Latino stars in winemaking - LL Focus

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Dec, 2003 by Jorge Ferraez

Wine is becoming every day more common on the American table. The past 30 years have been paramount to the American wine industry, and we'll probably see ad campaigns promoting wine as an authentic American product that's been around for a while. And if wine is as American as apple pie, everyday more Latinos are not just picking grapes and doing fieldwork, but having positions of greater responsibility and significance inside big wineries. These men and women are occupying positions once reserved for others with high enology degrees or even European training, which means that nowadays many Latinos are in charge of crafting artisan wines, blending beautiful wines, and building reputations for their wineries and lot themselves.

Some three years ago we were touring the Napa Valley and discovered a wonderful man who showed us the value of Latinos in the wine industry: Bulmaro Montes. At that time Bulmaro was the vineyard manager for Joseph Phelps; he helped the winery to produce excellent fruit for its outstanding wines and find new vineyards to increase its production. At that time Bulmaro was working not only for the winery but building a reputation for himself and becoming a role model for many other Latinos in the industry.

Today things have changed: more Latinos are working in key positions, Hispanic winegrowers have developed their own wines and labels, and even Latino winemakers have arisen as commanders of their own wines, navigating the complex, competing, and capricious sea of the US wine market.

Wine consumption is entering a new era. Far behind are the habits of drinking milk or Coca-Cola with our meals. Wine is getting common in restaurants as well as on home dinner tables. According to The US Wine Market: Impact Databank Review and Forecast, 2003 Edition, wine consumption in the US increased six percent last year. But not only quantity matters; quality is another face of this emerging phenomenon: high quality wine is being sold more frequently now, despite American wine being priced too high compared with equivalent quality wine imports from Europe, Chile, Australia, and other southern hemisphere countries.

Markets are evolving, the industry is evolving, and the role of Latinos in wine, not only making it but drinking it, is evolving too. The following wineries and their leaders stood out during our own research. These leaders are role models in what they're doing for the American wine industry.

Schramsberg; the original American "champagne"

Comparisons are terrible: the French hate other sparkling wines being labeled as "Champagne," and the American wine industry has honored the term California Sparkling Wine due to its quality bubblies. Perhaps Schramsberg is the quintessential American sparkling wine. Established in 1862 by one of the first wine barons of in region, Jacob Schram built the beautiful Manor House, now the distinctive heart of the vineyards. It was given a boost by Jamie and Jack Davies in the mid 60s. This house has been devoted to producing the best sparkling wine in California. As a family-owned business the Davises built a staff and trained it with passion: one example is Ramon Viera, who was trained personally by "the patron" (Jack) 28 years ago, and now he is the new patron who as a master riddler (the one who turns the bottles in the traditional champenoise method) has the last word in production matters fox" Schramsberg.

Ramon was born in Michoacan, Mexico, and came to the US as a field worker and to play soccer: "I was working hard, cleaning chicken mess in the farm, but I managed to spend some time playing soccer for the Napa Rangers, a local soccer team. It was there I got to know people who were working for Schramsberg and invited me to work in the winery." Ramon soon became a disciple of Davies, who taught him the French method of making champagne, including the fastidious and chronometrical job of turning the bottles by 1/8 every few days in order to let the residues sit at the top of the bottle. "At the beginning I could turn 5,000 bottles per day, then I reed to turn 48,000 per day. Now we have turning machines that do 40% of the job, but for the premium wines I'm still doing them by hand. This is part of the reason for the high quality of our wines--the passion and commitment I have for all I do." Ramon keeps supervising the processes, trains new riddles, and has the last word with the winemaker when production issues come up, but when he finishes turning his daily bottles by 2 or 3 pm, he walks the winery to assure himself everything is working just fine. "I love my job," he ,says. "I know we're doing the finest sparkling wine in the region. No one else keeps turning by hand but us, and I feel proud, because making wine is an artisan process, and the human hand adds a special, sometimes magical, ingredient to the wine.

Recently J. Schram the premium sparkling of Schramsberg has been tasted by experts and rated second best, just after Roederer Cristal (French Champagne) but above great French legends, such as "Fleur de Champagne" from Perrier-Jouet and Dom Perignon from Moet et Chandon. The winery has been the standard bubbly for the White House for 31 years, having been served to Mexico President Vicente Fox and taken all the way to China by President Nixon to entertain Man Tse Tung.