrix, A White Zinfandel Wine.”
Three years later, he dropped Oeil de Perdrix, as he had created what became America’s favorite wine for the rest of the millennium. Say what you want about white zinfandel, it was affordable, introduced non-wine drinkers to wine and preserved old zinfandel vineyards that might have been grafted to chardonnay or paved for housing. Trinchero has played a large role in hosting Auction Napa Valley, which has contributed tens of millions of dollars to charity.
Source: http://napavalleyregister.com/inv/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/wine/article_1ba35644-3af3-11e0-bf32-001cc4c002e0.html
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