my practice in 1990 to join Jess and build our family wine company.” Sadly, Jess died in 2011, but not before
the family’s wineries, which now total some 40 across several countries, had started to reap significant success. Jess was inducted into the Vintners Hall of Fame in 2009 for “his outstanding contribution to the wine business” and was named Wine Enthusiast's Wine Person of the Year in its inaugural year, 2000. Barbara went on to receive that honour in her own right 13 years later. Today the company remains a family
business. “My three children, their spouses in some cases, my stepdaughter Jenny and her daughter are all involved,” said Barbara. “My son, Christopher, has a law degree and was really thinking of practising law – he clerked and did other things –but he realised the wine business is much more
“Vérité is meant to be aged. It is attractive when young but gets better with time!”
rewarding and so he came back into the wine business. “My daughter Katie still has writing aspirations – she wants to write the great American novel – but in the mean time she is focusing on sustainability and our environmental stewardship in California, juggling that with three very small kids. Meanwhile my other daughter Julia does more of the travelling – she is on the road quite a bit for the company.” Being a California winemaker brings
plenty of advantages but also some problems that are rarely encountered by French producers. “We lost some grapes in the October 2017 California wildfires so our 2017 vintage is going to be small for some of our Napa Cabernet wines, if at all. It wasn’t so much that the vines were damaged but we couldn’t get in to harvest in some vineyard properties. Grapes grew past optimal harvesting, resulting in lower yields in some mountain vineyards, although the vines are fine and still producing high quality fruit. “More importantly though, all of our teams were OK. Twenty-three people lost their homes in the fires but everyone was safe. It was pretty nasty; only seven miles away from home at one point – in Alexander Valley, Sonoma County – and it was travelling so fast.” Sustainability and saving water are
key issues for the modern winemaker and Barbara and her family are leading
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the way with some inspired programmes to get their production off the grid as much as possible. “We have cut our water intensity by more than 60% since 2008. We will reduce water usage further through water reuse efforts through micro-filtration, which cleans water for reuse multiple times within the winery and micro-irrigation in the vineyards. We don’t use a lot of water in the vineyard. We also store water on our vineyards using rainwater capture reservoirs, which has also helped to protect local fish species and control erosion. “Even during frost events we are not
using water so much as wind thanks to our investment in wind machines, which further reduces the water required to protect against frost. We have small wind machines in the vineyard which stops the frost from settling – they move the air around instead. “All of our vineyards in California and Oregon are certified sustainable through third party organisations, although in Australia they are using biodynamic and organic methods – using things like ground- up cow horn. It’s been very successful. Our biggest worry is the weeds, but we have a lot of lambs, ducks and chickens to eat them. “We are now starting to adopt practices
from our two properties in Australia throughout some of our estate vineyards in California. A lot of our lands are left to open space, so they’re pretty wild, we have a lot of coyote, and mountain lion. We even have bear. It’s a little hazardous. We have a lot of natural wild life on our properties that we have to manage.
“There is a mother black bear that tends to eat the best of the Cabernet Sauvignon every year and so she pretty much takes
GUARDS POLO CLUB OFFICIAL YEARBOOK 2019
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