Spring Hill Ranch & Vineyard owners Chris and Karen London’s well-rounded offerings include cool climate Pinot Noir grapes, heirloom tomatoes and top-of-the-line American Wagyu (Kobe) beef—a full plate of environmentally friendly fare.
Chris and Karen London of Spring Hill Ranch & Vineyard are doing their part to put that synergistic notion to good use, farming both top-quality beef cows and cold-climate Pinot Noir grapes on their western Petaluma spread. They even toss some gourmet-quality tomatoes into the mix.
“I actually had a little farming experience back in Virginia, where I grew up,” says Chris, who continues his career as a pilot for United Airlines (he flew 727s and 747s, but captains an Airbus these days). “There, I got to drive one of those huge corn combines. When Karen and I bought our first two parcels out on Spring Hill Road—due west of Petaluma—back in 1999, we said to ourselves, ‘What do we do now?’ You couldn’t very well farm corn here. I mean, you could, but you wouldn’t stand any chance of making a profit at what the land costs were. We talked with the University of California Cooperative adviser, and he recommended potatoes.
Wine first
The Londons began planting Pinot Noir in 2000. The smart way: with a preplanting contract for the grapes in hand from Dirk Hampson and Larry Maguire of Far Niente Winery (for their then-new Nickel & Nickel Winery).
“That’s a funny story,” says Chris. “Karen was working as a flight attendant for United—that’s where we met, too—and Dirk and Larry were on a flight from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. on their way to a big wine expo in Italy. Dirk noticed her reading a viticulture book and planning to buy a bunch of pruning shears she’d found online at a good price. She explained that we were thinking of planting grapes and he offered to come and check out our location.
“Long story short, Dirk and Darice Spinelli [winemaker at Nickel & Nickel] came out on a blustery day when the rain was coming down sideways. I figured we were done for. But they saw the potential of the site, we began planting Pinot Noir, and they’ve been the classiest buyers you could ever imagine dealing with. Gil [the late Gil Nickel, founder of Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel] was a most generous individual and a delight to deal with. They often brought their growers to the winery to taste wines—and eat well—and learn everything from the bottom up.”
Says Hampson, “Spring Hill is a particularly cool and windy location. Such conditions lead to wines of excellent color and a silky texture. We used to make it as a single vineyard wine, but now we have a new winery, En Route, that’s focusing on Russian River Valley fruit.”
The Londons’ two initial parcels included one slope with a reservoir at the bottom and one fairly flat parcel. They’ve since added on, so they have nearly 170 acres to work with. “We planted our first six acres in 2000, added 10 the following year, and another eight acres since then. When we thought about all the other land that was just sitting there—we’d sold hay for a time—we began to think about what would really go well with the Pinot Noir.”
Well, what would you come up with? Something in a quality beef that would match the exquisite Pinot Noir wines that were being made from their grapes sounded good to the Londons. It also sounded good to the wineries that ended up with their grapes, from Landmark Vineyards (now their biggest buyer) Talisman Cellars, Ancien Wines, Waxwing Wine Cellars, Schramsberg, EnRoute Winery (a branch of Nickel & Nickel/Far Niente) Atillla Telli Wines and Sandler Wine Company.
The vineyard—planted to more than a half-dozen Pinot Noir clones (including Joseph Swan)—was even featured in the 2005 documentary film “Pinot: Escape from Wall Street,” which highlighted Jamie Kutch’s successful career move west from Wall Street. (Kutch no longer buys London fruit.)
Respect the beef
“Karen and I figured if we raised the cattle the right way, we could market beef that was healthy and of top-quality, and still make a profit at it. It’s vitally important to both of us that the process had to be done morally right. We’ve chosen not to market to restaurants. Not because we don’t want our beef to be shown off in quality establishments, but because to do so would have meant dealing with a USDA-approved slaughterhouse. In this area, that would have meant one where the cows would have to be dehorned in a process that’s inhumane and, in addition, causes an adrenaline spike that negatively affects the quality of the meat.
“So we sell directly to consumers who buy, say, a quarter of a cow in concert with others who have signed up to do the same. That way, we can control the slaughtering process with dignity. We use no hormones, nor any feed additives. We feed them fresh hay, a little corn and alfalfa. They even get a little grain and malted barley that we get from local breweries. Scottish Highland beef is very lean—leaner than venison, say. Or cod. Half the fat of chicken, really!
“We believe it’s important to take the best possible care of our cows, especially in the pasture. We have a tendency to refer to our place as a ‘country club for cows.’ I mean, they drink spring water from tanks put on top of rocks and filter fabric, and surrounded by redwood planks so they don’t muddy their hooves. If the meat is to be good, what goes into our cows has to be good. Simple as that.”
Rare…as in “very few”
The cows themselves are rare beasts indeed, bordering on endangered. First, the Londons discovered Scottish Highlands, which Chris says look like yaks. “The Queen of England has a small herd, and it has its own ‘fold’ at one of her estates. It’s one of the endangered breeds, so they’re hard to find and expensive to buy. But their meat is quite lean and very healthy. We found ours from a friend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I flew out there to his ranch, did the tour and decided we could do what he was doing. Which meant, of course, that Karen and I went back to the classroom at Santa Rosa Junior College, taking the livestock classes from Jim Porter.”
When Chris and Karen decided to take on a second breed, the decision was consciously made to go in the opposite direction, from lean beef to rich, marbled, fatty—read “flavor-filled”—beef. And that meant the Wagyu.
“Wagyu cows are really rare,” begins Chris. “These are the cows that Kobe beef comes from—but only when they’re raised in the Kobe prefecture in Japan. It’s sort of like the French and ‘Champagne.’ Everywhere else in the world it’s ‘sparkling wine.’ But when the grapes are grown in that specific appellation [east-northeast of Paris, between Reims and Epernay] the wines can be labeled ‘Champagne.’
“This is beef with flavor. Lots of flavor. But they were hard to find, since there are so few of them in this country. Nobody wanted to sell any. We decided to join the American Wagyu Association—which was then very small, it’s now grown immensely—and through that group, we were able to connect with a breeder in Baker City, Oregon, who agreed to sell us two of the animals. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about embryo technology, artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood using Angus moms to bring more Wagyu into the world. An embryo goes for $3,000 to $4,000, and an on-the-hoof animal goes for $8,000. But, hey, in Japan a Wagyu carcass will sell for $46,000! That’s the value of Kobe beef in a world that really knows its value.”
The Londons now boast nearly a dozen Wagyu and more than three times that number of Scottish Highland critters. “You have to understand that getting a Wagyu to a slaughter weight of just over 1,000 pounds takes three years. You can get an Angus to 1,200 pounds in just 18 months! It takes a lot of patience and lot of care to do these animals justice, to get the most healthy, the best tasting beef you can buy.”
London says he’s also experimenting with a Wagyu-Angus hybrid. “The Wagyu is a small breed, not a volume breed, so obviously we’re hoping to come up with a bigger animal that still has the intramuscular fat that yields the best flavor profile. We’ve bred Wagyu bulls with Angus cows and we have almost a dozen ‘new’ animals. It’ll be a while until we see the results, but we’re hoping.”
In the meantime, the Londons will have to settle for their herd’s certification (as of mid-June) from AgInfoLink (Longmont, Colo.), making them the only cows that are age, source, nonhormone-treated cattle as certified by an independent third-party.
Sky’s the limit
As you might imagine, London’s piloting job has taken him to various parts of the globe. “Among my favorite stops were London and Maui, but I’ve been lucky to have spent most of my time based at SFO,” he says with an ill-disguised laugh. “San Francisco was actually my first posting for United, and I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. My mother worked as a customer service agent for Air Canada, then for PanAm, so we were constantly heading to the airport on standby, taking off to all the continents.
“I started out flying a little Cessna 150, a two-place, 100 mile-per-hour putt-putt. Got my instrument rating in a Piper Warrior. I remember when I first started flying the 747 Jumbo. It was so much bigger than anything else at the time, and it felt like trying to drink water from a fire hose, there was so much going on. The manuals themselves, stacked, stood 18 inches high!”
As if he doesn’t fly enough in his job—he’s guessing he has more than 16,000 hours of flying time—Chris somehow manages to find time to fly for pleasure. “I’d wanted to fly since I was a kid, and got my private ticket when I was just 16 years old. Now, a friend has a Cessna 172 that she says doesn’t get enough use, so that airplane is available to me. You get a whole different perspective on the planet when you get up into the air.
“And of course, it was flying that led me to Karen. I’d actually met her when we were crew on the same flight, but nothing much happened—on her side. Then, when I was consulting for a company back east, they had me fly first class to meetings once a month; Karen found it intriguing that a pilot was flying up front…and we hit it off. Despite the fact it was a Tokyo-to-San Francisco flight, and I had had no sleep at all, I took her to the Napa Valley Grill in Rutherford the next day!” The couple was married in 2003 and had a child in 2004.
So now, all the elements are in place: Love, check; marriage, check; child, check; good beef, check; good wine, check…and mate.
It’s What’s for Dinner
Chris and Karen also raise Heirloom tomatoes at Spring Hill, including Yellow Pear (“Yellow, bite-sized. pear shaped,” says Karen), Brandywine (“Dates to 1885; wins most flavor contests), Mortgage Lifter (“The legendary, large beefsteak; another regular winner”), Big Rainbow (“Yellow, average-sized, all-around tomato”), Purple Cherokee (“Really purple in color; rich in flavor”) and Red Cherry (“cherry-sized, but very productive”).
Caprese Salad
4-5 large heirloom tomatoes (Mortgage Lifters are large and juicy), sliced thin
Fresh basil
Sliced, locally grown mozzarella cheese
California olive oil
Balsamic vinaigrette
A sprinkle of salt and pepper
Serve with:
Wagyu Beef Chuck Roast (you can start the night before)
2-3 pound chuck roast of Wagyu beef
Yellow and red small potatoes
Small baby carrots
Olive oil
Garlic, chopped
Sweet Vidalia onion, chopped
2 cups Rosé or white wine
Coat a large, four-quart cooking pan with olive oil, then add garlic and onion. Simmer on low heat for four minutes or until ingredients are tender. Coat the Wagyu chuck roast with flour, salt and pepper, then add it to onions and garlic. Sear the roast on the stovetop for three to four minutes on each side. Place all the ingredients in a large crock pot. Add potatoes and carrots.
Over low heat, deglaze the pan you cooked the chuck roast in with wine and simmer over low heat for approximately three to four minutes. Pour entire contents of this pan into the crock pot and add another cup of water.
Just before you leave to go drop the kids off at school and head to work, turn the crock pot to the low setting. Eight hours later, you come home to a wonderful smell in your house. Dinner is ready.
A thousand-hour pilot himself—he has twice flown a Cessna 152 across the country (and back)—Hinkle is the author of nine wine books and has a palate equally honed to good beef and good red wine. To view his work, visit his website at RichardPaulHinkle.com.
