During the late 1970s, vintners were pushing the envelope by using California mountain fruit and American oak barrels to pursue “monster” wines. The wines were tannic blockbusters, with highly extracted fruit and dark color. But the wines were often high in alcohol—at the extreme they reached 17 percent. I, too, experimented by producing many bottles in this intense style. When the wines aged a bit and the fruitiness of the young wine dissipated, I ended up with cough syrup and toothpicks. However, what I learned was that mountain conditions could enable fruit to attractively ripen without necessarily developing high sugar levels.

Growing above the morning cloud layer rolling off the Pacific Ocean, the vines enjoy at least 45 minutes more sunshine every day than in other coastal locations. This permits the fruit to ripen beautifully. The cooler air at this higher elevation allows the vines to maintain a proper equilibrium between sugar and acid. These mountain conditions also create the opportunity to make an elegant, balanced wine with moderate alcohol levels—a wine that is an authentic complement to food.

Organic Iconoclast
In 1989, we set out to apply this hard-won experience and create a world-class wine using mountain fruit. We wanted a wine that could compete with the best in the world—and one produced with sustainable, organic farming methods. At the time, people thought I was really loopy. Making truly world-class wines had never been accomplished using organic methods. Moreover, successfully employing organic methods in the “wild” mountains was completely unproven. Even today many people still think I’m loopy. However, I am not some guy in a tie-dye T-shirt pursuing an alternative philosophy. We have a mission to demonstrate that sustainable, organic farming creates a socially responsible work environment, and that our methods create products with higher quality, at lower cost, with actual consumer benefit. We are not engaged in philanthropy for foodies. We are proving that our techniques are an economically viable approach with high-quality results for our customers, our employees, our neighbors and our land.

But making our point will take a long time. I’m still considered the new kid on the block. We always laugh at that, because we launched our venture more than 15 years ago, and I’ve been making wine since 1971. We have now produced 10 vintages at Long Meadow Ranch, but in the wine business it takes at least 20 years to develop a reputation. If you have designs on crafting a fine red wine, eight years will pass from the time you first break ground until your first bottle is on the market. Then the wine will need to age for several more years before anyone can really assess it. After 15 long years, we are just now entering the period when people can really judge our success.

“OUR FARM has literally hundreds of interrelated loops that operate in a virtuous cycle of life. It’s simply a return to a centuries-old system of family farming that was continually self-sustaining.”

At Long Meadow Ranch we rely on an integrated, sustainable, organic farming system to accomplish our goals. The ranch is a tightly interwoven system of interrelationships. We produce grapes and wine, olives and olive oil, grass-fed Scotch Highland beef, vegetables, eggs and flowers. We even breed Appaloosa horses. Each part of the system contributes to the whole. For example, producing grapes and olive oil together creates many shared benefits. We harvest grapes in September and October, and we harvest olives in November, December and January. Then we prune grapes in late January and February, and we prune olives in March and April. By May we are back working in the vineyards, suckering and performing weed control. Because these two principal crops are so complementary over the course of a year, this creates a level workload for our farmhands. Thus we don’t rely on seasonal farm workers: We suffer no seasonal turnover, no loss of valuable training and no uncertainty about whether someone is going to show up next season.

By producing both grapes and olives, we can use the same picking equipment (bins, trailers and tractors) for two crops instead of one, creating capital efficiency. Similarly, the combined wine and olive oil processing facility shares a boiler and various tanks, hoses and clamps. That’s another layer of resourcefulness.

“WE ARE not engaged in philanthropy for foodies. We are proving that our techniques are an economically viable approach with high-quality results.”

We also enjoy marketing efficiencies. We fervently believe that wine is food, not something to be sniffed, spit and evaluated. Because we produce outstanding organic olive oil, beef, eggs and vegetables, we can approach the market place as a purveyor of fine food—not as a wine salesperson. So we enjoy marketing synergies unavailable to a mere winery. I’m the only guy in America who can walk into a fine restaurant such as Gotham Bar and Grill in New York City and sell both wine and olive oil. When closer to home, I can offer vegetables, beef and eggs, too.

Fertile Synergy
Our approach creates many other opportunities. Wineries create waste (for example, pomace and stems), which they usually pay to have removed. Then they have to buy fertilizer. We skip both steps. Because we create a by-product of olive oil that is very high in nitrogen (an essential ingredient for composting), we were able to produce 300 tons of our own compost last year. We used it to fertilize our vineyards, orchards and vegetable fields. Over and over again we enjoy capital efficiency, labor efficiency and marketing synergy, all of which lead to lower costs.

Our vegetable operation is yet another example. Last year we raised 60 varieties of rare heirloom tomatoes, sunflowers, basil, beans, corn and other vegetables. We’ll take our really beautiful tomatoes and sell them to fine restaurants. One of our best customers in Napa Valley is the chef at Auberge du Soleil. We’ll take the tomatoes that aren’t quite top-notch and sell them at our roadside stand or at the farmers’ market. Our third-class tomatoes are sold to a great little drive-in restaurant, where they’re made into gazpacho. If the tomatoes aren’t good enough for that, they are fed to our organic chickens. Because they eat fabulous tomatoes and veggies, the chickens lay spectacular eggs with yolks almost neon-like in their color. We then get to sell the eggs to Auberge du Soleil.

There are even more efficiencies here. Because we raise our poultry near our vegetable fields, we have no cost for poultry feed—we feed them our leftover vegetables. When the crop season is over, we have mounds of organic matter (old pumpkin vines, dead tomato plants, etc.) that go into a nearby compost pile. Here we use chicken manure as the source of essential nitrogen. When spring arrives, the compost is ready to go back on the field as fertilizer.

Our integrated system also enables us to sustain and regenerate our land. Our land is alive. We don’t use herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers. We make extensive use of cover crops, which provide nitrogen to the soil, prevent erosion and create habitats for beneficial insects. The helpful insects, such as ladybugs, manage the pests. By creating topsoil, eliminating erosion and protecting the diversity of species, we are constantly improving the biological community on our property.

Our farm has literally hundreds of interrelated loops that operate in a virtuous cycle of life. It’s simply a return to a centuries-old system of family farming that was continually self-sustaining. Every element in our ranch makes a positive contribution to the whole. If I would stop producing olive oil, ironically it would raise the cost of producing wine, and vice versa.

The most satisfying thing we do is to foster imitators, and we are beginning to see more of them. Altering farming methods, however, is a slow process. Moving toward sustainable, organic farming is a long-term process. Nevertheless, I am convinced that at least one-quarter of Napa Valley vineyards will be organic in 10 years; only 4 percent to 5 percent are now. Maybe a handful will also raise something other than grapes. We’re proving that this works. I’m optimistic about the future.