Cupertino's Wine Country
Before Cupertino was really a town - when it had a blacksmith shop and a general store at the Crossroads and very little else - immigrants from France, Germany, Italy, and even overland from east of the Rocky Mountains came to California, not to search for gold, but to buy and settle and work the land. Land was gold.
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Early Vineyards and a Blackberry Patch
The earliest vineyard in the Westside (Cupertino) was planted by one of the area’s first settlers, Captain Elisha Stephens – hunter, trapper, explorer and wagon master. After successfully guiding the Stephens-Murphy-Townsend party over the plains and high Sierras, Stephens settled along the creek that now bears his name and planted a small vineyard and a blackberry patch that became Blackberry Farm swim resort in much later years.
In 1870, after Stephens had left the area for Bakersfield, the Jesuit priests of Santa Clara College bought 320 acres on a plateau above the creek (in the Stevens Creeks Dam area) and called it Villa Maria. They envisioned the land a summer retreat for the priests from Santa Clara University and planted a vineyard of sacramental wines for the church and commercial wines to provide revenues for the college.
Vineyards in Cupertino’s Flatlands
Even before the Jesuits planted their vineyard, a German farmer, Henry Farr, bought 240 acres around 1868 at the intersection of Prospect and Stelling roads. Farr called his ranch Grandview as it had a panoramic view of the Santa Clara Valley. He planted grapes for Cabernet, Matero, Burger, Zinfandel and Reisling wines. In 1910, Henry sold his last piece of land to Painless Parker, a San Francisco dentist with unorthodox marketing methods (present site – Parker Ranch Road).
One of the Westside’s most successful early wineries was owned by John T. Doyle (1814 – 1906), chief counsel to the archdiocese of San Francisco. He had a beautiful mansion in Menlo Park but wanted a country estate as well. His property extended from Foothill Boulevard to Orange Avenue in Monta Vista and from Stevens Creek Boulevard to McClellan Road. He built two very large winery buildings (Cupertino Winery and Las Palmas) plus a large home, many outbuildings including a Chinese hotel for workers, and another building he called the Palace Hotel. He had a dairy, large poultry yards, huge four-story water tanks, and an elevated grass-lined, ¼ mile-long pipe to transport the wine from his eastern winery to his western winery, across the same arroyo that De Anza and his soldiers traversed some 160 years before. Doyle had the first post office on his property and used the name Cupertino, which replaced the name of Westside. His vines were sold on the East Coast and in Europe and took second place in the 1904 Chicago World’s Fair. He dammed up sections of Stevens Creek for water to process his grapes into wine, with pumping stations all along the creek. His water system was the basis for Cupertino’s Municipal Water System in the later 1900s. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged his extensive buildings, and Doyle died later that year. His former summer home remained on McClellan Road until the 1960s while different Cupertino city councils debated about preserving the buildings along with the property as a large park. Eventually, the land on which the wineries and house stood on McClellan Road was sold to developers and the massive wine buildings and lovely old home disappeared.
A few miles down the road from Doyle’s western winery buildings was Richard Heney’s Chateau Ricardo on 280 acres (1884). Heney raised Isabella, Tocay, Petit Syrah and Zinfandel grapes. His wines received medals at the Paris Exposition.
Cupertino’s first millionaire, Charles Baldwin, had the Miraflores Winery on what is now De Anza College. He produced Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Merlot. His wines were exported to New York, London and Central America where they competed successfully with French wines. Several other early Cupertinians who had vineyards and wineries were Alex Montgomery (brandy distillery and kosher wines), and Thomas Duncan Benrimo, who had 56 acres on what is now Target and the parking lot. Three ship captains – William Porter, Joseph Merithew, and Daniel Henry Blake – established vineyards in the flatlands of Cupertino after their sea voyages. Other family vineyards were owned by John H. Snyder, W.T. McClellan, Jose Ramon Arguello, George McCauley, J.B.J. Portal, and Enoch Parrish.
Montebello Ridge Vineyards
The Italians and the French took to the rugged slopes of Montebello Ridge. There, the Picchetti family built one of the earliest wineries in California. The vineyards produced Zinfandels, Garignane, Petite Syrahs for red wine, and Columbard and Golden Shasta for white wines. Also on the Ridge, but extending into Saratoga, was H.V. Garrod’s property. Both Picchetti and Garrod wineries still make and bottle their own wines under their own names.
Farther up on Montebello was Pierre Klein from France who produced wines for his restaurant in San Francisco – Claret X and the Grand Vin (also known as the Chateau Lafitte of America). Klein entered his wines at Bordeaux, France, in 1895 and next in Brussels, where he won the highest award given, a gold medal with an effigy of Leopold II and a gold and white cross. Klein became an international celebrity for his wines. In Paris he won two more gold medals, which lend his wines even more prestige. In 1907, Klein gave his wife, Victorine, 160 acres of the land on Montebello Ridge. In 1913, Victorine and Pierre sold the entire 160 acres along with crops and buildings to John M. Williams for $10. It can only be speculated as to why Klein sold his land for such a paltry sum. The Kleins moved to Mountain View. In 1920 Victorine died suddenly after an operation to save her life. Two years later, Pierre died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
John Gemello, a former caretaker of Paul Masson’s Evergreen Vineyards, had a winery on Montebello in 1915. Some of the other vintners on the Ridge were the Torres, the Sylvester Panighettis, the Joseph Gautiers and Charlie Rousten – who swore that Prohibition and revenue agents were more responsible for the demise of small family wineries than competition from the large corporate wineries.
At the very top of the Ridge was Osea Perrone’s winery. Perrone was a doctor in San Francisco who had a stone wine cellar built into the side of one of the hills, for aging his wine. He would sometimes bring his patients from S.F. to the mountain ridge to rest and recuperate. From his home and winery on the very top of the Ridge, he often drove his buggy west toward the Pacific Ocean on rugged mountain trails to San Francisco. On one such journey his buggy overturned, and he suffered a leg injury that led to his death. Perrone’s winery is now Ridge Winery and noted for its robust Zinfandels, among other wines produced.
New Beginnings
The root louse Phylloxera decimated vineyards worldwide between 1895 and 1905. Many wineries went out of business all over the world. If vintners could afford to replant, they did; though some pulled out their vines and planted orchards by the mile, leading to Santa Clara Valley’s appellation, “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.”
Now, over 100 years later, small boutique wineries abound again in the hills of the valley, stretching to Santa Cruz and along the summit roads and foothills to San Francisco.
Phylloxera and the Wine Industry
Phylloxera are tiny, almost microscopic, pale yellow sap-sucking insects, related to aphids, which feed on the roots and leaves of grapevines. The roots initially turn yellow and eventually begin to rot.
During the mid 19th century, vintners on both sides of the Atlantic began to exchange cuttings from their grape vines. New World grape varietals had developed an immunity to Phylloxera due to years of exposure. Unfortunately, European Vitis vinifera grape varietals had no such resistance. Around 1860, Phylloxera was inadvertently introduced to French vines through one of these exchanges. When the vines were planted in French soil, the pest went to work.
In 1863, the first recorded outbreak occurred in Provence. It quickly spread throughout the surrounding regions, eventually reaching vines in Italy and Germany. By the turn of the century, over one half of Europe’s vineyards had been destroyed. At the same time, grape vines in the New World were also under siege due to the introduction of vulnerable European rootstock in the vineyards. American vineyards were decimated.
Phylloxera was finally tamed by the innovation of grafting European Vitis vinifera cuttings onto native American rootstocks. However, it is now known there are many types of Phylloxera and the pest has been shown to adapt and mutate. Research is ongoing to find methods of protecting grape vines around the world.
Sources:
www.draceanawines.com
www.calwineries.com/learn/grape-growing/pests-and-diseases/history-of-phylloxera
The Historic Vineyards of the Monte Bello Estate
The properties that now comprise the Ridge Monte Bello Estate were first developed and planted to wine grapes during the late 1800s and early 1900s by four different, unique owners.
Perrone Ranch
In 1885 Osea Perrone, a San Francisco doctor originally from northern Italy, bought 180 acres near the top of Monte Bello Ridge. He terraced the slopes and planted vineyards. He dug into a ravine next to a natural spring, and built his winery using native limestone. The Monte Bello winery was completed and bonded in time for the 1892 vintage. Finished wine was transported to San Francisco, where it was bottled (and also sold from barrel) by the Montebello Wine Company. After Osea’s death in 1912, ownership of the property passed to his nephew, also named Osea, who had worked on the ranch. Young Osea expanded the operation to over five hundred acres. He held onto the property during Prohibition and after repeal, restarted production. Perrone died in 1936, but limited production continued until 1943, when the winery closed and the last vineyards were abandoned.
By the late 1960s, the Ridge partners (see background information below within the “Torre” history) were ready to expand, and the larger Perrone winery, a mile up the hill, was the logical choice. They contacted the Trentadue family, who, in 1957, had bought the abandoned winery and forty acres for day trips and picnics in the country with family. In 1968, the partners succeeded in purchasing the portion of the Perrone property that included the old winery and began its restoration. In 1969 winemaker Paul Draper was charged with re-equipping the winery and production commenced with the 1971 harvest.
Ridge leased additional acreage from the Trentadues, and planted Bordeaux varietals, ultimately buying those parcels in 1987. The historic winery is the heart of the present Monte Bello production facility. Osea Perrone, the younger, and his crew, 1916
Torre Ranch
In 1890, John Torre, a successful Nevada cattle rancher purchased one hundred acres on Monte Bello Ridge, planted vines, and built a barn atop a cellar dug into the hillside. In 1908, John’s nephew Vincent and wife Dominica, left Nevada to run the vineyards and winery at Monte Bello, acquiring the property upon John’s death in 1913. The Torre winery produced mostly zinfandel, selling it for shipment by rail to New York. Prohibition closed the Torre winery in 1920 and the vines died out over time. After several changes of ownership, William Short acquired the property, including the old winery barn, and replanted the vineyard to cabernet sauvignon and a small amount of chardonnay. By 1959, Short, weary of the work, sold the land to four scientists from Stanford Research Institute, Dave Bennion, Hew Crane, Charlie Rosen, and Howard Ziedler.
Initially, the partners intended to sell the grapes, but one of them, Dave Bennion, made a half-barrel of wine from the 1959 harvest his first foray into winemaking. Its quality convinced the partners to re-bond the old winery, and to undertake the venture that would become Ridge Vineyards. Dave, with his partners, went on to make seven commercial vintages (1962-1968). Paul Draper – impressed by the exceptional 1962 and 1964 joined the group as a winemaker in 1969. Paul assisted with that vintage and made the 1970 and 1971 on his own, the last to be made in the old Torre Winery.
Today the oldest vines are those planted by William Short in 1949. The old Torre winery building now houses the Monte Bello tasting room and guest hosting facilities.
Rousten Ranch
Charles Rousten purchased seventy-five acres on Monte Bello in 1903. His property was just above Klein’s and a mile below Torre. He planted vines and built a winery, BW (Bonded Winery) 180, where he made his wine. During Prohibition, he replanted most of the vines to prunes, but kept about eight acres of vineyard. After repeal, he produced a little wine until his death in 1941, when his son, Charlie, inherited the property. Charlie operated the winery until sometime in the 1950s, when fed up with the increasing paperwork demanded by the federal authorities he famously refused to pay the federal excise tax on his wine. He dumped all the wine on the ground in front of a federal agent, and threw him off the property. He tore out the remaining vines, closed the winery, and focused on prunes, cattle, and hay.
When Charlie died in 1990, he left his land to Lois Ortmann. A high school teacher during the day, Lois developed a successful horse boarding operation on the ranch. In 2007 Lois signed a long term lease with Ridge on thirty-seven acres and new vines were planted starting in 2008. Today, Ridge farms all four ranches, producing several red wines – Monte Bello, Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, Estate Merlot, and the Historic Vineyard Series wines and limited quantities of white wine – Monte Bello, Estate, Jimsomare, and Mikulaco Chardonnays.
Klein Ranch
Pierre Klein (1855 – 1922) was an Alsatian who came to California in 1875. For years, as a manager of the restaurant in San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel, he championed the best of California wines. In 1888 he purchased 160 acres on Monte Bello Ridge (currently known as the Jimsomare Ranch.) Determined to produce a fine claret in the style of the Médoc, he planted Bourdeaux varieties on their own roots. In the early 1890s, he began selling his Mira Valle wines to several San Francisco restaurants; in 1895, he entered his wine in the Bordeaux Exposition, where he took an honorable mention. At the Paris Exposition of 1900, he won two gold medals – one for his Claret, the other for his “Grand Vin” – known as the “Chateau Lafitte of America.”
When phylloxera attacked his vines after the turn of the century, he did not replant. Retiring in 1910, he sold the property in 1913. In 1936, it was purchased by the Schwabacher family of San Francisco who renamed the property “Jimsomare” from their names, Jim, Sophie, Marie. Although Klein’s Bordeaux varietals had died out, a small nineteenth-century zinfandel vineyard survived. Ridge bought those grapes, and made its first Jimsomare Zinfandel in 1968. Ridge convinced the family to replant the Bordeaux varietals, and a small amount of chardonnay. In exchange, Ridge provided rootstock, and a promise to purchase the grapes. The first cabernet bottling was in 1978.
By the late 1990s, the Schwabachers no longer wished to manage day-to-day farming, and signed a long term lease with Ridge. Today, Ridge farms the original Klein property as part of its Monte Bello Estate.
Source:
www.ridgewine.com/about/explore/historic-monte-bello/
Prohibition 1920 – 1933
The 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale, transportation, exportation and importation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes. Ownership and consumption, however, were still legal.
A convergence of political and social trends led to America’s dry era. Before Prohibition was enacted into law, anyone over 15 could drink. At the time, the US was guzzling the equivalent of 27 wine bottle-sized portions of straight alcohol per year, 10-14 times more than the average today. Alcoholism was a problem, but there were also several other problems that Prohibition was intended to address including child labor, poverty, women’s suffrage, prostitution, gambling, and anti-immigrant views. The temperance movement used these and other causes to win support.
On January 17, 1920 at 12:00am, the Volstead Act to enforce Prohibition went into effect. During the first year following the Act, the public was upbeat with their opinion of “The Noble Experiment”. Many wineries shut their doors and poured out their barrels. However, the enthusiasm was short lived when people realized that it didn’t fix US problems. In fact, banning alcohol sales soon proved to be highly unpopular. Prohibition became extremely difficult and expensive to enforce when individuals, businesses, and criminals exploited the loopholes in the law. After the act passed, but before it went into effect, the public stocked up. It’s estimated a total of 141 million bottles of wine were sold within that 3 month period.
Prohibition didn’t stop drinking; it simply pushed the consumption of alcoholic drinks underground. By 1925, there were several thousand speakeasy clubs operating around the country and bootlegging operations sprang up to supply thirsty citizens with alcoholic drinks. Mobsters made millions of dollars from illegal alcohol sales. In addition to the rise of the mob-rub black market, many citizens simply ignored the law. Loopholes such as obtaining a prescription to purchase alcohol for medicinal purposes from a pharmacy kept distilleries in business. In addition, the law allowed a person to legally produce 200 gallons of wine a year for personal consumption. It was estimated that home wine making grew 900% during Prohibition. Grape growers found business selling grape/wine bricks directly to customers. These boxes of dehydrated grape juice and pulp were shipped from California to buyers across the country. A warning label on the box told the buyer how to prevent the reconstituted juice from fermenting into wine.
A few wineries stayed open citing sacramental wine for Catholic service and Kosher wine as their sole purpose of production. By 1924, government officials were highly suspicious of sacramental wine and pulled many permits due to the rampant growth of nearly a million gallons in just 2 short years.
It was not until the Great Depression (1929-39) that American opinion turned decisively against Prohibition. The Depression brought economic issues to the fore and dampened the cultural conflicts. Enforcement costs had become exorbitant. In addition the taxes that could be raised by legalizing and taxing alcohol outweighed residual concern over the moral effects of drinking.
In 1933, Congress ratified the 21st Amendment, and America was again allowed to drink legally.
Sources:
www.britannica.com/event/Prohibition-United-States-history-1920-1933
www.history.com/topics/prohibition
Last Call; The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent
Community of small growers emerges on Cupertino’s Montebello Road
It is “the most hallowed ground in California” according to Ian Brand of I. Brand & Family Wines.
Its terroir “is some of the most outstanding” in the state, in the words of Duncan Arnot Meyers of Arnot Roberts.
Brand and Meyers are talking about vineyards on Montebello Road in Cupertino, where both winemakers buy Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. They both stumbled upon a rare opportunity – the fruit grown here is only scarcely available to outside producers, and it’s some of the most pedigreed in the United States.
This small sector of vineyards, on a mountain overlooking Silicon Valley, is known widely for Ridge Vineyards’ iconic Monte Bello Vineyard. Ridge, according to the “Oxford Companion to Wine,” is “the most internationally admired producer of American Cabernet Sauvignon,” an impressive epithet for a wine that lacks the marketing advantages of a recognizable region – say, Napa Valley – on the label. Instead, Monte Bello and its neighbors lie in the vast Santa Cruz Mountains AVA, a sparsely planted appellation spanning three counties (San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz) from Half Moon Bay to Watsonville.
Ridge’s name has become synonymous with this corner of the Santa Cruz Mountains, maybe even the entire AVA. Ridge even has the name “Monte Bello” trademarked. But what most wine drinkers don’t know is that Ridge is not the only property producing beautiful wines on Montebello Road. In fact, the viticultural traditions of this rugged mountainside extend nearly 150 years into the past, and the narratives of the Montebello Road neighbors – names like Picchetti, Fellom, Naumann and Vidovich – are deeply intertwined with Ridge’s.
What makes the land on Montebello Road so attractive for wine growing? Its climate is cooler than Napa’s, which enables the area to produce Cabernet Sauvignons of greater elegance and structure. Meyers, who grew up in Napa, says he turned to the Santa Cruz Mountains after he “realized that some of our favorite Cabernet wines were coming from cooler places.”
Conditions on the mountain are tough. “You’re battling nature all the time,” says Roy Fellom, who cultivates a 10-acre vineyard adjacent to Ridge. Eighty mile-per-hour winds blowing from the Pacific, coupled with a large diurnal temperature swing, cause vines to struggle, which may make for difficult farming but ultimately concentrates the fruit.
The area’s greatest asset, however, lies beneath the ground. Vineyards on Montebello Road grow atop the North American plate, although the San Andreas Fault line appears visibly within reach. Longtime Ridge winemaker Paul Draper explains that amid the tectonic activity seawater mixed with gasses from the earth’s core to form limestone, the most coveted soil type for wine. “With limestone, mountain fruit is more elegant and precise,” explains Brand.
Yet because Ridge holds the trademark for the Monte Bello name, many wines made in this exceptional terroir do not identify the place on their label. (Wineries can legally use the phrase as part of a geographical indication: Fellom Ranch’s Cabernet names “Montebello Ridge,” while I. Brand and Vidovich Vineyards call theirs “Monte Bello Road.”)
The oldest vines on Montebello Road – a 0.7-acre patch of head-trained Zinfandel – date back at least 135 years. They were planted by Vincenzo Picchetti, who emigrated from Italy in 1872. After making wine at the Villa Maria for Jesuits for a decade, he and his brother purchased a 160-acre property on Montebello Road. By 1882 they were growing grapes, and by 1896 building a winery of their own.
Ridge Vineyards’ story began in that time period, when Osea Perrone purchased a 180-acre property higher up the mountainside in 1885. He vinified the first wine to be labeled Monte Bello in 1892. By 1890, another newcomer, John Torre, had arrived. He bought 100 acres, planted a vineyard and made his own wine, too.
With Prohibition, both Torre’s and Perrone’s vineyards were abandoned. So was the Picchetti property, almost: Vincenzo’s descendants uprooted their vines, save for the 0.7 acres of Zinfandel remaining today, which was spared to produce sacramental wine. They planted the property to orchard fruits.
After repeal, the Picchettis struggled to profit from their estate. They ceased commercial winemaking, and in 1976 they sold the remainder of their land to the government-run Midpeninsula Open Space District, which maintains ownership today.
Meanwhile, William Short purchased the old Torre winery and, in 1949, planted Cabernet Sauvignon for the first time on this mountain. A decade later, Short’s property sold to four Stanford scientists – Dave Bennion, Hew Crane, Charlie Rosen and Howard Ziedler. They rechristened the winery as Ridge Vineyards in 1962, vinifying the first modern vintage of Monte Bello. Paul Draper, the winemaker who would come to define Ridge, joined the winery in 1969, and held that position until his retirement in 2016. (He remains chairman.)
For a time, Ridge was the only operating winery on Montebello Road. It got some company in 1980, when Roy Fellom planted Bordeaux varieties on his family estate, which looks onto Perrone. “When we started,” Fellom explains, “it was Picchetti, me and Ridge.”
The Picchetti property was growing grapes then, but its wine label would not be revived until 1998, when Leslie Pantling signed a long-term lease with the Open Space District to take control of the vineyards and old winery. (Before her, Sunrise Winery had leased the land.) Since then, the winery count on Montebello Road has doubled, as the small growers Naumann, Vidovich and R & W have all launched their own labels.
With six producers in place, and high-profile clients like I. Brand and Arnot-Roberts purchasing fruit from several of them, will these Montebello Road wineries surrounding Ridge continue to grow in quality and recognition, and will others join them?
The greatest challenge: “There isn’t a lot of room for other people up there,” says Brand. Ridge has expanded its Monte Bello Vineyard gradually over the last half century, acquiring the Perrone property in 1968, the Jimsomare Vineyard in the 1990s and the Rousten Ranch – in between those two sites – in 2007.
Today, “there’s not a lot of land to be developed,” says Don Naumann, who grows 2.5 acres of Merlot on the mountain. And “there’s a lot of push (not to develop) around from the Open Space.” Ridge plans to slowly replant the old abandoned portions of the Perrone section of the vineyard, an additional 40 acres, over the coming years, and Fellom also has plans for growth. Beyond them, the remaining Montebello Road growers are left to the small acreages they currently farm.
That limited supply of grapes means that these wineries primarily vinify in small lots. For them, wholesale distribution is not viable, and several, such as Picchetti, have come to rely on direct-to-consumer sales. While such a business structure can increase a winery’s profit margin per bottle, it can also inhibit more widespread brand recognition – and regional recognition. In other words, these hidden gems may well stay hidden.
And the close-knit Montebello Road community seems content to stay small. Naumann recalls Paul Draper’s daughter babysitting his daughter. Draper used to bottle an old-vine Picchetti Zinfandel before the Open Space arrived. Once Pantling signed the lease on that same property, she hired a former Ridge assistant winemaker to help her modernize Picchetti’s old production facility and make the wines. And when Vidovich Vineyards was getting ready to develop its own Montebello Road property to vine, it consulted with Ridge on root-stock selections and pruning practices.
Despite Montebello Road’s collaborative spirit, it doesn’t look likely that a formal organization will ever take shape. The thought has crossed the minds of a few of the smaller producers, though. They all hope to further define this special corner of the broadly drawn Santa Cruz Mountains AVA.
“I see this area growing and becoming more and more recognized,” says Roy Fellom. While the land may never expand significantly, the bottlings from the area are more diverse than ever. With each vintner working this fruit, bringing a new perspective and style, the wines produced from Montebello Road vineyards continue to reveal the essence of this magnificent place.