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G ra P e G r O W i NG G ra P e G r O W i NG Grapegrower Interview Patti Fetzer P Organic growing in Mendocino County By Laurie Daniel CaLiFOrNia atti Fetzer grew up in the wine business. Her late father, Barney Fetzer, founded Fetzer Vineyards in Mendocino County in 1968, and Patti and her 10 siblings worked in all areas of the business. After the family sold the business in 1992, she remained in the industry, eventually founding Patianna Organic Vineyards outside Hopland, Calif., in 2003. Her 126-acre property, in the Fetzer family since 1983, has been cer- tified organic since 1987. About 75 acres are planted to Sauvignon Blanc and Char- donnay. Fetzer has been married since 2006 to Gregg Hileman, who worked at Fetzer's Valley Oaks facility in the 1980s and is general manager of Patianna. Wines & Vines: The Fetzers have long been proponents of organic viticulture. How did your family get interested in growing organically? Patti Fetzer: My 10 sisters and brothers and I grew up on our family's 720-acre Home Ranch in Mendocino County's Redwood Valley. My parents, Barney and Kathleen Fetzer, purchased the property in 1958. We were country kids with lots of freedom to roam after our chores were done, so we developed a deep appreciation for nature. My family was self-sufficient, and we all worked on the property, where we raised sheep, milk cows (for butter, cream, cheese and ice cream), horses, chick- ens, pigs, ducks and peacocks. Our huge garden supplied fresh fruits and vegetables. My mother ground her own wheat and baked 18 loaves of bread every other day. When my father decided to get into the wine business, we got rid of our livestock 70 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2011 CALIFORNIA Mendocino Fetzer's vineyard abuts land owned by her siblings. and focused on grapes and winemaking. Our first commercial vintage was 1968: 2,500 cases of red table wine. We were the vineyard and winery crew—complete- ly family-run and self-sufficient. My father and mother taught us to take care of the land so the land would take care of us. In the early years, when pesticides and herbicides were introduced to farming, we farmed conventionally. But we noticed a change in the landscape: fewer birds, no salamanders in the creeks, few butterflies. So in the 1980s we began to farm organically. My brother Jim spearheaded organic farming in the vine- yards. In 1984 we purchased the Valley Oaks Ranch, one mile east of Hopland. Along with new vineyards, we developed a food and wine center for entertaining and educating the wine trade. Jim brought in a famous organic farmer, Michael Maltus, to develop a five-acre organic garden with over 1,000 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers. Farming organically was a natural progression of how we lived and what we believed. W&V: After your family sold Fetzer Vineyards to Brown-Forman, why did you decide to stay in the wine industry? Did you always want to continue the organic mission that your family had advocated? Fetzer: When my father passed away suddenly in 1981, Fetzer was produc- ing just over 250,000 cases of wine. My family gathered around the dinner table Pacific Ocean Hopland Patianna Organic Vineyards Santa Rosa San Francisco and decided to keep going and build on father's legacy. By the time we sold the brand and one of our properties with a winery in 1992, we were producing more than 2.2 million cases. We sold our name and signed a non-compete agreement, but we kept our vineyards. At first we farmed collectively, and then, in 1997, we divided the family holdings. I chose the old Largo Ranch, a 126-acre piece that borders the Russian River just east of Hopland. My sister Mary took a ranch just north of me, and my sister Diana took one to the south. Brothers Dan, Joe and John own land to the west. Growing up immersed in the wine business, it became a way of life for my family; I like to say it's in our blood. While building the Fetzer brand, I did virtually every task from vineyard and cellar work to office bookkeeping to load- ing semi-trucks in the warehouse, but my specialty became marketing and graphic design. I was VP of marketing services when we sold the brand. When I launched the Patianna brand with the 2003 vintage, I designed all of my packaging. It felt only natural to grow a business from the soil to the label on the table. QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1128g Hop NV OR