The wine world's people

Wines & Vines, July, 1999 by Philip E. Hiaring, Larry Walker

P.E.H.

Richard (Dick) Graff. Dick Graff was musician, former Naval officer and Harvard College grad who rejuvenated Chalone Winery (now part of Chalone Wine Estates). Graff was a fancier of Burgundian wines and borrowed some of the French technique for Pinot noir he learned at Chalone, on the bleak Pinnacles in Monterey County. Graff would, on occasion, cut the electricity to the winery and hook it up to a pipe organ he had on the premises. He then would play music, mystifying more than a few valley dwellers. Dick Graff, with co-author Andre Tchelistcheff, wrote an article several years ago in Wines & Vines on the use of French oak barrels. If memory serves, said barrels set you back about $50 each.

P.E.H.

Randall Grahm. Dubbed the wizard of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Grahm, co-owner and winemaker at Bonny Doon Vineyards, has the happy combination of a talent for winemaking and also for promotion of those wines. His love of Rhone varieties was largely responsible for kicking off the growth of that category in California.

L.W.

Isabelle Simi Haigh. Often overlooked in California wine history, Haigh helped run Simi Winery in Sonoma County from the death of her father and uncle, Piertro and Guiseppe Simi in 1904 until she sold the winery in 1970. After her husband, Fred Haigh, died in 1954, she kept the winery going largely by selling older vintages (1935 Cabernet Sauvignon) from the tasting room.

L.W.

Alex and Louise Hargrave. The Hargraves planted the first winegrapes in the 20th century on Long Island in 1973 after buying a potato farm on the Island's North Fork. They reconditioned an old potato cellar as the winery and by the end of the 1970s, Hargrave wines had made a mark in the New York fine wine market.

L.W.

Scott Henry. Henry, a former aerospace engineer, first planted winegrapes in Oregon's Umpqua Valley in the early 1970s, an area where his family had been farming for over a century. His development of the Scott Henry trellis system has made him better known in the wine business than the Henry Estate Winery, which turns out very good wines.

L.W.

Hogue Family. The Hogue family began as hop farmers, moved into other crops and even ran cattle on their Yakima Valley estate, before establishing a small vineyard in the mid-1970s. Since then, Mike Hogue and his brother, Gary, have been key figures in establishing the high quality of Washington State wines. First-rate farmers, the Hogues also market top-quality vegetable products to round out the portfolio.

L.W.

The Korbels. Francis, Anton and Joseph Korbel came from Czechoslovakia to cut lumber in the Russian River area near Guerneville. When they cut down all the trees, they planted vineyard and made table wine, brandy (the tower) and champagne. Champagne production began in 1896 and today some one million cases are produced.

P.E.H.

Hanns Kornell. The late Hanns Kornell first picked grapes in his native Germany when he was four. He fled the Nazis and made champagne at Cook's in St. Louis for the American Wine Co. He bought the former Larkmead co-op facility and made such standout champagnes as his Sehr Trocken. He employed grapes other than Pinot noir and Chardonnay for his wines.