Grapes For Glory
Home winemakers put passion ahead of profit
Henry Spoto earned bragging rights at the 20th annual Home Winemakers Classic in Rutherford, Calif., last July. The 71-year-old retired real estate appraiser won first-place ribbons for both of his entries, Cabernet blends from 1999 and 2000. The 2000 also took Best of Show in the red category, the event's most coveted prize.
Spoto, who lives in Davis, Calif., is hardly an amateur who got lucky; his experience, equipment and expertise rival those of many professionals. This year's vintage will be his 24th. He buys grapes from Napa Valley, paying as much as $4,000 a ton for Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. He's bought a destemmer/crusher, a press and other essential tools of the trade. His wines age only in French oak barrels (about $700 apiece), which he stores in a refrigerated room attached to the garage.
He also talks like a professional, issuing winemaker standbys such as "In the '80s we were picking too damn green" and "It comes down to getting good grapes." But he's in it for passion, not profit. "My sons wanted me to go pro," Spoto says. "But I'm too friggin' old. I'd just rather do my own thing."
Spoto is one of 68 home vintners who poured their wines at last year's Home Winemakers Classic, held on the lawn at St. Supéry Winery. Sixty-two of those producers entered the competition, submitting up to two wines each. There's no entry fee for vintners, but participants contribute bottles for a silent auction and spectators buy tickets to attend, with proceeds benefiting the Dry Creek-Lokoya Volunteer Fire Department. About 750 people were on hand for last year's event, which raised $20,000. This year's Classic is scheduled for July 19. (For more information, see listing at end of story.)
Producers have ribbons and pride riding on the judging, but the event itself is like a county fair, with kids running around and a rollicking bluegrass band.
Home winemakers come across as independent and somewhat irreverent. They coin names such as Woof Woof Winery, Howling Coyote and Road Kill Red. But don't be fooled by the whimsical tone. Typically lacking the equipment, space and financial backing of commercial operations, home winemakers substitute resourcefulness and elbow grease.
During his second harvest, in the 2000 vintage, Sacramento resident Layne Montgomery, 43, paid for poor planning. After picking Gewürztraminer from a local vineyard, he discovered that the wine supply shop was closed, leaving him without a destemmer/crusher.
So he and his wife, Karen, stripped the grapes off the stems by hand, then hand-mashed the berries in a bucket. That laborious process yielded 12 gallons of juice, which they fermented in two 6.5-gallon glass carboys. Since warm fermentation strips whites of fruit character, Montgomery chilled the carboys to about 57° f in a tub, adding ice three times a day for three weeks.
Montgomery vowed to never repeat the crushing-by-hand fiasco, but he laughs about it now. Besides, the Gewürztraminer turned out great and tied for first prize in the Home Winemakers "miscellaneous white" category.
Home vintners need to have a sense of humor; otherwise they won't get past the mishaps that inevitably plague the learning process. It also helps to have an unusually tolerant spouse, a lesson learned by Shayne Kline, 31, and Darrell Grosul, 33, about the same time they discovered why wineries have cement floors.
After meeting in a Napa Valley College enology class, they started making wine together at their Sonoma homes in 2001. But Sonoma summers can be scorching, and their garages were not air-conditioned. "You've got to keep the barrels in the living room if you're really dedicated," explains Kline, who moved to Monterey last year to manage cellar operations for Estancia Estates.
In his living room, Grosul had two barrels of 2001 Petite Sirah, which they were "racking" -- transferring into 55-gallon garbage pails -- in order to aerate the wine and separate the lees. Looking down, they noticed that one pail had sprung a leak and the hardwood floor was awash. "That was a bit of a panic," recalls Grosul, who felt fortunate that his wife, Stephanie, was at a movie. "You don't want to make a mess when you rent."
Kline plugged the hole with his hand, and they were able to slosh most of the Petite back into the barrel. Stephanie reportedly took it "pretty well."
Given the hurdles to overcome, it's no wonder home vintners take the competition quite seriously. "These are their babies. I get a fair amount of flak from people if they don't win," says Linda Champagne, chairwoman of the judges' panel since 1999.
Champagne is director of hospitality at Artesa Winery in Napa, as well as an experienced home winemaker. All but one of the 14 judges work in the wine industry. Two or three judges evaluate each category -- such as Cabernet Sauvignon 2000 or 1999 Meritage. Different vintages of less frequentlty seen varietals, like Pinot Noir, go into one category.
The vast majority of submissions are red wines, which reflects participants' preferences as well as technical reality. Most amateurs have a tough time making quality white wines, which are more susceptible to oxidation and demand steady refrigeration during fermentation, a formidable task for all but the best-equipped home vintners.
But reds also present challenges. "Home wines generally have a lot of flaws. It's hard to stay clean," says Champagne. "Still, only occasionally do we find a wine we can't taste."
Sloppy or inattentive production techniques can lead to bacterial contamination. And dirty barrels (a common problem because most home vintners don't invest in new barrels) are often rife with Brettanomyces, a spoilage yeast that can impart leather and barnyard aromas and flavors.
"Our big thing is cleanliness," says Leslie Burma, one of the three women behind Valley Girls Wines, which earned a blue ribbon last July for its 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon. This year Valley Girls will submit its Bad Hair Day Cuvée, a 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon so-named because the fruit was picked in a cold October rain.
Burma's husband, Ken, is a chemist, which has increased Valley Girls' awareness of potential microbial contaminants. Equipment gets cleaned with a 15,000-pound-per-square-inch power washer, and all contact surfaces are washed with sulfites to kill bacteria.
But while a backgound in chemistry is helpful (in understanding fermentation, for example), amateurs without such a foundation can learn on their own by taking courses or reading textbooks.
But applying the science is only part of the battle. It's just as important to know the right people, since wine country connections help secure quality grapes. Nearly all of the amateur vintners who participate in the Home Winemakers Classic live in or near California wine country, and many of them have a friend or spouse who works in the industry.
Gordon Lopez, a high-voltage cable splicer who lives in Napa, started making wine in 1992 with a friend who worked at Grgich Hills Winery. Now, after 11 vintages, he's got plenty of experience, equipment and connections. "My wife has slowly bought me more and more of the toys," he says. "This year, she got me a bladder press. And I've got a lot of friends in the business, so I can get grapes."
The poor economy, grape glut and international competition have challenged every sector of the California wine industry. But that's meant good times for home vintners. "It's really been a heyday for getting grapes," says John Vowell of St. Helena, who teams with his wife, Susan, to make about 200 cases a year under their label, Rocinante. Last year they took first place for their 2000 Merlot, and their 2000 Syrah tied for third.
John is a Morgan Stanley financial advisor; Susan is chief financial officer at Trefethen Vineyards in Napa. Before moving from Vienna, Va., in 2000, they were visiting Napa three times a year and were unabashedly fascinated with all things wine. Now, with a home in western St. Helena, 200 Merlot vines planted on the property, and John immersed in viticulture and winemaking, they're still fascinated. "Back East, there aren't places you can go at lunch to buy a basket press," he says.
Reflecting the emphasis on enjoyment, several vintners attending the Home Winemakers Classic don't compete in it. Michael Jones, a consultant for a vine nursery in Napa, started home
winemaking in 1974. He's gone to the event every year, but isn't interested in competing. "We're there to have fun. The judging is completely beside the point," he explains.
In 2002, Jones poured Scarlet Harlot, A Grenache of Easy Virtue. His offerings from previous years have included Screaming Ego and Shrieking Chicken. When it comes to wine, he says, irreverence is the appropriate tone. "The average bottle contains 750 milliliters of fermented grape juice. What's the big deal?" he asks.
Within many home winemakers lurks a dream of going professional. Layne Montgomery has thought about it, but can't see past the financial barriers at present. "If I could get the capital, I'd do it," he says.
Retired San Francisco ad salesman Thomas Kehoe fulfilled that dream, starting Thomas Kehoe Winery in 1989. He began making wine in the '70s in the basement of his Connecticut home with New York state hybrid varieties. The hybrids were pretty miserable, so he upgraded to California grapes purchased in bulk from the Bronx Terminal Market. "It was supposed to be Zin, but God only knows. The guy who sold them went to jail for fraud," says Kehoe, 75, who moved to California in 1985.
By professional standards, his winery is a bare-bones facility, a 20-foot-by-40-foot space in a cavernous warehouse on a San Francisco pier. The "walls" are chain-link fences draped with blue tarpaulins. There's no running water, and only a laminated paper sign indicates Kehoe's presence.
Kehoe gets grapes from a Dry Creek grower and makes 150 cases a year: 100 Zinfandel and 50 Cabernet. A few local retailers buy the wines for $120 a case. But between grape costs, rent and equipment, the winery doesn't quite break even. This year will be especially lean, since Kehoe won't sell the 100 cases of 2000 Zinfandel, which turned out too thin. "You can't sell stuff like that. You've got a reputation," he says.
He's attended the Home Winemakers Classic since 1990, but doesn't enter the contest. Kehoe is happy to congregate with those who share the passion, and gets a thrill pouring his product. "I always wanted to be a winemaker and sell my wine. And I did it," he explains.
If You Go
Home Winemakers Classic 2003
July 19, 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., St. Supéry Vineyards & Winery, Rutherford, Calif. Tickets $25 in advance; $30 at the door. Available from Napa Fermentation Supplies, (707) 255-6372. For more information, visit www.homewine.com or contact event organizer Russell Vandewark at (707) 258-1204 or russellv@napanet.net.
