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Miller Family, CAWG’s 2025 Grower of the Year, Plan Their Vineyards for the Next Generation

By
W. Blake Gray | Contributing Writer
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Left to right is Nicholas, Stephen and Marshall Miller. The Miller family were recently named 2025 Grower of the Year by the California Association of Winegrape Growers for their endurance and commitment to strengthening the California winegrape industry (photo courtesy Miller family.)

California minimum wage was $9 an hour in 2015. Now it is $16.

Marshall Miller said his company, The Thornhill Companies of Santa Barbara County, has always paid above minimum wage. But if it continues to double every decade, Miller foresees a time when his company will not be able to afford hand pruning.

However, pruning machines that are good enough for premium wines haven’t yet been invented. But Miller believes they will be, and his family is redesigning and replanting some of their vineyards to be ready for the future.

“We think we’re at a real inflection point in the vineyard business in California,” Marshall told Grape & Wine. “We’ve seen a lot of farming by hand. We do not believe our kids’ generation will be farming this way. There’s going to be a lot more mechanization. Our goal right now is to put in the investment and planning in what grape growing looks like going forward. The tools we use now, if you’re using it for mechanical farming, they’re clumsy. I like to compare them to smart phones before the iPhone. We don’t have the iPhone yet. But it’s coming.”

The Miller family grows winegrapes in Santa Barbara County on over 1,500 acres of land.

The Miller family, fifth-generation growers, was recently named 2025 Grower of the Year by the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG). Marshall had advance notice (about a minute). He is on the CAWG board, and when he showed up for the meeting, he learned the award was on the agenda.

“I was trying to play it cool,” Marshall said. “The people who vote on it are all growers we respect. It’s one thing to be recognized by the consumer. Being recognized by a group of people who know what they’re talking about is special.”

“It does feel good,” Nicholas Miller told Grape & Wine. “You do need to have good news in times like this. When you get a huge affirmation like this, it raises the tide of your whole organization. This is more meaningful than accolades and scores. We believe in CAWG. It’s a pretty big landscape to pick just one grower. Kind of a weird year to be it. We’re going to be celebrating at Unified while everybody is talking about Armageddon.”

The Miller family engages in a unique business strategy by tearing out grapevines on parts of their property and leasing those lands to growers of annual crops. Grapes eventually go back in the ground, allowing for less monocropping and better soil health.

Unique Operation
Nicholas and Marshall divide up responsibilities, with Marshall serving as Chief Operating Officer and Nicholas serving as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer. Their father, Stephen Miller, is Chief Executive Officer. They farm 1900 acres in Santa Barbara County, 1500 of which are winegrapes. They also farm avocados and lemons and have since long before their parents planted winegrapes in 1973.

“I’ve been working with them for a long time,” said Bob Lindquist, founder of Qupé and now owner of Lindquist Family Vineyards. “My history with the Millers goes back to 1985 when Bob Miller approached me about grafting some of their vineyard over to Syrah. I said, ‘You’re probably in too cool a site.’ This was 1985. We didn’t have a lot of information about cool-climate Syrah. And he said, ‘We have Merlot and Cabernet out in our vineyard, and they ripen every year.’ And I said, ‘But have you tasted them? They’re terrible.’ He laughed. He invited me out to Bien Nacido and asked me what blocks could be grafted over to Syrah. We settled on a Riesling block that had been planted in 1973. In 1986, 7 acres were grafted over to Syrah. First crop was 1987. I’ve been making Syrah from it ever since.”

In fact, the Millers’ main marketing point for their grapes has been the quality of winemakers who work with them. They are in a position at their main Bien Nacido Vineyard of choosing their clients and have chosen well enough that the vineyard, unusually, is better known than some of the wineries that make wine from it. You can also say that about To Kalon in Napa but not many other California vineyards.

“We need to be a little bit style agnostic ourselves,” Marshall said. “For Russell From or Paul Lato who want a very rich Syrah, we are doing that, whereas for Lane Tanner who wants a very light Pinot Noir, we are doing that. In our minds, this is good customer service, to understand what the winemakers’ goals are and trying to help them make those goals.”

In addition to Bien Nacido Vineyard and Solomon Hills Vineyard in Santa Maria Valley, they own 1500-acre French Camp Vineyard in Paso Robles Highlands. It’s one of the largest certified organic vineyards in the state and allows them to sell to big wine brands, including Cupcake and Rex Goliath, that can’t afford their higher-priced Santa Maria Valley grapes.

Currently, they are doing something at Bien Nacido that other grape growers might want to consider: After tearing out grapevines on parts of their property, they are leasing those lands to growers of annual crops.

The Miller family is always looking forward and preparing for the next generation. “Our goal right now is to put in the investment and planning in what grape growing looks like going forward,” said Marshall Miller.

“Our family has really tried to stick to permanent crops,” Nicholas said. “It’s usually working with an annual grower. We want them to be able to sow the land, putting back nutrients. We’ve leased it to vegetable growers. We’ve had leafy greens. We’ve had flowers. That’s a fun one, when we get into the fields and we have gladiolas. Unlike regions like Napa that are fully planted to grapes, we really have that diversity in Santa Barbara County.”

Strawberries are by far the most valuable crop in Santa Barbara County at $775 million, worth nearly eight times as much as winegrapes, according to the county agricultural commissioner’s office. Flowers are second. Winegrapes, at $98 million, are just ahead of broccoli, cauliflower and two kinds of lettuce.

“This kind of diversity forced people in Santa Barbara County to plant grapes where they should be, up on the hillsides and the slopes,” Nicholas said. “Other farmers are happy to take that land for a short term. Leasing land is lower dollar value than winegrapes but it’s commercially viable.”

“There’s a broader protocol for us,” Marshall said. “Grapevines are a monocrop. When we can take what has been a block of grapes and farm it for something else for a period of time, it does really well for the soil health. That’s crop rotation on a generational basis. There are some plots on hillsides that are only good for grapes. But where possible, we are farming other things. We are going to put grapes back in, but with a learning dialectic.”

That said, reducing the need for labor is also a constant goal that leasing some land helps achieve. Marshall was inspired by a visit to a Porsche factory in Germany.

“They take great pride in Porsches being hand-assembled,” Marshall said. “But if you stand there and watch, an automated cart brings the part to the worker. The worker doesn’t have to move. They have thought about how to use hand labor where it has the most impact.”

Miller sees that analogy for pruning grapevines.

“We need to look at what are the capabilities of our staff,” Marshall said. “What are the things that can only be done by hand? If we can mechanize one pass at pruning, and then come back and clean that up by hand, there’s synergy there.”

The Miller family’s The Thornhill Companies include brands like Bien Nacido, Solomon Hills and more.

Everything Done Mindfully
The Millers have also been ruthless about replanting when their yield drops.

On the Central Coast, we’re in the price/value area. We need to overdeliver on the value,” Nicholas Miller said. “We have to redevelop when yields fall. If you’re an estate farmer, you can raise your bottle prices. In Napa, they can charge $300, $400 a bottle. It’s hard to get to $100 a bottle on the Central Coast. When you start getting vines that are producing plus or minus one ton an acre, it’s not commercially viable. What we don’t need in the industry right now is people holding onto unproductive and non-commercially viable vineyards. We really saw this as a leadership position we can take.”

The Millers plan to add a second drip line on all new vineyards. It will be their third irrigation system, after the first drip line and the overhead sprinklers that are mainly used for frost control. The reason is the prevalence of viruses like leafroll has led growers to pull out a single underperforming grapevine from a row much more often than a generation ago.

“No one wants this; everyone wants the vines in a vineyard to be on the same schedule,” Marshall said. “But roguing has become an important part of farming. At any given time, 2% to 3% of the vineyard will be new vines that need to be farmed very differently.”

By having a second drip line, the Millers can turn on irrigation (and fertigation) just for new vines.

“In the past, what you would do is run a water truck around and give more water to younger vines,” Marshall said. “But that’s a labor challenge for the next 20 to 30 years.”

And the Millers, in their fifth generation already, are spending a lot of time thinking about the sixth.

A Nose for Pests Trained detector dogs prove their worth in identifying VMB-and leafroll-infested grapevines.

By
Vicky Boyd | Contributing Writer
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Lisa Finke, owner of Canine Detection Services, works a detector dog in a Lodi winegrape vineyard (photo courtesy Lodi Winegrape Commission.)

Specially trained dogs have been used to sniff out bombs, drugs and earthquake survivors, and now they’re proving their worth in finding grape pests.

A proof-of-concept trial led by the Lodi Winegrape Commission found trained dogs could identify vines with vine mealybug (VMB) infestations or grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3) infections with at least 90% accuracy. It was funded by a $428,000 California Department of Pesticide Regulation grant.

Having a cost-effective and non-destructive way to accurately identify infected vines fits nicely into the commission’s areawide integrated pest management and sustainability efforts, said Stephanie Bolton, commission grower research and education director.

Preventing GLRaV-3-infected vines from being planted in a vineyard should be at the forefront, she said. If vines become infected in a vineyard, the sooner they can be identified and removed, the less chance there is of GLRaV-3 spreading to neighboring vines or vineyards. Several growers within the Lodi area have ongoing programs to survey vineyards for GLRaV-3 in the fall when symptoms in red varieties are most prominent, send samples for laboratory confirmation and remove infected vines in the winter. The challenge is with white varieties, which exhibit few if any outward symptoms, making visual disease detection nearly impossible.

GLRaV-3 is only part of the equation. The Lodi effort also includes reducing populations of VMB, which transmit the virus. With input from the industry and researchers, the commission developed an integrated VMB pest management program that includes using clean plant material, surveying and pest detection, judicious use of insecticides, ant control and mating disruption.

An added cause for the concern is recent research suggests GLRaV-3 and one or more grapevine vitiviruses together may contribute to sudden vine collapse. Symptoms start with stunted vine growth, and within a matter of weeks, entire vines die and become dried out. The issue appears to be associated with sensitive rootstocks, including Freedom.

Lisa Finke, owner of Canine Detection Services, has trained dogs to detect various agricultural pests, including grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 and vine mealybug. She prefers medium-sized dog breeds with floppy years because they appear more approachable (photo by L. Finke.)

Early Detection
Bolton said she got the idea for the project after hearing Tim Gottwald, a now-retired USDA-ARS plant pathologist, talk about using dogs to sniff out the causal agent of citrus greening. Also known as huanglongbing or HLB, the bacterial disease has decimated the Florida citrus industry. It is spread by Asian citrus psyllid.

California agricultural pest management leaders hope to slow the spread of HLB and Asian citrus psyllid within the state to prevent an outcome like Florida’s.

In his trials, Gottwald found trained dogs could identify infected trees with more than 99% accuracy. They also could find trees within two weeks of inoculating with Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, which causes HLB. That compared to laboratory PCR testing, which identified only 3% of infections at two months after inoculation. In trials, the dogs had a 100% detection rate for Asian citrus psyllid.

Bolton, who was the principal investigator on the grant, turned to Lisa Finke, owner of Canine Detection Services in Fresno. Finke had already trained dogs and shown the value of using their super-developed olfactory senses to detect bedbugs, Asian citrus psyllid and HLB. She currently is training several dogs to detect ACP and HLB in Ventura County as part of a CDFA survey program.

Lisa Finke, owner of Canine Detection Services, rewards a dog with play time after it positively detected a grapevine pest in a vineyard (photo courtesy Lodi Winegrape Commission.)

Although Finke said most dogs can be trained to detect pests if they have the drive, she prefers mid-sized, floppy-eared breeds, such as Labrador retrievers and springer spaniels, for field work. They’re tall enough to reach branches or cordons without having to stand on their hind legs all the time yet their floppy ears project a welcoming animal.

The Lodi project was the first time Finke had worked with a virus pest, but she used the same training techniques she had with the bacterial disease HLB, citrus psyllid and bedbugs.

“It took me a year because these are tricky target odors,” Finke said about GLRaV-3. With that experience under her belt, she said she could now train a dog to detect the grape virus in one to six months.

As part of the grant, Finke acquired and trained nine dogs. In both indoor and outdoor trials, she and Bolton used potted grapevines on which they attached small pieces of VMB-infested or virus-infected plant material. They also included VMB mating disruption as well as several winegrape varieties to try to intentionally distract the dogs.

Grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3) is one of the targets of the detector dogs. In red varieties, telltale symptoms are most visible in the fall. But in whites and roostocks, visual syptoms are rarely apparent (photo by V. Boyd.)

The proof-of-concept project culminated with field trials in real vineyards. To avoid moving VMB, Bolton had the dogs conduct insect-detection trials in the commission’s demonstration vineyard, which was already infested. The GLRaV-3 field trial was conducted in a vineyard in which every vine had been laboratory tested for the virus. Using plots of 25 vines, they conducted 17 to 18 reps.

Among all three detection set-ups for VMB, the dogs averaged 97.3% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. A high specificity means few false positives.

For GLRaV-3, the dogs averaged 93.4% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity among all three types of tests. That compared to the results from five labs, which averaged 92.9% sensitivity and 91.4% specificity.

“These results kind of blew away the results from the lab,” Bolton said. “The dogs and the handlers only improved with time. The vine mealybug dogs were even better. By the time they got to the end of the trials, they were 100%.”

Detector dogs also were trained to sniff out vine mealybugs, which can spread grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 (GLRaV-3) (photo by S. Bolton.)

Most Bang for the Buck
Where Bolton sees detection dogs providing the most value is in nurseries, based on the concentrated number of vines for which they’re responsible. One mother vine, for example, may provide budwood for propagating 20 or 30 scions.

Although the state Grapevine Registration & Certification Program samples nurseries, it tests less than 1% of vines in registered increase blocks for viruses and only does so once every five years.

“Rootstocks and white grape varieties, whether at the FPS nursery level or the grower commercial vineyard level, can be sneaky sources of virus inoculum,” Bolton said. “There is a lot of false sense of security around the grape certification program. There’s a dire need for something better.”

Currently growers or PCAs walk vineyards in the fall, looking for telltale symptoms of grapevine leafroll-associated virus-3 and marking suspect vines for genetic testing. If they test positive, the vines will be removed during the winter (photo by V. Boyd.)

Bolton was referring to the lack of visual GLRaV-3 symptoms in infected rootstocks or white grape varieties. Infected red grape varieties typically exhibit reddish leaves with green veins in the fall. But that’s not true in all cases.

If detection dogs continue performing as they have, Bolton said they could help significantly reduce the number of infected asymptomatic vines moving from nurseries into vineyards. That would go a long way to addressing GLRaV-3, she said.

Based on an economic analysis of their research project, Bolton said detection dogs could inspect nurseries at a cost of about 1 cent per vine.

Exciting Changes: Grape & Wine Magazine Goes Digital

By
Jason Scott | Publisher/CEO, Grape & Wine, JCS Marketing Inc.
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Dear Valued Reader,
I’m Jason Scott, publisher of Grape & Wine, and I’m reaching out to share some exciting news about the future of our publication. As part of our commitment to sustainability and delivering high-quality content more efficiently, we are transitioning Grape & Wine to an entirely digital format.

This change allows us to align with environmentally conscious practices while continuing to provide you with the in-depth articles, industry updates and insights you’ve come to expect. By going digital, we can also reach you faster, expand the types of content we offer and ensure that Grape & Wine remains the trusted source for grape and wine professionals.

What You Need to Know
• Print Copies Discontinued: Beginning February 1, Grape & Wine will no longer produce print editions.

• High-Level Content, Now Online: All our articles, news and resources will be available in an easy-to-access digital format, ensuring you don’t miss a beat.

• Free Subscription: To continue receiving our content for free, simply subscribe online at myaglife.com/subscribe.

By subscribing, you’ll gain access to:
• Industry-leading articles and research

• Exclusive digital resources and updates delivered straight to your inbox

• Enhanced multimedia content, such as videos and podcasts

We value your continued support and look forward to providing you with even more dynamic, engaging content in this new format. Subscribe today to stay connected and ensure you don’t miss out on the latest trends and insights in the grape and wine industry.

Thank you for being part of the Grape & Wine community. Together, we’re taking a step toward a more sustainable future for our industry.

Warm regards,
Jason Scott, Publisher, Grape & Wine

Grapevine Red Blotch Virus Requires a Different Approach Than Other Maladies

By
Pam Strayer | Contributing Writer
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Grapevine Red Blotch Virus Requires a Different Approach Than Other Maladies

“Red blotch is not only novel,” said Cornell researcher Mark Fuchs, speaking at the Napa Grape Growers’ Rootstock conference on November 19. “Red blotch does not behave like anything else we are familiar with.

“Forget about making analogies with Pierce’s disease. Forget about making analogies with leaf roll. We have to empty our hard drive and start rewiring everything, the way we see everything, the way we think about red blotch. So, it requires a whole village to start thinking outside the box.”

Over the last 15 years, grapevine red blotch virus (GRBV) has impacted countless winegrape vines, spreading in mysterious ways with no known cure other than vine removal, which has an enormous impact on profitability. Experts recommend replanting a vineyard when GRBV has infected 30% of the vines. Typically, vintners remove individual infected vines, a challenge as the disease can take three years for vines to show symptoms.

A native of Alsace, Fuchs is professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section at Cornell AgriTech​.

In 2012, Fuchs began studying GRBV in Rutherford on a Cabernet Franc vineyard when, he said, he naively made the mistake of thinking the virus was moving in from the riparian areas. But subsequent DNA analysis did not fit that hypothesis. He studied the vineyard for 10 consecutive years, seeing the disease spread year after year.

Over time, he realized there were two distinct epidemics going on in the same vineyard. The clue was the disease spread differently in different parts of the vineyard. There was random distribution (what he called “salt and pepper” type of distribution) in a portion of the vineyard, resulting in a 1% annual increase. In another part of the vineyard, the disease spread quickly and increased 6% per year.

“There are two factors that influence the rate of spread: the level of disease, or the prevalence in any particular block, and the population density of the three-cornered alfalfa hopper (TCAH). These two factors are key to explaining fast spread or slower spread, or very little spread or almost no spread,” Fuchs said. “Because how many times have we seen a fully infected block adjacent to a less infected block and there is barely any spread here? And sometimes it spreads almost like wildfire?”

Untangling the way GRBV spreads is even more complicated because weather events affect the rate of spread, he said.

“This is something very unique to red blotch,” he said. “I’m not aware of any equivalent, whether there is a statistically supported correlation between weather events and disease increase three to four years later. Let that sink in for a second. What I’m trying to say is what we see visually today is the result of an event that happened three or four years prior.”

Weather “doesn’t affect the virus, it doesn’t affect the vine. It affects the three-cornered alfalfa hopper.” Fuchs said TCAH eat mostly from sources outside the vineyard. But in dryer years, they find less to eat beyond the vineyard and gravitate to the vineyards, which are green and irrigated, to find food. Hence, in wetter years, the insect spends more time in the vineyard, but the resulting infection is not seen until three years later.

Fuchs and collaborators came to this conclusion after studying the guts of the hoppers and found TCAH eat more than 150 species. “It eats almost everything, but the plants we found, mostly in their gut, are not grown in vineyard settings. They are in the surroundings. They are in natural habitats. They are in ditches, in dirt roads, in riparian areas, in woodlands and the kind of things rarely grown in vineyards, rarely part of cover crop mixes.

“They don’t spend as much time in vineyards when it’s wet. They don’t need to. They have the preferred food outside vineyard settings,” he added.

5 acres of Cabernet franc with grapevine red blotch virus exposure in 2014 through 2023. 2014 (top) showed 4% disease prevalence and increased to 36.3% in 2023 (bottom).

Managing Red Blotch: Zonal Roguing

The takeaway from all this research? Fuchs recommended tailoring management to each block and keeping the hoppers out when it rains.

When removing infected vines, Fuchs advocated a specific type of vine removal, zonal roguing, which calls for removing adjacent vines that have not yet shown GRBV symptoms.

“Zonal roguing is a new concept whereby you eliminate diseased vines and some of the neighboring vines whether they are infected or not, or whether they are diseased or not,” he said. Growers can choose from two patterns, he said.

In closing remarks, UCCE Viticulture Farm Advisor Monica Cooper in Napa County said her team was learning more and more about TCAH habitat. “We’re more likely to catch TCAH when our study site is surrounded by grasslands or oak woodlands, and less likely when it’s surrounded by vineyards or riparian woodlands.”

She reiterated zonal roguing is the best way forward.

“We cannot get ahead of GRBV by just pulling out the symptomatic vines every year,” she said. “The issue that we’ve been having is our vine-by-vine roguing efforts have not reduced spread in aggregated areas, so we keep removing all those symptomatic vines and instead of the epidemic going downhill, it still continues to climb.”

She said the best practice is zonal roguing, which removes vines adjacent to infected ones. Though the adjacent vines are asymptomatic, they are likely to show signs of infection in future years, she said.

FIRA Ag Tech Robotics Show Offers Solutions for Vineyards, Wineries

By
Pam Strayer | Contributing Writer
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Organizers of a new ag tech incubator, Reservoir Farm, announced the launch of their two coming facilities in Salinas and Merced in 2025, which will offer spaces for startups to conduct research and development to create new ag tech products that meet growers’ needs. From left to right: Richard Chapman, Hartnell College; Cody Jacobsen, Merced College; Gabe Youtsey, The Vine (UC Davis); Walt Duflock, Western Growers Association; and Danny Bernstein, HawkTower.

The third-annual FIRA USA expo held October 22 to 24 at the Yolo County Fairgrounds set record levels of attendance for the event, with more than 2,000 attending the three-day conference. Admission for growers was free, leading to a grower turnout of 500.

Held in Woodland, the event brought tech innovators, venture capitalists, UC staff, ag tech connectors, state officials and growers together to network and learn about automation solutions for specialty crops, including winegrapes.

CDFA Secretary Karen Ross kicked things off, praising the development of the ag tech sector as a welcome addition supporting the state’s agriculture industry, ensuring food security, promoting climate resilience and creating high-paying jobs.

The event featured 85 exhibitors and 20 demos. Attendees came from more than 30 states and 40 countries. According to the list of registrants, vineyard company attendees included a dozen employees from Lodi-based Vino Farms as well as staff from Napa-based wineries Caymus and Domaine Chandon, along with other wine industry participants.

The exhibition areas were wildly diverse, a true melting pot with Indian entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley hawking their vineyard Wi-Fi technology, a San Joaquin Valley-based sales team showing off its autonomous LIDAR enabled sprayers, a Sonoma vintner turned ag tech software maker demonstrating a fleet, and a first-time exhibitor from China with a vineyard robot.

“Labor challenges and climate change are particularly impacting specialty crop production,” said Walt Duflock, senior vice president of innovation for Western Growers Association (WGA), one of the main sponsors of the event. “We are convinced robots are the new era of climate-smart machinery.”

The FIRA USA event is a three-way partnership with GO FAR (a French nonprofit that runs the global FIRA ag tech robotics show in Toulouse), UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (and its innovation group The Vine), and WGA (which has 2,200 farmer members).

WGA recently published a landmark case study showing Braga Fresh “ran two [Carbon Robotics] LaserWeeders to cover 4,700 acres… including spinach and arugula… resulting in annual savings of $822,500, a 39% reduction in weeding costs.”

As a result, startups, venture capitalists and investors and growers are taking note and bringing more products to market.

New Ag Tech Robotics Incubator Announced

On October 23 at the show, organizers of a new ag tech incubator, Reservoir Farm, announced the launch of their two coming facilities in Salinas and Merced in 2025, which will offer spaces for startups to conduct research and development to create new ag tech products that meet growers’ needs. The goal is to help startups go further faster with access to Reservoir Farm’s testbed plots and offices to speed up commercialization of innovative products.

The centers are not focused on specific crops and welcome startups to become members no matter what crop they work with.

New products like the Amos Power autonomous tractor were featured as innovative ag tech solutions to winegrape growers and producers at the 2024 FIRA USA expo.

Vineyard Automation Products Demos

More than 20 vineyard equipment manufacturers brought their products to the event, including Agtonomy (software enabling partners’ tractors), Amos Power (autonomous tractors), Burro, Farm-ng, Guss and MQ Autonomous Agtech (both sprayers), Map and Zap (laser weeders), Naio (autonomous vineyard machines used in France) and Skysense (drones).

Popular in France, Naio just recently received FCC approval for its equipment to operate in California. It offers both a wheel-based solution and a crawler (gentler in terms of soil compaction).

To see a list of vineyard products from FIRA USA exhibitors, click here.

In a show of force in an afternoon demo, Agtonomy deployed three Doosan Bobcat tractors moving simultaneously and autonomously through parallel vineyard rows. Founded by Geyserville grower and vintner Tim Bucher of Trattore Farms, Agtonomy’s approach is to develop state of the art software to control tractors growers already use. The company’s units are currently in use in trials with E. & J. Gallo, Silver Oak, Treasury Wine Estates and others.

Vineyard Automation Panel

A Thursday panel titled “Addressing Automation Needs in the Vine Industry” featured growers demonstrating a variety of vineyard sizes. Panelists included Agustin Santi, vineyard operations project manager at sparkling wine producer Domaine Chandon in Napa, owned by LVMH, a French luxury company. The winery farms 1,000 acres of vineyards in Napa. It recently stopped using synthetic herbicide and received a (non-organic) regenerative certification. It relies on automated irrigation systems.

Jamie Reamer of Reamer Farms in Clarksburg farms 1,200 acres of vines. She spoke about the challenges of holding vendors accountable when equipment does not work, and it is unclear which vendor in the system is responsible for fixing things.

Eric Pooler, vice president of viticulture and winery relations at Silverado and Nuveen Natural Capital, oversees winegrape growing on more than 15,000 acres in California and was enthusiastic about some of the products he saw at the show.

Swales and Ducks Mitigate Climate Change, Saving Water and Energy and Building the Soil Sponge

By
Pam Strayer | Contributing Writer
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The ducks also forage many insects in the vineyard, improving nutrition and quality of life.

With its 7,000 acres of winegrapes valued at $100 million, hot, dry Yolo County is just one of the wine growing regions in California facing the challenges of climate change: heat and declining water supplies.

In Capay Valley, one small, family owned vineyard, Vitis & Ovis Farm, is taking on these challenges armed with the formidable knowledge of its internationally acclaimed agroecologically minded owners. Two generations of the Herren family, who hail from Switzerland, Ethiopia and the U.S., run the farm with the aid of 140 ducks.

While using ducks for weed control and fertilization is popular in South Africa vineyards, it is rare in the U.S.

The Herren’s hosted an event for growers and ranchers September 19 called “Adaptations to Climate Extremes” sponsored by the Community Alliance with Family Farms.

“The focus of the meeting was on how to manage under climate change, particularly water issues,” said farm co-owner Barbara Gemmell-Herren, who holds a Ph.D. from UC Davis and works internationally as an agroecology expert.

During the tour, the hosts showed the swales they constructed on their hillsides to manage water and replenish their well. Slowing runoff is key.

The Herren family’s ducks control weeds and help the farm avoid tractor passes and soil compaction. At the same time, the ducks fertilize the Rhone vines on the family’s vineyard (all photos by P. Strayer.)

“We try to capture all the rainwater that may fall on our land so it doesn’t run off. It goes into the soil and… into the aquifer and recharges our well,” said Gemmell-Herren. “The idea is to make a landscape that really absorbs the water that falls so it’s more absorbent. You build what is called the soil sponge, rather than having hard soil that’s being compacted by tractors running over it or by livestock. We’re trying to minimize compaction as much as possible.”

That’s where their 140 ducks come in. They do what tractors otherwise do: Control weeds in the vine rows as well as under the vines. They also help manage the cover crop (by eating it) and fertilize the soil in both the vineyards and the fruit trees.

What do the ducks eat? “They are free range most of the time which will give them, usually, a lot of protein. They go out and forage a lot of insects as well as and it really adds nutritional quality and to the ducks’ happiness,” said Gemmell-Herren. “You just get better productivity, but you cannot solely depend on free range.” Regular feed supplements their diet.

The farm’s water conservation efforts help the ducks. “When it does rain, and the swales capture water, the ducks go down into those puddles,” she added.

Gisele, the Herren’s daughter who runs the day-to-day operations, tried having geese to protect the ducks, but they proved too aggressive and unpleasant. When hawks repeatedly ate ducks, she switched to larger varieties of ducks. Problem solved.

In addition to their role as vineyard workers, the ducks lay a lot of delicious duck eggs, which Gisele said are very popular at the farmers market for their flavor, richness and size.

Gemmell-Herren said their water conservation has brought positive results. “We feel like we’ve been really successful with that. Even during the drought, the levels in our well went up,” she said.

The farm welcomes visitors to see the property and their farming approach.

How the U.S. Government Subsidizes Imports to Benefit Big Wineries

By
Stuart Spencer | Executive Director, Lodi Winegrape Commission
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An unpicked Lodi AVA vineyard prepares to be torn out in Acampo, Calif. (photo by Stephanie Bolton, Lodi Winegrape Commission.)

In the first four months of this year, the federal government refunded over $21 million in alcohol taxes and duties to subsidize imported wine. It is likely most of those dollars went to a few of California’s largest wineries. In the first five months of this year, over 20 million gallons of imported bulk wine poured into California. In the past five years, 1.3 billion bottles of wine have been imported in bulk. This excess wine has flooded the market and driven down demand for California-grown wines and grapes. Today, many California wineries have tanks full of wine they cannot sell in bottle or bulk. Some growers have been farming all season without a home for their grapes. Vineyards are being torn out across California and many ag workers are losing their jobs. U.S. trade policy, specifically wine duty drawback, has helped create this mess by subsidizing imports for the benefit of a few global alcohol companies.

U.S. Trade Policy Changed
In 2003, the United States changed trade regulations, allowing for a refund of duties and excise (alcohol) taxes paid on imported wine if the winery exported “interchangeable” domestically produced wine, which refers to still wine of the same color with less than 14% alcohol by volume, having a price difference less than 50% between the imported wine and the exported wine. (Exports to countries the United States has a free trade agreement with (e.g., Canada, Mexico) do not qualify as matching exports for duty drawback. The data suggest there has been significant diversion of bulk exports from Canada to Europe to qualify for the subsidy.) Simply put, if a winery imports a million gallons of Australian Chardonnay and exports a million gallons of California white wine, they can claim a drawback or a refund of up to 99% of the duties and excise (alcohol) taxes paid on the imported Chardonnay. This imported bulk wine ends up on American store shelves virtually tax free and gives the selling wineries a competitive advantage over the thousands of other wineries trying to sell in domestic markets.

Subsidizing Imports

Table 1 illustrates how duty drawback subsidizes imports at taxpayer expense. Winery A produces one million gallons of California Chardonnay and sells half of it in export markets and half in the United States. Winery B produces 500,000 gallons of California Chardonnay and imports 500,000 gallons of Australian Chardonnay. Winery B also sells half the wine in export markets and half in the United States. Although both wineries sell the same amount of wine, Winery B receives a $528,650 tax benefit for importing Australian Chardonnay. Duty drawback gives it a competitive advantage over all U.S. wineries that do not import.

Additionally, Winery B has five years to find matching exports to claim the tax refund. So, if Australia, Chile, Spain, Italy, or any wine producing country has excess supply and begins dumping wine, Winery B can import large volumes of bulk wine instead of buying California grapes. They then have five years to match those imports with interchangeable exports, essentially driving down demand for domestically grown grapes. Any emerging shortages for California-grown grapes are quickly tamped down by sourcing overseas bulk wine. This business practice is legal and is being subsidized by the U.S. federal government.

Federal Policy Drives Down Demand and Price for California Grapes

Figure 1 illustrates total bulk wine imports to the United States and the average price of grapes in Crush District 11 (Lodi) from 1996 to 2023. The shaded blue area represents bulk wine imports and the orange line represents the average price of grapes. The change of U.S. trade policy in 2003 led to an explosion of bulk wine imports from virtually zero in 2003 to 95 million gallons in 2012. That’s the equivalent of 558,000 tons of California grapes that were not purchased while millions of dollars were shipped overseas and not invested in local communities.

Also note the spikes in bulk wine imports coincide with a rise in grape prices. As demand starts to grow for California grapes and prices start to rise, many of California’s largest wineries expand bulk imports, driving grape prices down. The pattern is identical across Crush District’s 12, 13, 14 and 17. The grape prices in the graph are nominal and don’t account for inflation.

Table 2 adjusts the 2023 grapes prices to 2014 levels utilizing the consumer price index. The loss of economic activity for California grape growers and their local communities is staggering, and all this is happening with the assistance of U.S. trade policy that is subsidizing imports.

Duty Drawback’s Lack of Transparency

Table 3 shows the annual wine duty drawback dollars paid to importers of foreign wine from 2018 to 2024 as reported by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). To claim the drawback, the importer must export interchangeable domestically grown wine within five years of importing. Additionally, CBP reported in their 2018 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “In fiscal year 2015, CBP paid $54.9 million in excise tax collection from wine imports of $335 million.” That represents 16.4% of all excise (alcohol) taxes collected on imported wine that fiscal year.

This data was not easy to access, and the lack of transparency on this government subsidy does not instill confidence the program has broad benefits. I’ve also been told CBP cannot provide data any further back than 2018 when CBP changed systems.

Multi-Million Dollar Subsidy for California’s
Largest Wineries
To understand which wineries are potentially benefiting from substitution duty drawback, we must look at detailed import and export shipments by California wineries.

Table 4 summarizes annual bulk wine imports and exports by California’s largest wineries from 2016 to 2022. The table also shows the potential subsidy or duty drawback that can be claimed. Any claim on imports must be matched by interchangeable exports. Currently, California’s largest wineries represent 95% of bulk exports and 79% of bulk imports. More current data is unavailable.

The $174 million in potential duty drawback subsidies aligns closely with the $204 million in actual duty drawback paid out over the past 6.5 years. The data also suggest it is highly probable that most of the duty drawback payouts are going to a handful of California’s largest wineries. And over half the total could likely be going to one winery.

Bulk Wine Imports Supercharged by Federal Subsidies
The low value of bulk wine imports creates a significant duty drawback subsidy for global wine companies.

Table 5 presents a snapshot of international bulk wine prices as reported by Ciatti in their most recent Global Market Report. The $1.0593/gallon subsidy on bulk imports represents a significant percentage of the value of the wine. The lower the cost of the wine, the more substantial the subsidy. For example, the potential duty drawback claims on imported bulk Australian Cabernet Sauvignon represents up to 54% of its value. Comparatively, the average price per gallon of bottled French wine imported in 2023 was $44.24/gallon. The duty drawback subsidy on the bottled French wine would only represent 2.4% of its imported value. The current duty drawback scheme provides a significant stimulus to bulk wine imports.

Proponents of Duty Drawback Suggest It Stimulates Exports
Proponents of substitution duty drawback claim that it helps California exports. The reality is it only benefits those wineries that are also importing interchangeable wine. The data show it is likely only benefiting a handful of global wine companies. Additionally, the downstream damage to the domestic grape and bulk wine market far outweighs the benefits. Millions of gallons of bulk wine are still pouring in from overseas while California bulk wine goes unsold, grapes go unharvested and rural communities struggle.

CBP, the federal agency that manages duty drawback claims, has observed “economic effects of the practice do not support the view that it is an effective or efficient export promotion measure.” The agency continues, “Imported wine that benefits from double drawback enters the U.S. market with a substantial tax advantage over domestically produced wine.”

In 2018, CBP analyzed wine trade data from 2004 to 2016 to delineate the effects of this double duty drawback. They concluded, “In 2004, imported bulk wine accounted for 0.9% of domestic consumption. By 2016, imported bulk wine accounted for 6.2% of domestic consumption. By volume, imports of bulk wine grew 875% over that time period… the total volume of wine exports only grew by 5.5% over that period.”

Additionally, as the total wine market continued to grow over the past decade, the total California winegrape crush and winegrape purchases from independent growers shrunk.

Table 6 details the total California grape crush for the past 10 years. The “Purchased CA Grape Crush” columns on the right reflect tons purchased from independent grape growers and eliminates winery-owned acreage. The “5 Year Average” columns reflect a five-year rolling average of grapes crushed and grapes purchased for wine production. Subtracting 2023 purchase levels from 2014, California wineries have decreased grape purchases by over 500,000 tons annually over the past 10 years. This outsourcing of winegrapes is being aided by substitution double duty drawback.

Other Domestic Wineries Squeezed Out of Export Markets

The data also suggest the duty drawback program is crowding out opportunities for non-importing wineries in export markets. In Table 7, “Other” California wineries’ share of the bulk export markets has dropped from 20% to 5% over the past 15 years. It’s highly probable a bulk importing winery would cut their price to make a bulk export deal work and thus be able to claim duty drawback on excise (alcohol) taxes paid on past imports. This practice squeezes out other wineries and is likely driving down price and value for everyone, including the growers that are told by their largest buyers they can’t pay more for the grower’s grapes because they can’t raise the price of the wine. Only the largest businesses benefit from such a race to the bottom.

Congress Needs to Act
CBP has recognized the double duty drawback loophole and has urged Congress to correct it. On Oct. 15, 2009, CBP and the Tax and Trade Bureau proposed related rulemaking to eliminate the double duty drawback. After public comment, including a statement from 18 legislators, the proposed amendments were withdrawn on March 10, 2010.

On Aug. 2, 2018, CBP proposed rules to implement changes to the drawback regulations as directed by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. On Dec. 18, 2018, after public comment, the proposed regulations with amendments were adopted, prohibiting double duty drawback.

However, in 2019, the National Association of Manufacturers and The Beer Institute filed lawsuits against the updated regulations in the U.S. Court of International Trade. The court ruled in their favor, invalidating the regulations that would have ended double duty drawback. “The court notes that defendants made seemingly valid policy arguments for why the ‘zeroed excise tax’ scheme should not be permitted. But statutes cannot be constructively amended through agency action; such power lies with Congress.” That ruling was upheld (Federal Circuit Strikes Down Treasury Regulations Limiting Drawback Refunds on Beer and Wine Exports | International Trade Insights) in the U.S. Federal Circuit Court on Aug. 23, 2021.

Not only did that ruling allow double duty drawback to continue for wine importers/exporters, but it opened the door for beer, wine, spirits and tobacco producers to import interchangeable foreign products virtually tax-free, putting domestic production at a competitive disadvantage and potentially costing taxpayers billions of dollars annually.

The Dirty Secret Must End
Wine substitution duty drawback is an anti-local, anti-domestic government trade policy that, for the past 20 years, has stimulated significant damage to the health of the California winegrape market. This destructive policy subsidizes California’s largest wineries to replace California-grown grapes with imported cheap bulk wine. This is not just a Central Valley problem; the excess wine drags the whole industry down, exacerbating all of California’s current inventory and supply challenges.

Additionally, this allows wineries to circumvent California’s environmental and social regulations by importing wine from countries without similar stringent standards. And runs counter to California and the U.S. carbon reduction goals by shipping tens of thousands of containers across the world instead of purchasing local grapes. In no world does it make sense for the U.S. federal government to subsidize imported bulk wine while California grapes go unharvested, wineries go out of business and ag workers lose their jobs. It’s time for this to end.

This article was originally published on the Lodi Winegrape Commission blog.

References

Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 242, December 18, 2018, page 37898. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-12-18/pdf/2018-26793.pdf

Starting in 2023, the state of California passed legislation allowing wineries to opt out of making their winegrower returns public information.

Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 149, August 2, 2018, Proposed Rules, pages 37894-370901. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-08-02/pdf/2018-16279.pdf

United States Court of International Trade, January 24, 2020, pages 19-20. https://www.cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/files/20-09.pdf

Federal Register, Vol. 83, No. 242, December 18, 2018. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-12-18/pdf/2018-26793.pdf

United States Court of International Trade, January 24, 2020, page 21. https://www.cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/files/20-09.pdf

The Sweet Spots: Survey Reveals What Wine Club Members Really Want (and Why 19% Leave)

By
Pam Strayer | Contributing Writer
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Unsurprisingly, wine club members’ top four wine club favorites were related to pricing and selection (all photos courtesy Wine Market Council.)

Wine clubs are the beating heart for many small- to medium-sized wineries since they account for 86% of direct sales for the average U.S. winery, according to industry data. Due to their vital importance, the Wine Market Council commissioned a study this past spring to see just what motivates the average wine club member and came up with some compelling data and insights wine marketers can leverage.

Wine Market Council Research Director Christian Miller estimated that the group’s survey of 9,108 wine club members drew from 24 to 30 individual wineries. It included at least three respondents from every state.

Top Picks: Price and Selection
Unsurprisingly, wine club members’ top four wine club favorites were related to pricing and selection. Specifically, they cited discounted prices on wines and shipping as well as flexibility in choosing their club wines and access to special small lot wines or library selections as key features.

Paradoxically, 57% said club events at the winery were a draw, even though only 32% attended club events. Respondents were more motivated by other socializing features, like the ability to bring friends along to events or having access to club-only rooms or tastings.

While 88% joined when they were visiting the winery or after a visit, remarkably, 5% joined without having visited and 2% joined after a wine dinner or tasting in their region.

Wine Club Members Are Not the Average Wine Drinker
Wine club members stand out from the average wine drinker for their wealth. Said Wine Market Council President Liz Thach, who moderated the online webinar, “46% make over $200,000 per year. When you compare that to the average annual income in the United States, $59,000, that’s pretty high.”

An income of $200,000 puts those individuals in the top 12% of U.S. household incomes.

The average wine club member is 59 years old. Though the majority are still working full time (54%), 40% are retired.

Though California had the highest number of club members (36% of the sample), the next four states (New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois) accounted for 17% of club members in the survey. The rest (47%) were from other states, meaning club members are widely dispersed.

Wine club members are also frequent flyers; 72% are members of more than one club.

“These are people who love wine,”
said Thach.

Reasons for leaving a wine club were varied, with 32% saying the expense was too high, while 27% said they switched to another club they liked better.

The Downside
But it’s not always long-lasting love, the data showed. According to the Silicon Valley Bank DTC survey in 2024, wine club churn rates are up; 19% of members leave. A Wine Business Monthly Tasting room survey found visitation and wine club recruitment declined by 4% in 2023, a cause for concern.

Reasons for leaving a wine club were varied, with 32% saying the expense was too high, while 27% said they switched to another club they liked better.

Tasting Room Visits
Most respondents visit a winery more than once a year, the survey found.

What drives repeat visits? Variety and tasting. 55% of respondents liked to be able to choose from a variety of experiences at the winery, the survey found. 48% liked being able to taste older or rare vintages. Wine and food pairings were also popular, with 42% rating that important, as were personal or private tastings (42%).

22% were interested in owner tours. Another  20% were interested in vineyard tours.

Most respondents visit a winery more than once a year.

What Tasting Room Visitors Are Looking For
The survey also asked respondents which attributes were most important when visiting a winery. Hospitality was by far the top-rated feature.

Some Hispanic and Asian American respondents were more apt to be looking for kid- and pet-friendly wineries, while 44% of black wine club members said a beautiful winery or tasting room was important. 35% of black wine club members wanted a casual wine lounge for hanging out.

Activities like bocce ball, art exhibits and hikes were not highly rated overall, with just 9% citing that as important.

A Positive Demographic Shift in Progress
When it comes to planning to visit a winery, black wine club members outnumbered all other ethnic groups, with 55% saying they intended to visit winery tasting rooms.

Only 15% of boomers said they intended to visit a winery, compared to 31% of Gen X (age 43 to 58) and 36% of millennials (age 27 to 42).

Said Miller, “If you look at those who intend to visit, you are looking at an upcoming wave of quite a different demographic group, much younger, much more diverse… So we could be facing a pretty fast demographic shift here in terms of visitation if these people do what they say they’re going to do.”

Some Hispanic and Asian American respondents were more apt to be looking for kid- and pet-friendly wineries, while 44% of black wine club members said a beautiful winery or tasting room was important.

Wine Club Members as Social Media Ambassadors
Researchers said they hoped the data would help marketers to be more effective in attracting and retaining wine club members.

Thach said, “Happily, 78% [of wine club members] purchase more wine from your winery website [in addition to the club shipments]. That’s what you want.”

But that’s not all they do, she said; they add value to your brand.

“Even better, in my opinion, 78% have posted a photo image or comment on social media. 77% recommend your wine to a friend.”

“They’re loving your wine and they’re out there talking about it. I hope you are tracking that. I hope you know what’s happening with your social media and people talking about you online,” she said.

Sustainable Story Series Led by the Land: Nurturing Native Plants and Wildlife in the Vineyard

By
Whitney Brownie | Vineyard Team
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Halfway between two lively California counties, Los Angeles to the south and San Francisco to the north, lies one with a far more relaxed pace: San Luis Obispo County. The area boasts an agreeable climate, stunning topography and myriads of natural attractions.

These natural features are more than meets the eye. They are the foundation for the county’s successful economy in agriculture. The region relies heavily upon the land and its abundance of livestock, nursery products, fruit and nut trees, and vegetable crops.

But the farms in this area are not closed systems. Growers use practices that extend beyond their cultivated lands and into the larger ecosystems that encapsulate them.

The soil in which agriculturalists plant their crops; ground water and neighboring water bodies; and native wildlife, plants and insects are all factors that not only influence the farm but are impacted by decisions made on the farm.

Responsible land stewards consider the big picture when making management decisions. When managed sustainably, the native biological activity of an agricultural site contributes to a healthier agricultural system.

To share their appreciation for their habitat, Margarita Ranch welcomes visitors to the ranch to explore and learn more about their natural wonders. Margarita Adventures offers various educational tours with their dedicated naturalist, Jaquelin Redinger (all photos courtesy Margarita Ranch.)

The sustainably farmed winegrape vineyards of San Luis Obispo County are teeming with examples of stewards putting conservation practices to work. One such vineyard is located at the southern border of the Santa Margarita Ranch AVA.

Since the region is known for wine, it may be surprising to learn there is only one vineyard in the Santa Margarita Ranch sub-appellation: Ancient Peaks Winery’s estate Margarita Vineyard.

While Franciscan missionaries planted the first grapes on the ranch in the late 1700s, Robert Mondavi planted the present-day Margarita Vineyard in 1999. Today, the vineyard’s management company alongside Founding Winemaker Mike Sinor continue to work with the land and have achieved a 15-year history of SIP Certified® sustainable certification for environmentally and socially responsible practices.

Rooted for Good
California’s native habitats are significant but often overlooked carbon sinks (Center for Biological Diversity 2023). But carbon sequestration is just one of the many positive impacts native plant life has for a farm.

Soil erosion and fertility issues have long plagued agriculturalists across the world. Beyond being a complication for farm operations, poor soil health wreaks havoc on water quality. Cultivated soils are often treated with supplemental nutrients, but when soil structure is lacking, these lands are prone to erosion. The water runoff that ensues contains soil particles, bacteria and excess nutrients that pose a threat to water quality (NRCD 2019).

Margarita Vineyard uses plants to remedy these issues. In the beginning, the team experimented with planting cover crops, but now they prefer to let native grasses flourish between the rows of vines. These grasses thrive in the ranch’s conditions, and their strong roots hold soil in place and prevent it from washing away. The native cover crops also create a diversity of beneficial soil microbes and nutrients beneath the surface to further improve soil structure and quality. Altogether, the vineyard’s structured, fertile soils stall water’s flow and act as a filter that prevents sediment and excess nutrients from leaching into groundwater.

“There’s one spot near the vineyard we call Turtle Pond,” said Sinor, who has been instrumental in building the winery’s success and continuing Mondavi’s meticulous sustainable vineyard practices. “There are definitely a lot of turtles there, and frogs, too. Around Block 32, you can see the pond and watch the turtles hanging out.”

When Mondavi planted Margarita Vineyard, he wanted to take extra precautions to protect the property’s waterbodies. He took the California Conservation Corps’ prescribed riparian setback distance and doubled it.

Much like the native grasses between their vines, the plant communities that exist in these riparian areas intercept water as it runs away from the vineyard and prevent sediment and excess nutrients from entering the waterbodies. The extra distance gives the water more time to be filtered by roots as it moves underground, further ensuring waters are protected.

Cattle and eagles make up a fraction of the diverse ecosystem at Margarita Vineyard.

Roaming the Ranch
Living in tandem with the critters in Margarita Ranch’s Turtle Pond are 41 mammal and 16 reptile species. Black bears, deer, wild boar, turkeys and bobcats are just a few of the wild animals that roam the rugged land. Even though Margarita Vineyard is only a small fraction of the ranch, these wild animals still call the cultivated land home and need to travel through and around it.

To ensure the ranch’s inhabitants can access resources throughout the property, Mondavi fenced Margarita Vineyard in separate sections. To further assist their furry friends with easy passage, Sinor explained, “The fences are ‘leaky fences.’ They aren’t very tall and have clear space down below to allow animals to migrate and get past them pretty easily.”

Non-permeable fences block access to resources and pose a serious injury risk for animals that attempt to get through, over or below them. The leaky fences and strategic sectioning at Margarita Vineyard allow the ranch’s wildlife to move safely through the property while keeping the grapes protected from heavy animal traffic.

Nature’s Helpers
While Margarita Vineyard’s team takes great pride in protecting wildlife on the property, they must control certain wild animals to maintain the vineyard’s health.

Vertebrate pests like ground squirrels can severely injure or outright kill grapevines. To protect their vines, Margarita Vineyard’s team decided to make the area less hospitable to these pests by attracting natural predators. 80 owl boxes and 16 raptor perches encourage these birds of prey to hang out and scout the area for their next meal.

But birds aren’t the only predatory animals that help control pests at Margarita Vineyard. Wild cats (not just the ranch’s big cats like mountain lions and bobcats, but wild domestic cats) also share in the rodent patrol.

“The cats on the property really help to cut down the rodent and squirrel populations,” Sinor said. This may at first seem problematic since feral cats are extremely territorial, but this works out at the ranch because it’s spacious and the cats have plenty of room to spread out. Plus, there are many barns on the property to provide shelter and act as a home base for the colonies.

“Each of our barns has its own population,” he said.

To protect their vines, Margarita Vineyard’s team decided to make the area less hospitable to rodent pests by attracting natural predators. 80 owl boxes and 16 raptor perches encourage these birds of prey to hang out and scout the area for their next meal.

Experience the Splendor
To share their appreciation for their habitat, Margarita Ranch welcomes visitors to the ranch to explore and learn more about their natural wonders. Margarita Adventures offers various educational tours with their dedicated naturalist, Jaquelin Redinger.

Redinger guides eager tourists through the ranch to explore the ecosystems, plants and wildlife; scout for majestic eagles; forage for native plants; and even create personal photography collections. Scenic eBike tours invite guests to learn about the ranch’s history as part of California’s iconic Mission Trail and dig deeper into the native wildlife and sustainable winegrowing practices that help protect the ranch’s habitat.

Redinger shares her skills and knowledge about the nature around the ranch with the whole Margarita Vineyard and Ancient Peaks Winery team. “She has shown us how our eagle population has increased in the past few years and how to make salads and herbal tea from plants foraged from the ranch,” Sinor said.

Environmental stewardship is what most people think about when they hear the word ‘sustainability.’ Social responsibility is an equally significant component, and San Luis Obispo County’s sustainable winegrowers have big ways of showing their care. In the next Sustainable Story, learn how a boutique winery in Paso Robles uses their success to support people and animals in need.

Winery Feature: Domaine Helena. Can Small Winegrape Growers Survive in 2025?

By
W. Blake Gray | Contributing Writer
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Domaine Helena is a 215-acre vineyard and winery in Lake County near the Napa County border.

Andre Gueziec presents a good example of why you should never depend on one large client for your wine grapes.

Gueziec, 57, is fairly new to the wine business. He’s from Alsace, France. and grew up around wine, but he was a software engineer. He developed traffic-monitoring software and sold it to the Weather Network. That gave him the money to buy, in 2020, Domaine Helena, a 215-acre vineyard and winery in Lake County near the Napa County border.

The Valley Fire had ripped through the property in 2015 but left the 82 acres of vineyards undamaged, though it burned trees that were in the middle of vineyards. The property just east of Cobb Mountain and just north of Mt. Saint Helena, hence the name, is at 1100 feet of elevation, keeping high temperatures moderate in mid-summer. Gueziec says the soil, at the foot of the two mountains, is volcanic. The oldest vines are nearly 12 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon planted on St. George rootstock in 1992.

“We get a cool afternoon breeze off [Cobb] Mountain,” Gueziec said. “It’s very clean air. There are no mildew spores from the mountain because there aren’t any vineyards there.”

Gueziec immediately took his vineyards organic, and in July his vineyard became certified organic. He said he was most concerned about his own health after reading about the connection between glyphosate and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. A 2019 study led by two researchers at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health reported a 41% increase in the risk of this type of cancer for people with high cumulative exposure to glyphosate.

“I spend a lot of time in the vineyard,” Gueziec said. “These people who are at the tradeshows asking, ‘Should I be sustainable?’ If they were the ones doing the suckering themselves, they’d be organic.”

Going organic takes a lot of work, and not all of it in the vineyard. Vegetation on the unplanted hilly parts of the property, which had been seared by the Valley Fire, grew back with such exuberance that he couldn’t use the road anymore and had to painstakingly clear it.

“Part of the problem when you go organic is a lot of life comes back, and some of it you have to fight,” Gueziec said.

Andre Gueziec is an ex-software engineer and owner of Domaine Helena. In 2024, the vineyard became certified organic.

Organic Doesn’t Guarantee Success
Gueziec didn’t go organic to make his grapes easier to sell; he really believes in organic farming. He’s enthusiastic about taking care of his vineyard. He rips or digs out individual tall weeds himself. Otherwise, he uses a Clemens Radius to trim weeds; it has an attachment that retracts the blade when it hits trellising or a vine.

Moreover, he inherited a large grape client with the property. Gueziec said this winery wanted to be the exclusive buyer of his grapes, though it did allow him to make some wine on his own.

But after the 2022 vintage, the buyer walked away, leaving him with an 82-acre organic vineyard in Lake County and no ongoing winery clients.

The old adage about “the way to make a small fortune in the wine industry is to start with a large one” suddenly became true. Gueziec did make a lot of money in the software industry, but he has already plowed most of it into the property. He has a few clients now for some of his grapes, including T. Berkley Wines in nearby Calistoga, Chacewater in Kelseyville and Lodi’s Michael David Winery.

Gueziec didn’t go organic to make his grapes easier to sell; he really believes in organic farming. However, his story is one that proves going organic doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, at least not in the short term.

Gueziec is struggling to stay afloat. He rents out the property’s three-bedroom house when he can on Air BnB and stays in a tiny trailer on the property that doesn’t look long enough to sleep stretched out. Without a major grape client for the 2023 vintage, he harvested and made wine at a custom crush in Napa, but now he doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I don’t want to try to sell bulk wine. Nobody’s buying bulk wine,” Gueziec said.

But that left him in late August with rapidly ripening grapes and few buyers for them. Gueziec has been advertising his grapes for home winemakers in classified ads on wineindustry.com. There are a lot of grapes to be had: 62 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, 15 acres of Petite Sirah (Gueziec plans to make this for himself if nobody buys it) and 4.6 acres of Cabernet Franc. Unfortunately, it is the small plot of Cabernet Franc that has attracted the most interest.

While being interviewed for Grape & Wine, Gueziec also had a visit from Steve Sebastian, who oversees development for Restoration Hardware, a Marin County-based upscale furniture store chain that has restaurants in 14 of its stores. That sounds very promising, but Sebastian was only there to bring bins in preparation for buying a ton of Cabernet Franc for the personal wine he makes at his home in Sonoma County.

“I looked into the history of the grapes,” Sebastian said. “Some very nice wineries are using them to make very nice wine. I like the elevation. They’re very well-maintained vineyards. I’ve just got a feeling they will make very good wine.”

Martin Pohl, one of two consulting winemakers for Domaine Helena, agrees. For his own winery, nearby Beaver Creek Vineyards, Pohl makes completely natural “zero-zero” wines (Gueziec adds sulfites both at harvest and at bottling to his own wines.) Pohl likes Gueziec’s commitment to organic farming.

“I’m a promoter of making wines without any chemicals,” said Pohl, a native of the Czech Republic. “It’s the future. You see the rise in autoimmune diseases. You see the cancer. It’s the food chain. If I’m going to consume my own wine I don’t want glyphosate in it. If you drink things with chemicals, you end up sick. I want to live a healthy lifestyle. It’s the plan of the gods.”

Gueziec is in the unusual situation of not making a lot of wine but having two winemakers working essentially with the same grapes. The second is Derek Holstein, the main winemaker for Cache Creek Vineyards and Winery (not to be confused with the casino, which is 40 miles southeast). Holstein makes wine in a more traditional method than Pohl, whose red wines tend to be the “glou-glou” easy drinking style.

What is most surprising is, though the berries are very small, neither winemaker’s wines are as concentrated and tannic as you’d expect. Instead, they are juicy with red rather than black fruit. Particularly surprising is his Petite Sirah, which is a light and pretty version of the varietal that was reminiscent of Pinot Noir, something you rarely hear said about Petite Sirah.

“It’s just from what happens in the vineyard,” Gueziec said.

As a small organic winegrape grower, Gueziec has struggled financially with high property taxes and electricity rates as well as replanting costs.

Looking Ahead
Making nice grapes, or nice wine, in 2024 doesn’t necessarily translate into business success. Gueziec tore out a plot of Cabernet Sauvignon that had red blotch but doesn’t have the money to replant. He built a warehouse capable of holding 45,000 cases of wine (that would represent three years production), but he’s not sure that he has the money to pay for air conditioning in summer due to high PG&E rates.

He so far has not received a Williamson Act exemption that would lower his taxes.

“If I farm all my grapes, it’s $600,000 income total,” Gueziec said. “I pay $60,000 property tax. It’s expensive.”

Currently, Gueziec uses a vineyard management company, but he says the 45% surcharge on services is leading him to think about hiring full-time on-site staff. Currently, he has no employees; however, he knows if he does hire staff instead of using an outside company, he’ll lose access to the large, expensive equipment vineyard management companies offer.

“I’m not the only one who will tell you that small farmers are struggling,” Gueziec said. “What happens when the only person growing food is Bill Gates? My 10-year plan was to make this a winery. But it’s hard to live off this much land. I must get this place to work. I’ve got a lot invested in it.”

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