Scarecrow Estate

10 FEMALE CALIFORNIA WINEMAKERS TO WATCH / The Golden State was one of the first pockets of the wine world to champion women winemakers, with the likes of Celia Welch and Merry Edwards blazing a trail for others to follow.

Today, 14% of the winemakers in Napa are women, which, while still far lower than it should be, is an encouraging sign of the turning tides in wine. Give it another decade and the figure will hopefully be far higher.

Many of the state’s most revered wines have been made by women – from the debut vintage of Screaming Eagle, crafted by Heidi Peterson Barrett, and modern-day ‘cult’ wine Scarecrow, made by Celia Welch, to Cathy Corison’s elegant Cabernets and the myriad wines made by the forward-thinking Helen Turley over the years.

We thought it was high time to celebrate the achievements of these wine pioneers, and at the same time highlight five women winemakers set to become the stars of the future, from Stephanie Terrizzi of Giornata, with beguiling Barbera from Paso Robles, to Helen Keplinger, who is shining a light on Rhône varieties with her highly sought-after single-vineyard wines.

Celia Welch

As a child growing up in Oregon, Celia Welch would sit under a giant oak in her back garden picking grapes from their stems for her winemaker father. During high school she dreamed of working as a perfume maker in France, but, after graduating from UC Davis with a degree in fermentation science, she fled to New Zealand and Australia’s Barossa Valley instead to gain valuable winemaking experience before returning to the Napa Valley to work at Silverado Vineyards. Moving to Robert Pepi winery in the early 90s, she went on to consult for a number of top Napa names during the 90s, including Staglin Family Vineyard.

Today Welch is responsible for California ‘cult’ wine Scarecrow. Launched in 2006, Scrarecrow’s debut 2003 vintage, made from old-vine Cabernet grown on a 10-hectare plot in Rutherford, was given 98 points by Robert Parker – a feat only bettered by Screaming Eagle. A year on, the 2004 vintage sold out in 16 hours. With just 400-800 cases produced annually, depending on the vintage, the wine has a celebrity following and commands healthy hammer prices at auction.

In 2004 Welch launched her own label, Corra, named after the Celtic goddess of prophecy, where she makes high-end Cabernet from grapes grown in Rutherford, Oakville and Pritchard Hill. Keen for her wines to bear the hallmarks of the land from which they came rather than the hand that made them, to retain the vineyard’s personality Welch picks earlier than many in Napa.

The wine she’s most proud of so far is the aforementioned Scarecrow 2003. “Even in barrel shortly after fermentation the wine was a knockout. I was tremendously proud that it presented itself with such beauty and complexity on release,” she says. “It’s such a thrill to take an existing vineyard and realise the quality that was there all along.”

Virginia Lambrix

Rising star Virginia Lambrix’s wine epiphany came during a holiday in South Africa shortly after graduating from Colgate University in New York with a degree in psychology. Her Damascus moment led to a change in career path from chemical ecology to winemaking. Getting her all-important oenology masters from UC Davis, Lambrix started out at Hendry Ranch in Napa, then took flight to Chile where she worked for Concha y Toro. While in Chile she developed a passion for biodynamics that has shaped her approach to grape growing.

Back in California, stints at Lynmar and De Loach in the Russian River Valley followed, where she fell in love with Chardonnay and, despite its fickle nature, Pinot Noir. Mentored by Greg La Follette at De Loach, Lambrix learnt to understand vineyards instinctively. Her big break came in 2008 when she joined Truett Hurst as a winemaker, adding a Russian River Valley Pinot to the portfolio.

She also makes single-vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay under her own VML label, and experiments with small parcels of Zinfandel and Gewürztraminer.

“In life, the biggest challenges offer the greatest rewards. This is what drew me to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay,” she says, describing her wines as “feminine and pretty with a fair amount of extraction and depth”. Her grape to watch in California is inky red Petite Sirah.

Cathy Corison

A voice of restraint in a land of ‘look at me’ wines, Cathy Corison has been single-handedly championing elegant, fresh, lower alcohol California Cabernet at her eponymous winery since she launched her own label in 1987.

Born in Riverside, Corison studied biology at Pomona College in Claremont, where she was forced to join the men’s diving team, as a women’s team didn’t exist. Studying oenology at UC Davis in the mid-70s at the same time as Rhône Ranger Randall Grahm, Corison was told by her professor that she’d struggle getting a winemaker job in Napa because she was a woman. Undeterred, she joined Freemark Abbey as an intern and worked her way up to the role of winemaker, then moved to Chappellet as chief winemaker, where she stayed for a decade.

Having also chalked up stints at Staglin Family Vineyard, York Creek Vineyards and Long Meadow Ranch, today Corison makes two Cabernets – a blend from sites near Rutherford, and a single-vineyard Cab from the organically farmed Kronos vineyard next to her winery, which boasts deep, stony alluvial soil.

Uncompromising and exacting in her ‘hands-off’ approach, Corison’s aim is to make terroir-driven “complex wines that walk the fine line between power and elegance” and have “a long and interesting life” ahead of them. So far, she is most proud of the 2001 vintage from her Kronos vineyard. “The fruit flavours are bright, natural acidity snappy and the tannins feel like velvet. This was the first vintage that made me realise what my vineyard could do,” she says.

Helen Keplinger

One of California’s most promising rising stars, Helen Keplinger developed a passion for wine at a young age, learning from her wine lover father, who gave her his empty bottles to collect. A love of geology also saw the young Keplinger collecting rocks – a sign of things to come in her future career as a winemaker, which began after she attained an oenology degree from UC Davis.

She cut her teeth alongside Heidi Peterson Barrett at Paradigm, where she worked her way up to become assistant winemaker, and has since chalked up stints at Cellers Melis in Priorat, Fort Ross, Sarocka, Scully, Arrow & Branch and Bryant Family Vineyards. Uniting with Peterson Barrett again in 2005 at Kenzo Estate, Keplinger’s latest project is her debut solo venture, Keplinger Wines, where she makes tiny quantities of a dozen different single-vineyard wines made from Rhône varieties sourced from all over California.

Describing wine as “an ever-changing time capsule”, Keplinger is clearly in love with her job. “Art, science and nature all come together dynamically in winemaking. I strive to make pure wines of power and grace that have a clear voice of terroir and vintage by responding to the curveballs of Mother Nature,” she says. Aspiring to run her own vineyard and winery, for now Keplinger is most proud of the 2007 vintage of her 100% Grenache called ‘N=1’, which she describes as “seamless, complex and beautiful – a unique treasure of the vintage.”

Stephanie Terrizzi

One to watch Stephanie Terrizzi fell in love with wine while working at a bar in Illinois, which inspired her to take her WSET sommelier exams and become a wine consultant for Sonoma County’s top restaurants, including Ca’Bianca.

Keen to get her hands dirty, after attaining an oenology degree from Fresno State, Terrizzi interned at a number of Napa and Sonoma wineries before becoming the vineyard manager of Luna Matta in Paso Robles, which specialises in Italian varieties.

A decade ago Stephanie launched her own wine project with her husband Brian called Giornata, working with Italian grapes planted at Luna Matta with the aim of making “balanced and subtle” Italian-inspired reds.

Using the same clones employed by Italy’s top producers, the pair have won plaudits for their Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Aglianico and Barbera, and would love to eventually export their wines to Italy. “Nebbiolo is the hardest grape to grow and the most mischievous in the cellar. It has taught me patience and has pushed my creativity to make it work,” she says, citing Trentino-based Elisabetta Foradori as her winemaking inspiration.

While looking after twin daughters, Terrizzi also finds time to consult for a number of local wineries and works with Brian on a side project called Broadside in collaboration with Chris Brockway of Broc Cellars. Looking ahead, she’s keen to be one of the first winemakers in California to make a Nerello Mascalese.

Heidi Peterson Barrett

Daughter of California wine pioneer Richard Peterson, Heidi Peterson Barrett is behind some of California’s most lusted after wines. Known as the “First Lady of wine”, her fate in the California vintners hall of fame was sealed when she produced the inaugural vintage of Screaming Eagle in 1992, which, on receiving a 99-point score from Robert Parker, thrusted both her and the wine into the spotlight. During her time at the estate she received five perfect 100-point scores from Parker.

Graduating from UC Davis in 1980, she has made balanced, elegant, age-worthy Cabernets for other big gun California estates, including Dalla Valle and Grace Family Vineyards. Her skills are in play at both Paradigm and Kenzo Estate, where she makes wine, along with Diamond Creek Vineyards and Niebaum-Coppola, who she consults for. Barrett achieves all this while running her own boutique label, La Sirena (meaning the mermaid) where she makes Cabernet, Grenache and a Syrah blend among other drops.

She is also half of one of California’s top winemaking power couples – her husband is Bo Barrett, chief winemaker at Château Montelena, which shot to fame in 1976 when its 1973 Chardonnay, made by Bo’s father Jim, trumped a number of top French wines to win first place among the whites in the historic Judgement of Paris tasting organised by English wine writer Steven Spurrier. The pair make Napa Cabernet together under the Barrett & Barrett label.

Helen Turley

The elusive Helen Turley is best known for bringing some of California’s most famous wines into the international spotlight. The Cornell graduate is at the helm of the revered 3.5-hectare Marcassin Vineyard (French for ‘young wild boar’) in the Sonoma Coast, which specialises in boutique botttlings of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir made in the Burgundian style. Known for being one step ahead of the game, she was an early champion of Sonoma Coast, planting vines there in 1991 at a time when most people considered it too cold for winemaking.

Working as chief winemaker for Turley Wine Cellars until 1995, she has consulted for the likes of California heavyweights Colgin, Kapcsandy and Bryant Family Vineyards. Starting out in the lab at Robert Mondavi Winery then moving to Chappellet, after a brief stint of making wine in Kentucky, Turley went on to become the founding winemaker of the Peter Michael Winery in Sonoma County, where she developed Les Pavots, Peter Michael’s flagship Bordeaux blend.

Helen’s winemaking philosophy is simple: meticulously farmed vineyards, limited yield, long hang time and natural yeast. She is currently writing a book about her experiences at Marcassin.

The scarecrow story begins in a patch of earth with a fabled past. The J.J. Cohn Estate, where Scarecrow grapes are born, borders what was once the legendary vineyard of Inglenook winemaker Gustave Niebaum, whose plantings blanketed more than 1,000 acres of the Napa Valley at the close of the 19th century.

John Daniel Jr. took the helm at Inglenook in 1939, determined to restore the label to pre-Prohibition standing and produce world-class Bordeaux-style wines. In 1945, Daniel convinced his neighbor, J.J. Cohn, to plant eighty acres of Cabernet vines on the 180-acre parcel Cohn had purchased a few years prior. The property served as a summer retreat for Cohn’s wife and their family. He had no ambitions to become a winemaker himself, but Daniel promised to buy his grapes, so Cohn planted vines. The rest, as they say, is history.

J.J. Cohn fruit figured prominently in Inglenook’s superlative Cabernet Sauvignons of the post-war era, and has more recently gone into wines of such renown as Opus One, Niebaum-Coppola, Duckhorn, Insignia and Etude.

J.J. Cohn Estate grapes are highly sought-after in part because Cohn bucked the trend, begun in the mid- 1960s, of replacing vines planted on St. George rootstock with the supposedly superior AxR#I hybrid. Over time, vines grafted onto this new stock proved highly vulnerable to phylloxera. But by then, virtually all of the old St. George vines in Napa had been destroyed. Only the original 1945 J.J. Cohn vines survived. These highly prized “Old Men” continue to produce uncommonly rich fruit—the hallmark of Scarecrow wine.

But the Scarecrow story doesn’t end there. This is more than a tale of enchanted ground and the exceptional wine that flows out of it. The Scarecrow story is a story, too, of an extraordinary family legacy. Joseph Judson Cohn was born in Harlem in 1895 to Russian immigrants. Cohn spent his childhood in dire poverty and never learned to prefer the taste of fresh bread over stale—even after he’d found great success in Hollywood.

A move west in the 1920s launched Cohn’s studio career. Highly resourceful and extremely capable, Cohn began as a bookkeeper, distinguished himself early and rose quickly through the ranks to become Chief of Production at MGM. His unofficial credo, “Nothing is impossible,” became the motto of his MGM staff. They knew him as a man who simply refused to take “No” for an answer.

During Hollywood’s golden age, Cohn was instrumental in the making of such film classics as Ben Hur, Gigi, Mutiny on the Bounty and, most beloved of all, The Wizard of Oz. Today, the Scarecrow label pays tribute to the endearing and indomitable character from that film. Scarecrow evokes a distinctly American agricultural icon and American optimism. And most importantly, Scarecrow honors the remarkable life of J.J. Cohn. Cohn lived to be 100 years old, spanning a defining century that he helped to shape. The people who labor with passion and conviction to bring you Scarecrow wine are proud to be part of his living legacy.

BRET LOPEZ, Proprietor

Born in Los Angeles in 1948 and catapulted at age fifteen into a career as a professional photographer, Bret grew up relishing vacations at his grandfather J.J. Cohn’s summer home in Rutherford. He has returned to the Napa Valley to honor his family heritage and to fulfill the promise of the J.J. Cohn Estate in the exceptional wine that is Scarecrow.

The only instruction Bret received from his photographer father as he began to shoot film was a piece of advice that took years to fully register: “Remember, it’s all just light.” Within a month of picking up a camera, he had sold his first photograph. It appeared on the cover of Los Angeles Home magazine, a Sunday supplement to the Los Angeles Times, and was the first of many the newspaper would buy. At age s sixteen, a staff assignment with Contemporary Records led to portraits of jazz greats Ray Brown, Ornette Coleman, Art Pepper, Chick Corea and many others. as shooting major ad campaigns. In 1986, he met Mimi DeBlasio and brought her in to work on an important print campaign for Honda motorcycles. They forged a remarkable partnership and worked together professionally until 1998, when he decided to quit com- mercial photography. It looked from the outside like he was at the height of his career, with a roster of regular clients that included Levis, Honda, Harley Davidson, Target, Chevrolet and Coca-Cola. But for Bret, the imper- sonality of the business had supplanted the joy of shooting pictures. So he stopped.

His meteoric career may have led him around the globe, but it wasn’t exactly conducive to establishing a strong sense of place. The one constant reminder of his roots—and the touchstone he’d always return to—was the J.J. Cohn Estate. Grandpa Joe’s was the place where Bret could lay claim to his own history. He has come home to Rutherford to celebrate that history in Scarecrow. And he is taking photographs again, in a studio he set up on the property. Because it really is all just light.