By TOM MARQUARDT and PATRICK DARR
Kim Stare Wallace, president of Dry Creek Vineyard, is sitting at her dining room table when her husband asks how her week has been going. She responds, “The usual.”
The “usual” includes picking up trash, cleaning the toilet, reviewing spread sheets, lugging boxes of wine and working with her staff – chores that she put into a clever, 90-second video to the music of Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.” How appropriate.
Wallace, who loves her job, is not complaining. But she has a message: the life of a family winemaker isn’t easy, but the hard work and love makes for a better wine.
Wallace grew up working with her father, David Stare, in just about every capacity. Lugging boxes of wine is no different than what she did as a teen-ager. With her dad, a legend of “firsts” in Dry Creek Valley, now retired, Wallace is at the helm – but hardly rid of the family chores that keep a business humming.
In her video, Wallace is demonstrating that the life a winemaker sometimes calls on the boss to be the proverbial bottle washer. Although she finds huge rewards in making wine, she has survived the temptation to sell to a corporation. Alas, her kind is dwindling as more and more family owned wineries are calling it quits.
Just recently the Foppiano family sold its winery to CMB Wines after operating under the family name for 126 years. It joins other old brands — Louis Martini, Robert Mondavi, Joseph Phelps – no longer in family hands.
Among the buyers of these wineries are E. & J. Gallo, which bought Hahn Family Wines and Rombauer last year, Constellation Brands, which bought Sea Smoke this year, and Treasury Estates, which bought DAOU wines from the Daou brothers last year. Together, these corporations produce about 6 percent of the world’s wine production and they are still in the market for family wineries that are having difficulty competing in a declining market.
Dry Creek Vineyard isn’t the only family owned winery holding out. Pedroncelli, which we recently featured, is still family owned after being in the business of making wine for nearly a century. Unlike Dry Creek, though, there are several layers of generations of Pedroncellis who can carry on the family business. Also notable is Clos du Val and Charles Krug, which has remained in the Mondavi family for four generations.
Wallace recognizes the inescapable reasons for families to cash in their chips. For one, squabbles – like that which destroyed Robert Mondavi and prompted Foppiano’s sale – can drive families apart. And, a lack of capital can prevent families from making necessary upgrades to stay competitive. Some families simply run out of money, drive and energy. Corporations swoop in to pick up the remains, fuel the facility with capital improvements and provide financial oversight. They save these wines from extinction. A good example is Inglenook, which was pulled out of the fire by Francis Ford Coppola. Those wines are still legendary.
“The more family you have, the more complicated it can get,” Wallace said. Her father, David Stare, who started the business in the 1960s when she was just 9 years old, is retired. Her husband is semi-retired and the children have started career paths that don’t include wine. Still, she said, “it is my fondest hope they will express interest.”
Alone at the top, sometimes picking up trash and cleaning restrooms, she doesn’t have to please shareholders.
“You can’t coast,” she says. “A lot of people entered this as a second career and didn’t realize the energy required.”
Wallace says she can do a better job than the large corporations because she can pay attention to the origins of her wine much better. While a corporation may have to keep a board or shareholders content with profits, she doesn’t even allow business managers into the winery.
“We literally pour ourselves into every glass,” she says.
She wants you to look at the back label. Her wines say it was “produced and bottled by” while many of those owned by publicly traded corporations are just “vinted and bottled by” the producer. We’re going to write more about that subject in a future column.
When we spoke to Wallace, she was in her office overlooking a garden and watching a family of tourists outside, drinking wine and have a good time. The scene made her feel good about her hard work.
“I feel blessed,” she said. “Wine makes such a difference in people’s lives.”
Here are two great wines still produced and bottled by a family:
Dry Creek Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2023 ($25). Adding the musque clone gives this wine a creamy texture with luscious melon and peach flavors. Pineapple and citrus aromas lure you into the wine.
Dry Creek Vineyard Old Vine Zinfandel 2021 ($45). Using grapes from 100-year-old vineyards, the producer has a well-balanced zinfandel that is not over-ripe or emboldened with high alcohol. Generous blue and black fruit aromas with varietal flavors of black cherry and plum with a dash of mocha.
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