Some of California's most famous wines came from a science experiment.

Great article

  1. Does anyone know what the Santa Ynez dirt would have cost, back circa 1970, in terms of dollar per acre? [Because my impression is that, nowadays, you don’t start an operation like that in California without Daddy Warbucks as a business partner.]

  2. I have a memory [in the last few years] of reading about someone who was trying to grow grapes again out on Santa Cruz Island - I have a strong feeling that there was a thread about it here at Wine Berserkers - but my Google-Fu doesn’t seem to be up to the task of finding that old thread.

I don’t know for sure but I heard from someone I trust that Daddy Warbucks is not a good business partner.

Seriously, though, can you purchase any quality dirt in California these days for less than about $150,000 per acre?

Because the pictures of that spread in the article do not look to me like anything which could be purchased by a “Scientist” in 2019.

It’s awesome if Normies [to include mere “Scientists”] could have purchased that spread back in 1970, but nowadays, that’s a fantasy [bordering on a ludicrous delusion] for a Normie.

Probably but monetizing it would require multiples of upfront equity invested.

Rusack Winery, owned by members of the Wrigley family, have planted a vineyard on Catalina Island and ate producing Zinfandel, among other varieties. They have plans to build a production facility out there as well.

Cheers

The Zinfandel for this project on Catalina did come from cuttings obtained from old vines on Santa Cruz Island. Good article about the Rusack project here:California's Island Winery, Reborn - The Santa Barbara Independent

Rusack Winery, owned by members of the Wrigley family, have planted a vineyard on Catalina Island and ate producing Zinfandel, among other varieties.

Why didn’t they make wine???

neener

Interesting article, Blake. Thanks for posting it. I was puzzled by one thing, though:

Putting two and two together, Benedict developed a model for > an ideal vineyard environment with the marine layer influence. > Armed with that information, he set off on a mission: to find a similar environment in which to plant a vineyard somewhere along the West Coast of North America. With his vines growing in a nursery, he traveled from the Todos Santos Valley in Baja California, Mexico, > to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada> , looking for land.

The Okanagan Valley is about 200 miles inland. I wonder if the impact of the lake provided the “marine influence.”

Good point John. I do not believe the layout of the land is such to allow for West to East ocean related wind flow like it is in the Santa Ynez Valley, in fact, when looking at a map of all of the wineries, they are located North to South as the valley runs. So, its really an entirely different topography/ dynamic than what Michael found.

BTW, Michael and Richard Sanford were more in the hippy mode than anything else during this stage of their lives and did not have much more other than a lot of passion and heart. Money, not so much.

I have a couple of wines they made in the 70s that I`ll share with Richard when the occasion arises, one came from Chris Seiber who generously gave me a Cabernet to give to Richard. The vines planted to Cab were short lived s they discovered the varietal just did not work in this terroir.

I assume it wasn’t that he was looking for an east-west valley, per se. But, in the case of the Santa Ynez Valley, that orientation allows the prevailing western winds to blow fog into the valley, while most of the state’s other valleys run north-south and are protected from the marine fog by hills/mountains. (Exceptions: the outer part of the Russian River Valley and the Anderson Valley.)

In the Okanagan, I wonder if there is fog from the lake that creates a similar effect. I haven’t been up there in decades. It’s quite warm on summer days, but it’s far enough up in the mountains, that I can imagine it might be cool enough at night for moisture from the lake to condense.

Our tasting group opened a 1978 Sanford & Benedict Cabernet last December as part of in 1978 horizontal tasting from around the world. Though interesting to try, it did not show well compared to the others. Probably a good thing the vines were grafted over . . .

Cheers.

The Nielsen vineyard was planted in 1964, so was the 1st commercial vineyard in Santa Barbara County.

From my Power Point on North America
The Okanagan Valley is the continuation of the Sonoran dessert into Canada.
5 sub regions North to South Kelowna, Naramata, Okanagan Falls, Golden Mile and Black Sage/Osoyoos
49 – 50 degrees latitude
July and August are warmer than Napa, temps can exceed 40 degree C
Reds and Bordeaux varieties in the south with whites and lighter reds as you travel north,1200 degree days at Kelowna and 1500 in Black Sage/Osoyoos, 4 degree C difference from north to south
Lake Okanagan in the north at 144 kilometers long and 3.5 kilometers average width. It is over 750 meters at its deepest point and is the source of much-needed water for irrigation. With Skaha Lake, Vasseux lake around OK falls and Lake Ossoyos in the south.

Yeay, I googled last night, and found Rusack, but there didn’t seem to be a corresponding thread about Rusack at Wine-Berserkers.

Maybe the thread I am thinking of was way back in the eBob or WLDG days.

PS: Is that Wrigley as in “Spearmint Gum” and “Chicago Cubs”?

That’s pretty much exactly what I was envisioning - a couple of guys with [essentially] no money, but with an idea, and some passion, and plenty of sweat equity to throw at the problem.

BTW, there are lots of reasons to despise the Millennials, but I feel a great deal of sympathy for them in that regard - the chance to strike it rich on a shoestring budget, with nothing but a wing & a prayer - those days are gone forever.

It’s why all the poor Millennials are carrying so damned much debt - mortgaging their futures in the hope that being several hundred thousand dollars in debt for just an undergraduate degree might somehow give them a toe up on the competition, so that they could actually live in a dadgum 1200 sq ft house [which of course would require another $300,000 of debt on top of their student loan debt] - there’s no hope for those kids.

It’s mathematically impossible for them to grow up to be a Michael Benedict or a Richard Sanford.

The modern world is an abject obscenity.

Clendenen and Tolmach started ABC with very little. As late as 1975 producing vineyards in this area could be had for $5000 an acre … sometimes less.

I d have to work on this more carefully but I think you could start a wine project for less than $200K

The secret is in selling wine quickly

Yeah! Things were so much better in the past when you could just take the land from Native Americans. Stupid progress! [wink.gif]