Hooray! I’m finally right for a change. Mendocino County really is as screwed up and stupid as I’ve said for years. Before I go on, let me explain that when I say “Mendocino County,” I’m referring to all of it except Anderson Valley. The folks in Anderson Valley have always denied being part of the county and feel they’re in a unique area. And yes, they’re right, and they have their act together. Two of my favorite wineries, Handley and Navarro, are located there and make some wonderful wines. They show what outstanding winemakers can do with good fruit. Navarro makes a tremendous array of wines from Pinot Noir to late-harvest Rieslings—all exceptionally well done.
Now back to the topic of the rest of the county. We all know what its major agricultural crop is, but not many people know about its wines, and with good reason—there aren’t too many really good ones. Quick: Name five Mendocino wineries! Tough, huh? The entire county has no consumer awareness outside maybe a 50-mile radius. The largest winery in the county produces virtually all California appellation wines and could just as well be in Modesto as Hopland. Fetzer: Corporate-owned and California-branded. Big help to struggling Mendo.
OK, so after all of that, what was its big sin? Overwhelmingly voting out its five-year-old Mendocino Winegrape and Wine Commission. For you non-growers, a commission is a legal tool established by the California legislature to let growers and vintners band together, collect a mandatory assessment and use the funds for marketing and research. I just stated another big problem: the term “growers and vintners.” Growers and wineries have never been drinking buddies and, generally, neither trusts the other. A similar dynamic has been true all over the state and not just in the wine industry, but in all of agriculture. A few other commodities have used the commission approach with some great success.
The very first grower commission was established in Lodi. Twenty-plus years ago, no one even knew about Lodi, let alone felt it made good wine. With the development of the commission and the hiring of a super executive director, Mark Chandler, it’s now one of the premier growing areas in the state and has developed an international reputation—all due to the efforts of the commission. By the way, this Mark Chandler is the same one that the now defunct Mendo commission hired just before voting itself out of existence. Brilliant move, huh? To take a quote from The Press Democrat, one of my former students and interim chair of the commission said, “I think, ultimately, our county probably just wasn’t ready for the unique setup we had, which included both growers and vintners. It created challenges.” That gets my vote for the biggest understatement of the year. I have always said Mendocino County was about 20 years behind Sonoma and maybe 40 years behind Napa in prestige. Now, I’m definitely sure it’s backwoods and trying to get a century behind us.
It doesn’t have to look all the way down to Lodi for an example of what a commission can do. Look in your front yard you knuckleheads—at Sonoma County. I’ll grant that we too were a little slow and failed in our first attempt at getting a commission. I personally spent hundreds of hours with a few other forward-thinking growers and a few wineries, and felt very rejected when it failed to pass. Finally, a few years later, it did pass and, to prove its worth, it was recently overwhelmingly voted to continue. I’ll grant that getting wineries and growers together is very difficult, to say the least, but we’re living proof that it can be done. Growers defeated the Mendocino commission, so now they can go back and firmly wedge their heads between their legs again and wait for the fairy godmother to miraculously sprinkle Mendo dust over all wine drinkers.
A major grower complaint was that they felt that it was “taxation without representation.” Why did they expect this very young commission to perform miracles? It was supposed to take an unknown product (and many wines had a negative reputation) and suddenly make the county known for great wines. First, it needs the great wines to start with, and that’s a grower and winery problem. It has no name recognition off the coast, no unified voice, and a grower-vintner divide that makes the Grand Canyon look small. It desperately needs to build awareness, branding and PR, which will never happen without some unity in the ranks. The fact that 80 percent of its fruit leaves the county and never sees a Mendocino appellation may only prove that its fruit is only good for blending with a better grape. So the life-long marketing problem of any commodity strikes again: How do you build consumer awareness without a product to use? One answer is you don’t, as long as you stay divided.
As I’ve said for years, short of the funny-looking tomato plant popularity, our northern neighbor will continue to live in the 18th century and let all its good fruit head south to be lost altogether. How do you build brand awareness without a product to do it with? It may also prove my old adage that grower-farmers are good at agriculture but certainly slept through the business classes. One grower complained that it cost $7,500 per year dues (a large grower), or $625 per month. I have trouble believing that, by itself, it will get much brand awareness—especially since it doesn’t have a winery.
Please forgive me Mendocino County, but I can only sympathize with you wishing to remain back country for several more years. As they say in Los Angeles, or everywhere else too, “Where and what is Mendocino County?” Is that like “think green” but not red, white or rosé? Maybe you could drink a couple bottles of Mendo wines—if you can find them—for your homework assignment.
