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National Geographic : 1979 May
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education for a nation with a growing taste for wine. The yearly adult per capita consumption of table wines in the U. S. has doubled in the past ten years to 1.7 gallons, and is predicted to grow at an even brisker rate in the kinds of wines produced by Napa Valley-the dry table wines made from the premium grape varieties. Napa County has leaped from fewer than 30 bonded wineries in 1971 to 70 in 1978, with applications for many more pending. Although the grape and wine in dustry employs only 2,600 people, it sur passes all other Napa industries in dollar value. It passed the cattle industry a few years ago, and it has forced prune and wal nut orchards to yield to new plantings that have brought total grape acres to 24,500. For me, this dynamic growth is centered in the small, family-run wineries. At Cha teau Chevalier, an old gem of stonework and stained glass, I found former stockbro ker Greg Bissonette and his wife, Kathy, picking the vineyard they have reclaimed from dense forest. Tasting their Cabernet, I found the same robust character that has brought the urban Bissonettes and their six children to challenge Spring Mountain. At Schramsberg Vineyards, Jack Davies took me through his champagne cellars, hewn deep into stone (page 715), as proudly as Jacob Schram had toured Robert Louis Stevenson through the same caves in 1880, the year the writer spent two months camp ing in an abandoned bunkhouse on the side of Mount St. Helena. Summer Nurtures the Arts As Joe Heitz (following page), one of Na pa's most respected wine makers told me: "Once you've been bitten by the wine bug, there isn't much cure." But there are alter natives. In the valley's creative environ ment the arts ferment quietly all year-the Napa Valley Symphony, musicales and jazz concerts in private homes, painting, and crafts. And in the summer they swell to in clude the tourists as the valley becomes a stage. There is Shakespeare at Vintage 1870; there are August Moon Concerts at Charles Krug Winery. At Robert Mondavi Winery I listened as the jazz flute of Herbie Mann reached out over a lawn transformed into an elegant campground and spread Napa, California'sValley of the Vine with feasts of cheese, pates, turkeys, and wine and champagne in ice buckets. "But the real Napa Valley," said artist Ve ronica di Rosa, "is the balance between pain and pleasure, the yoga principle of 'playing with your edge.' " She wanted me to see be yond the summer parties to the work and risk that give the good life its meaning. Her setting at Winery Lake is one of the valley's most enchanting-peacocks, bell-towered chateau, and modern sculpture scattered through the vineyard. But her husband, Rene, has chosen to play the critical edge of the valley-the southwestern Carneros region where the soil is thin and the weather cool, with perils of frost and of rains coming before the grapes are ripe. And he has planted heavily in Pinot Noir, the most difficult grape. As Rene stalked the vineyard, he kicked at a grape stake: "Look at this vine-18 years old! Not even one bowl of grapes!" But if a great Pinot Noir ever comes from Napa, it may be from Carneros grapes. "And," Rene said with a smile, "I like eking it out." Pain and pleasure are still finding their balance in the home of vineyard worker Raul Gadino and his wife, Maria. They live in housing provided free by the ranch that Raul works for, where the voices of the Mexican picking crew next door come through the thin walls. "Raul will make it. He works hard," Ra fael Rodriguez told me. He is the ranch gen eral manager and has worked the valley since 1944 (following page). "I see myself in Raul. When I came here the foreman said, 'I want a man who will work hard, be steady, and wants to drive a tractor.' Driving a trac tor! It was my dream! At that time the back breaking work was done by Mexicans. No one could touch a vine but an Italian." Then he laughed. "I finally taughtbudding, prun ing, and tractor maintenance to other young Mexicans!" Rafael is the only bracero ever to have been elected to the St. Helena School Board. His ranch-style house is a sign of the growing stability of the Mexican work force, 55 per cent of whom now live in the valley. For four years Rafael left the land to work for the California Grower Foundation, cre ated in 1972 by valley growers and wineries to stave off (Continuedon page 710) 705
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