7. In the Green Crosshairs
(From The Far Side of Eden. First post on 4/11)
He felt, he said, “like a Cistercian monk poking around in the wilds of Burgundy not long after the birth of Christ. The Europeans have for thousands of years been deciding where best to plant, and have nailed their terroir, whereas the Americans are still figuring theirs out.”
For Jayson Pahlmeyer, his reputation now tied to the appearance of his chardonnay in the film Disclosure, the hills were clearly the place where the best grapes grew, just as a bank was the place where the money was. So to greatly expand his source of good grapes, and therefore his production of wine, he bought two-hundred-plus steep acres in remote Wooden Valley, an adjunct of Napa Valley by virtue of its drainage into the Napa River. He planned to spend millions to turn eighty acres of it into prime vineyard.
Helen Turley had taken over the making of his wine. She was an acknowledged maven of ripe fruit—“physiologically mature,” she called it, and others called it too far gone—low yields, expensive viticulture, manicured vines. She tramped into vineyards like a disheveled Valkyrie, sometimes with Jayson in tow, to sample grapes left so long on the vine they were often black and splitting, attracting wasps, bees, and skunks, and she put the sample bunches into a little colander she carried, with a kind of rolling pin inside, and mashed the grapes up and poured the juice into a glass and tasted it. She would then order that some grapes be “dropped”—cut and left on the ground so as to further concentrate the flavor in those left on the vine—in the final days of harvest, despite the great cost of leaving quality cabernet sauvignon in the dust. This was known as “Helen’s way.”
Jayson had seen the light because Turley brooked no compromise, would forgo any amount of money offered if her standards weren’t met. She was quirky and her husband, a kind of vinous manager, difficult. Jayson had once seen Helen turn down a prospective client because he answered his cell phone while at lunch. She managed to get Robert Parker to taste the wines of all her clients, a huge advantage. Another winemaker would take over from her, common in the musical chairs of quality viticulture, but while she lasted she provided Pahlmeyer with what he needed at the time: big fruit, more exposure.
His vineyard manager, the man responsible for the master plan, the recognized avenue to accredited rocket juice and progenitor of rising cult cabernets, was none other than Dave Abreu. No longer asking about pH, unscathed by the Viader and other contretemps, Abreu wore not Big Ben shirts but those with rearing polo horse and rider stitched above the pectoral, and he charged a lot of money for putting in an acre of vines. Abreu’s standard refusal to travel far from Rutherford on jobs had been overcome by Jayson’s money and the ambitious scope of his project.
In Jayson’s opinion, Abreu was a foul-mouthed genius, a rough, Rutherford-speaking diamond, the Robert Trent Jones of vineyards. Abreu went out and sat in the prospective vineyard and felt the soil, felt the roots of the young vines; he lay down on his side to divine the pattern of the drip valves. He said, “Here . . . hey . . .” and re-leased a torrent that was part appreciation, part abuse, all authoritative. This is what we’re going to do, he would tell Jason, this is what’s best—vertical rows, close planting, whatever, and then do it. All of them—Jayson, Helen Turley, Dave Abreu, and his surrogates—were focused on the goal; accepted practices, rules and regulations, seemed to be no impediment when you had a job to do.
The contractor Richard Stadelhofer graded fifty acres of Jayson’s property in 1997 without an erosion control permit, removed the vegetation next to a dry creek, and dumped some debris into the stream bed without permission from the California Department of Fish and Game. All no-nos, as Jayson later put it, and Stadelhofer got caught. Jayson said he didn’t know the permit hadn’t been issued, adding that, as a lawyer, he knew that ignorance was no defense. He and Stadelhofer had to pay close to ten thousand dollars in civil penalties, and Jayson lost a year in his vineyard development because he was shut down until the following spring, a big financial hit all by itself.
He agreed to restore some of the slopes above thirty percent to their natural state and to make other improvements. He was criticized by other vintners whose ranks he had eagerly joined for setting a bad example and providing ammunition to vintners’ enemies. Jayson stood up in front of them and performed a mea culpa, admitting that he and his contractors had made a mistake and, in effect, asking for forgiveness. He hoped that and the mitigation he had agreed to do on the land would counteract the bad publicity.
The criticism of his peers was innocuous compared to that flowing from the environmentally minded community. Jayson was in the green crosshairs now.
*
(From The Far Side of Eden. First post on 4/11)
He felt, he said, “like a Cistercian monk poking around in the wilds of Burgundy not long after the birth of Christ. The Europeans have for thousands of years been deciding where best to plant, and have nailed their terroir, whereas the Americans are still figuring theirs out.”
For Jayson Pahlmeyer, his reputation now tied to the appearance of his chardonnay in the film Disclosure, the hills were clearly the place where the best grapes grew, just as a bank was the place where the money was. So to greatly expand his source of good grapes, and therefore his production of wine, he bought two-hundred-plus steep acres in remote Wooden Valley, an adjunct of Napa Valley by virtue of its drainage into the Napa River. He planned to spend millions to turn eighty acres of it into prime vineyard.
Helen Turley had taken over the making of his wine. She was an acknowledged maven of ripe fruit—“physiologically mature,” she called it, and others called it too far gone—low yields, expensive viticulture, manicured vines. She tramped into vineyards like a disheveled Valkyrie, sometimes with Jayson in tow, to sample grapes left so long on the vine they were often black and splitting, attracting wasps, bees, and skunks, and she put the sample bunches into a little colander she carried, with a kind of rolling pin inside, and mashed the grapes up and poured the juice into a glass and tasted it. She would then order that some grapes be “dropped”—cut and left on the ground so as to further concentrate the flavor in those left on the vine—in the final days of harvest, despite the great cost of leaving quality cabernet sauvignon in the dust. This was known as “Helen’s way.”
Jayson had seen the light because Turley brooked no compromise, would forgo any amount of money offered if her standards weren’t met. She was quirky and her husband, a kind of vinous manager, difficult. Jayson had once seen Helen turn down a prospective client because he answered his cell phone while at lunch. She managed to get Robert Parker to taste the wines of all her clients, a huge advantage. Another winemaker would take over from her, common in the musical chairs of quality viticulture, but while she lasted she provided Pahlmeyer with what he needed at the time: big fruit, more exposure.
His vineyard manager, the man responsible for the master plan, the recognized avenue to accredited rocket juice and progenitor of rising cult cabernets, was none other than Dave Abreu. No longer asking about pH, unscathed by the Viader and other contretemps, Abreu wore not Big Ben shirts but those with rearing polo horse and rider stitched above the pectoral, and he charged a lot of money for putting in an acre of vines. Abreu’s standard refusal to travel far from Rutherford on jobs had been overcome by Jayson’s money and the ambitious scope of his project.
In Jayson’s opinion, Abreu was a foul-mouthed genius, a rough, Rutherford-speaking diamond, the Robert Trent Jones of vineyards. Abreu went out and sat in the prospective vineyard and felt the soil, felt the roots of the young vines; he lay down on his side to divine the pattern of the drip valves. He said, “Here . . . hey . . .” and re-leased a torrent that was part appreciation, part abuse, all authoritative. This is what we’re going to do, he would tell Jason, this is what’s best—vertical rows, close planting, whatever, and then do it. All of them—Jayson, Helen Turley, Dave Abreu, and his surrogates—were focused on the goal; accepted practices, rules and regulations, seemed to be no impediment when you had a job to do.
The contractor Richard Stadelhofer graded fifty acres of Jayson’s property in 1997 without an erosion control permit, removed the vegetation next to a dry creek, and dumped some debris into the stream bed without permission from the California Department of Fish and Game. All no-nos, as Jayson later put it, and Stadelhofer got caught. Jayson said he didn’t know the permit hadn’t been issued, adding that, as a lawyer, he knew that ignorance was no defense. He and Stadelhofer had to pay close to ten thousand dollars in civil penalties, and Jayson lost a year in his vineyard development because he was shut down until the following spring, a big financial hit all by itself.
He agreed to restore some of the slopes above thirty percent to their natural state and to make other improvements. He was criticized by other vintners whose ranks he had eagerly joined for setting a bad example and providing ammunition to vintners’ enemies. Jayson stood up in front of them and performed a mea culpa, admitting that he and his contractors had made a mistake and, in effect, asking for forgiveness. He hoped that and the mitigation he had agreed to do on the land would counteract the bad publicity.
The criticism of his peers was innocuous compared to that flowing from the environmentally minded community. Jayson was in the green crosshairs now.
*
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