Grower Beckstoffer Is Still in the Vanguard

ST. HELENA, Calif. —  A couple of years ago, a Napa Valley winery owner was about to be seated at a table at the restaurant at Meadowood Country Club when she spied Andy Beckstoffer sitting at a nearby table.

She shuddered and asked to be moved across the room. “I can’t sit near him,” she said, irritated.

Andy Beckstoffer is a grape grower. And she is a winery owner. And never the twain, etc.

There has always been a dynamic tension between winery owners--those who buy grapes--and grape growers--those who sell them. But two years ago, Beckstoffer was considered by many wine makers to be the enemy. He had proposed a county ordinance that 75% of all Napa Valley wineries’ output be made from Napa Valley-grown grapes.

To some wineries, this was a high-handed move intended to line the pockets of the growers. To the growers it was a move intended to protect the Napa Valley from being inundated with giant winery buildings that processed grapes grown in Mojave or Modesto.

Beckstoffer still is amused by the controversy that proposal generated. He points out that the Napa Valley is still an agricultural community and to keep it that way, residents must protect themselves from entrepreneurs who could build huge wine-making facilities.

In fact, said Beckstoffer at the time, his proposal should be accepted by all wineries because they’d benefit. They could protect the image of Napa Valley wine by ensuring that a high percentage of top-quality grapes wound up in wine bottled here.

Mentioned during the controversy was Sutter Home Winery, the world’s largest producer of White Zinfandel. It was making some 3 million cases of wine, little of it coming from Napa Valley grapes, but the winery and a huge satellite plant a couple of miles away were here, using water, power, bringing in tourists. . ..

The county eventually adopted the ordinance, but said the 75% minimum applied only to future expansion; everyone existing at the time was grandfathered in.

The controversy, which pitted the upper-class, Mercedes-driving wineries against the jeans-wearing, pickup-driving growers, was not the first--or the last--that Andy Beckstoffer has been involved in, a fact he sort of likes.

Beckstoffer still has the drawl of his native Richmond, Va., but no one should underestimate him as a mere country boy. He’s one of the savviest businessmen around. The accent belies, for instance, the fact that he has an MBA from Dartmouth.

“Just because you’re a grower doesn’t mean you can’t be a good businessman,” Beckstoffer says. “We’re not a high-button-shoes-and-bib-overalls business any more. There are some bright people growing grapes.”

In an interview the other day in his office atop a converted Victorian home off Main Street, Beckstoffer explained why he decided about two years ago to become not just a grower but a wine maker too.

“Developing the Fremont Creek brand made sense in terms of our total business,” he said. “We are in the business of selling perishable fruit, and I needed another way to market that fruit.

“But also, as I spoke with wineries over the years, they told me of the trouble they had, troubles with marketing, and with regulation, and with taxation, and Prohibitionists, and they encouraged me to see what it was like, from their point of view.

“They said, ‘We want you to understand the problems.’ So I did.”

Beckstoffer said his company’s emphasis on the Fremont Creek brand of wines is minimal. Little more than 20,000 cases a year are made (under contract at Mendocino Vineyards), and his 1,500 acres of prime vineyard land could probably produce a half million cases of wine. “We don’t make much money on Fremont Creek,” he said.

The line is reasonably priced, including a Chardonnay and Cabernet under $10 a bottle and a Sauvignon Blanc at $6.50. He said the wines were made to be consumed young and aimed largely at wine-by-the-glass programs in restaurants, with the emphasis on fruit.

“We have the best fruit in the world, and if you don’t emphasize the fruit in your wine, you lose the competitive advantage. This is wine you can drink every night.”

It is unusual for a full-time grower as large as Beckstoffer to become a wine maker so late in the game. He owns 500 acres in the Napa Valley and another 1,000 acres in Mendocino County, and all told he manages more than 3,500 acres of California vineyard land, about 2,000 of it under contract to others.

Asked what bothers him most about the wine-making side of the business, Andy was candid: “I am shocked when someone will walk halfway across a room with an empty bottle and ask me to sign the label,” he said. “Being a wine maker can go to your head. It’s easy to get into the ego-building game, and the thing I fear the most is that that’s when the vineyard begins to get neglected.”

As a strong member of the California Assn. of Winegrape Growers (CAWG), Beckstoffer was one of the forces in favor of a marketing order to help develop California wine promotions. The last statewide marketing order that incorporated both wineries and growers was the Winegrowers of California, a three-year effort that collapsed in 1986 after a bitter and divisive vote.

That vote split almost evenly down the middle, growers versus wineries. The wineries were opposed. The wineries then went off on their own and voted in another marketing order, establishing the California Wine Commission. That project died in flames a few months ago when smaller wineries split off from larger wineries and challenged the way the commission was set up.

An acrimonious debate before the renewal election led to a defeat for the marketing order.

Beckstoffer just shakes his head when he mulls over the infighting that has split the industry so often.

“We’ve just got to be better businessmen and look past the petty bickering,” said Beckstoffer, pointing to numerous proposals now on the drawing board that would raise taxes on all wine significantly.

He was particularly upset over the Connelly Initiative, the so-called nickel-a-drink bill that could conceivably increase the price of a bottle of wine by dollars per bottle. He said such a bill could truly harm the small, premium winery operations.

As for the numerous attacks on wine over the last few years, Beckstoffer suggested a novel approach for all wine-related businesses. He suggested they ally under the American Farm Bureau.

“We need an agricultural organization, because this is an agricultural product,” he said. “And we are not an island. What affects us (the wine industry) affects them (other agricultural enterprises).”

Incidentally, Andy Beckstoffer isn’t disliked by many hereabouts any more. Now he’s seen as progressive and a defender of the soil. But there may be another political battle just around the bend.

Wine of the Week

1989 White Oak Chenin Blanc ($6.75) --Getting tired of all those high-alcohol Chardonnays that burn going down? Looking for something with a trace of residual sugar so the wine will still taste like something when its well chilled? Have I got the ticket for you. This off-dry (1% residual sugar) wine is fresh and floral with hints of melon and apple, and the taste sweet enough for those who don’t like bone-dry wine, but dry enough for connoisseurs. And the alcohol is under 12%. Try it with chicken or fruit salad, poached fish in cream sauce, or on a picnic. Chenin Blanc made this way--and this well--is a great hot-weather wine.