One family, many stories, great wine. That about sums it up.
Nearly 30 years ago, I wrote a couple of stories—they appeared in The Wine Spectator and California-Arizona Farm Press—about the Belvedere Wine Company’s new “Grapemaker” label. Brooklyn-born wine marketer Peter S. Friedman (and his partner Bill Hambrecht) had the then-quaint notion of giving a little of the credit for their wine’s quality to the grape growers. “Our concept,” Friedman told me, “is based on the feeling that, with the upper-level wines of Europe, the vineyard is the most important factor in a wine’s greatness.”
This, you understand, was in the time when winemakers were viewed as alchemists, capable of twirling straw into gold and ordinary grapes into scintillating wine. Neither, of course, was really possible, but these guys were dazzling in their glib patter, open-necked shirts and gold “bling.”
Back then, Friedman’s pride overflowed when he talked about one of the vineyards that got its name highlighted on Belvedere Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It was the first vineyard that Healdsburg dentist Charles Bacigalupi and his wife, Helen, bought on Westside Road (in an appellation that would, in time, become the world-famous Russian River Valley).
“Their Chardonnay,” Friedman enthused, “was the principal component of Chateau Montelena’s 1973 Paris winner. And Chateau St. Jean’s 1975 Bacigalupi Chardonnay was considered one of their best that year. The vineyard is up on a bench on Westside Road, a bit south of Mill Creek Vineyards.”
In that article, I wrote about Belvedere’s 1979 Bacigalupi Pinot Noir as being “a huge, exotic wine, with currants, rose petals, cranberry, herb tea and a fair amount of French oak.”
Fast forward to the present tense
The Bacigalupi family has, over the last decade, transmogrified from grape grower to winemaker with the advent of a label—John Tyler—that honors both grape grower John Bacigalupi (yes!) and winemaker Tyler Heck (yes, of that old and established winegrowing family). A couple of months ago, they opened a neat little wine tasting room on the old Goddard Ranch, where Helen and Charles Bacigalupi bought their first vineyard parcel back in 1956.
“We were just looking to get out of town and into the country,” says Helen Bacigalupi, playing the innocent. “Charles was a dentist—he was in practice for 39 years—and I was a pharmacist for five years. We just wanted to live in the country, and we were lucky to find the Goddard Ranch, a place that had been in the same family for five generations. I think they must have homesteaded the ranch. But the last generation had had no children, and they were ready and willing to sell. There were two or three small vineyard blocks, including some Zinfandel that was more than 80 years old.
“Mostly, there were orchards. During Prohibition, the farm advisers had recommended fruit trees, like peach, apricot and apple. There was a small orchard of Royal Anne cherries and maybe a half-dozen English walnut trees. In 1964, we began to plant grapes. Do you remember Bob Sisson? [The county farm adviser then.] He felt the Russian River Valley was a cool place and that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir would do best here. We asked him where to get the cuttings, and he sent us to Karl Wente in Livermore Valley. There were no irrigation systems in those days, so we had to plant root stock one year and then graft on the fruit-bearing vines the next. It was a lot of work.”
Work it was, but the payoff was quality fruit—that took a while to become recognized. Belvedere Winery, which eventually set up shop on the adjacent parcel [now the site Donatiello], was only the first to highlight Bacigalupi fruit.
Through the generations
Over the years, Helen and Charles were content to sell their fruit—they subsequently added a couple of other vineyard sites—but there was always that little voice in the back of their minds that wondered what it might be like to have someone making wine solely from their own fruit.
In the meantime, their only child had gone off to a military high school near San Diego and couldn’t wait to get back to Sonoma County to take over responsibility for the family’s more than 100 vineyard acres.
“Our son John grew up on the ranch,” says Helen expansively. “He’d gone to a private school in Santa Rosa from kindergarten through eighth grade, and then we sent him to the Army-Navy Academy High School in Carlsbad, California. John was always a good worker, and we wanted him to have the discipline that would guarantee a good life for him. He graduated with honors in just three years!”
John laughs to hear his mother’s praise, then turns his attention back to the land. “I love working the vineyard here. We have 40 acres of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on the home ranch [the former Goddard Ranch], and we later added the parcel next door—a former dairy—and the Frost Ranch nearby. We have just six acres of Chardonnay on the old dairy property, which we bought mostly for its 40-acre-foot lake, and another 60 acres of vineyard on the old Frost Ranch. That parcel has Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but also Zinfandel and Petite Sirah.
“You might not think of Zinfandel as doing well in the Russian River Valley, but being cooler than, say, Dry Creek Valley, has its advantages. I think you end up with a wine that has more layers and is a little more complex.”
Ah, the wines. Now we’re getting somewhere. Wine. Their own wine. And, here’s the kicker—keeping it all in the family. “Well, the wine came about when my wife’s brother’s son finished his schooling at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo,” says John innocently. Pamela, you see, is a Heck. As in the family that’s owned Korbel Winery for decades. Her nephew, Tyler Heck, is the son of Pam’s late brother Patrick Heck. Not to put too fine a point on it, Tyler Heck is a fourth-generation wine guy. He studied earnestly at his father’s side, began his schooling at Fresno State before transferring and graduating from Cal Poly SLO. Tyler’s wine experience includes Louis Martini, Iron Horse, Fetzer, Foppiano, Cape Mentelle Margaret River Australia and, now, John Tyler Wines; he even spends his spare time consulting. (Tyler, like his late father, is also a guitar player.)
“Tyler and I made one barrel of Pinot Noir in 2001,” says John, “just to see what it might be like. That batch turned out pretty good, so we decided to go commercial the following year and named the venture John Tyler Wines. We’re presently making about 1,200 to 1,400 cases each vintage, but we’re waiting for the pull from the marketplace before we expand our production. We really like the wines. The Pinot Noir has good depth to it, and the Zinfandel has those layers of complexity that draw you back to the wine.”
I ask John what his passions are outside of growing grapes and working with nephew Tyler on the wine side, and he just chuckles. “I used to go sailing with my dad, before he had his recent hip replacement, but Pam and I haven’t had a vacation in years. Like Tyler walked alongside his dad to learn his craft, I did the same with my dad. And Pam has been an ER nurse for more than 30 years. We manage to keep busy.”
For their new tasting room, the Bacigalupis have enlisted John and Pam’s fraternal twin daughters to manage it and the John Taylor wine sales. Nicole and Katey bring a sprightly enthusiasm to the new venture that would be no surprise whatsoever to anyone who knows their forebears.
“Yes, we do love what we’re doing,” says Nicole. “We’re so proud of our grandparents, who were among the very first to recognize the quality of fruit that could be grown in Russian River Valley, and we’re pleased that our cousin, Tyler, has been able to join with our immediate family to make the John Tyler wines.”
Like their mother, Nicole and Katey are graduates of Santa Rosa’s Ursuline High School. Nicole earned her business degree in marketing from San Diego State, while Katey studied agricultural business at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. “We took a couple of extensive trips together,” says Nicole, “through Eastern Europe and then to Southeast Asia for nearly four months. Whew. You really learn how to stretch a dollar, and you especially learn to appreciate the opportunities we have here when you see how others are able to live on so little. I remember seeing a family of five managing to get from one place to another on a moped. Everyone should have to live simply once in their lifetime.”
Having twins myself, I asked the girls what they found similar and different in the way they approach their lives. Says Katey, “Nicci and I both like exploring wineries in the area, going wine tasting and hanging out with our friends and significant others. I enjoy going to the lake and the river, kayaking, taking my dog for walks and going out to dinner and the movies. We live together in the same house, so we cook there a lot.”
Adds Nicole, “We both have an absolute love for horses and horseback riding. When we were younger, our days were filled with riding and traveling to horse shows. We both were involved with a pony club for more than 10 years and traveled as far as Kentucky to horse events. Sadly, we don’t have a horse right now, but mom says she wants to get one we can all share. Growing up at Korbel, she always had a horse as a kid. Her father, Paul, used to rent horses to people in Golden Gate Park—this was in the 1960s and ’70s—and, at one point, I think they had more than 100 horses they’d trailer back and forth to the city. Katey played polo at Cal Poly and taught riding lessons while I was in college in San Diego.
“We both love dogs, too. Katey has a German shorthair named Sam, and I have a yellow Lab named Tyson. [Tyler, it must be noted, is also a dog person. His Great Dane is named Lucy.] Travel is a big passion for both of us. Katey just did a harvest in Australia and I’m going to Costa Rica in November. How are we different? I love to cook, but I don’t think Katey has the patience for it. I love to experiment with flavors and how they influence one another. Being in the kitchen with the music on and a glass of wine at hand is sort of a therapy for me.”
Visiting and tasting
The twins are pretty amped up to be managing the brand and running the tasting room that the family opened this August at 4353 Westside Road in Healdsburg. The comfy-cozy little building is currently open on a winter schedule of Thursday through Monday 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The girls are regularly on hand to share family stories and acquaint visitors with the wines their father grows and their cousin produces. The wines, as you might expect, are produced solely from family-grown fruit, most of which is still sold to such exalted brands as Williams-Selyem, Rudd, Ovation (Joseph Phelps) and the like.
A few years ago, Nicole was excited to receive her Sommelier Certificate. “I just like to learn,” she says. “It’s so much fun to share things with our customers, who in turn share their experiences with us. Which is important, because the wine business is always changing; it’s never static. We’re fortunate to have three generations of stories to tell and to share, and when you put a glass of wine in a customer’s hand and add in the stories, well, it’s pretty special.”
Ah, The Wines
John Tyler 2007 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, Bacigalupi Vineyards, Clonal Selection: Cranberry and black cherry fruit that spreads out lusciously with a thick, velvet-like texture; there are also hints of mushroom and rosemary. Think of a nice, thick slice of filet mignon in a rosemary-butter sauce. I am.
John Tyler 2007 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, Bacigalupi Vineyards, Wente Clone: Black currant and black cherry are the dominant fruit notes, with a hint of pomegranate and a dash of sage spiciness, which makes this good with rare prime rib. Curiously, this one could easily stand up to the horseradish, should you so desire.
John Tyler 2006 Zinfandel, Russian River Valley, Bacigalupi Vineyards: Dense, tightly woven blackberry and strawberry, with just a touch of white pepper to set the fruit up more definitively. Sure, hamburgers would go nicely, but so would baby back ribs.
