The French connection with California’s wine business

Text contributed by Paul Franson

The French have always had a strong influence on California’s wine industry, both in the first wave of immigration in the mid 1850’s, and in the “second wave” of the last 25 years.

French Antoine Delmas, Charles Lefranc and Pierre Pellier were early leaders in Santa Clara Valley’s wine business, and Burgundian Paul Masson started making wine there in 1854.

Pellier planted varietal grape cuttings he’d brought from his native France. In 1881, his daughter Henrietta married a neighboring vintner, Pierre Mirassou. The sixth generation of the Mirassous are the oldest dynasty in California still in the wine business.

Though Santa Clara County was an early center for wine, it faded from glory and is now more famed as Silicon Valley, but the Mirassous still have a winery and visitor center there.

Other prominent historic French wine figures were Georges de la Tour, who founded Beaulieu in 1900. He hired André Tchelistcheff, the biggest influence on winemaking in Napa Valley, in 1938. Tchelistcheff was Russian born, but French educated and brought fine winemaking practice to Napa Valley.

The action in the last 25 years has been particularly concentrated in Napa Valley, the prestigious heart of the American wine industry. There French corporation and individuals own many important wineries and vineyards, and France vintners and winemakers from are also prominent in American firms.

In 1973, Domaine Chandon was the first sparkling wine producer outside Champagne to be established by a French firm using only the traditional method of producing sparkling wine.

That firm, Moët-Hennessy, began in 1743 as Moët et Chandon and has evolved into LVMH, a worldwide luxury goods company specializing in wines, spirits, fashion, leather goods, fragrances, cosmetics and selective retailing. Domaine Chandon’s first sparkling wine was released in 1976.

It was the first foreign company to producer high-quality sparkling wine using the traditional method of Champagne (Only Schramsberg among American companies was doing the same to produce premium sparkling wine ; other American sparkling wine was made using the bulk charmat process or even carbonated like Coca Cola.) With its high quality wine, which exhibited typical California fresh fruit more than the yeasty undertones of Champagne, Chandon quickly rose to the leader in its category. Americans drink sparkling wine primarily for celebration, however, and Chandon and other sparkling wine makers have recently expanded into making premium still wines.

Domaine Chandon own about 1100 acres of vineyards in Carneros, Mt. Veeder, Yountville, and Lakeville in Sonoma County, making it one of Napa Valley’s largest vineyard owners.

Its Visitors Center at the Yountville property houses a retail store, tasting salon and terrace, a four-star dining room, The Restaurant at Domaine Chandon and the winery.

LVMH also owns Newton Vineyards, an acclaimed Napa producer of fine wines.

Another fine California sparkling wine producer is Domaine Carneros owned by Champagne Taittinger. In its Chateau-style winery, it produces a variety of excellent sparkling and still wines, and also offers tours and tasting, the latter on a patio overlooking vineyards.

Mumm Cuvée Napa was started by French Champagne Mumm, then was acquired by Seagram, itself acquired by Diageo of England, which recently sold the operation to Allied-Domecq, another British Corporation. It reunites Mumm Napa with Champagne Mumm, however, since that company is now also part of Allied-Domecq.

Mumm’s winery in Napa Valley has a casual sit-down tasting room with a deck overlooking Napa Valley. Here visitors can taste wines – or order glasses. The winery also boasts a respected gallery of photographic art, including a permanent exhibit of photography by famed Adam Ansel.

Dominus in Yountville is owned by Christian Moueix, proprietor of famed Chateau Pétrus in Bordeaux. It also makes a second label, Napanook, named after the venerable vineyard once owned by John Daniel of Inglenook.

Opus One is the pioneering joint venture between Robert Mondavi, founder of Robert Mondavi Winery, and the Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, proprietor of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. It produces the signature wine at its distinctive winery and tasting room on Highway 29 in Oakville near Mondavi.

Chalone Wine Group headquartered in Napa, owns estate properties throughout California and Washington. A public company, it is controlled by Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite), which also owns more than half of its stock.

Chalone has tasting rooms at many of its properties, including Acacia in the Carneros Region of Napa County. It recently acquired and is renovating the former Beaucanon facility in Rutherford near vineyards it bought to produce outstanding Cabernet and other Bordeaux varieties under the Provenance label.

St. Supéry Winery in Rutherford is owned by Robert Skalli, a third-generation French winemaker whose family came from Algeria. He is now one of Napa County’s biggest landowners, with vineyards both in the heart of the valley and in remote Pope Valley, part of the Napa Valley appellation (American Viticultural Area). It has an excellent visitor center that offers educational tours as well as tasting of its wines.

Clos du Val, was started in 1972 by American John Goelet, a descendant of the distinguished Guestier family of Bordeaux, with winemaker Bernard Portet, who was raised in Bordeaux by a family in the wine business. Clos du Val is located in the famed Stags Leap District, and is known for producing elegant “French” style wines than typical Napa blockbusters. The winery welcomes visitors for tours and tasting.

Genevieve Janssens is director of winemaking for Robert Mondavi Winery, the flagship of the Mondavi wine empire. A Pied Noir from Algeria, she studied in France before coming to California to work first at Opus One, the joint venture between Mondavi and the Baroness Philippine de Rothschild.

Marketta and Jean-Noël Fourmeaux, the owners of Chateau Potelle came to California in 1980 as wine tasters for the French government. After six months however, they decided to stay. They returned to France, packed up their two daughters and moved to California in 1983. In 1988, they purchased 202 acres on Mount Veeder, where Marketta makes the highly regarded wines. They welcome visitors to taste and picnic at the mountain-top site.

Beaucanon Napa Valley, owned by the de Coninck family of Bordeaux, recently sold its prominent winery and small vineyard on Highway 29 in Rutherford to the Chalone Wine Group, itself controlled and largely owned by Baron Eric de Rothschild of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. The company, however, has kept its best vineyards, which are located off the Silverado Trail near Napa, and are building a winery for the brand there. It is not open to the public.

Aubert de Villaine of Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has recently created a partnership with Larry Hyde, of Hyde Vineyards in Carneros, produce a Chardonnay and a Merlot-Cabernet blend. The venture is called HdV, for the Hyde and de Villaine families. De Villaine’s wife, Pamela Fairbanks de Villaine, is Larry Hyde’s first cousin. Both Hyde and Fairbanks descended from José de la Guerra, the son of a noble Spanish family that settled in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1810.

Not all the French influence is in Napa, however. What is now Laetitia Vineyards on California’s Central Coast was started as Maison Deutz, and what is now J Wine Company in Sonoma County was once Piper Sonoma, the US arm of Piper Heisdick. Both firms overestimated the demand for sparkling wines and eventually sold their operations.

More successful was Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, which makes some of California’s best sparkling wine in that cool valley. Nearby Scharrfenberger Cellars, which makes Pacific Echo sparkling wines, is owned by Veuve Cliquot, itself part of LVMH like Moët et Chandon.

And in Oregon, Domaine Drouhin is owned by Jospeh Drouhin of Burgundy. Domaines Cordier owns the largest wine company in Texas, selling primarily under the Ste. Genevieve brand, and Paul Pontilier of Chateaux Margaux has a winery on Long Island in New York.

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Napa Valley-based writer Paul Franson writes about wine, food and travel for such publications as Decanter, Wine Country Living, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Napa Valley Register, Wine Business and Vineyard & Winery Management. Much of his work can be found at www.TravelTastes.com or www.NapaLife.com and he can be reached via paul@franson.com.