Generations on the Land: A Conservation Legacy

Chapter 6 LangeTwins Winery and Vineyards

ChApter 6 Langetwins Winery and vineyards As committed ambassadors of environmentally responsible, economically savvy and socially equitable land management practices, the Lange family of LangeTwins Winery and Vineyards in Lodi, California has power in numbers. To ensure a thriving business and environment for years to come, the Twins (brothers Randy and Brad, along with their spouses, Char and Susan) have successfully, as Virginia farmer Joel Salatin puts it, “romanced the next generation.”The fifth generation of cousins has returned to Lodi to help shape the family business.They return to land originally brought under Lange care by their great-great-grandparents—and none of them would rather be anywhere else. Applying lessons learned from running a multi-generational family farm, the Langes are influencing a cleaner, greener direction for the wine industry. Community leadership, information sharing, and a pioneering spirit are all key to this process. From wildlife habitat and water conservation, to renewable energy production and integrated pest management, the Langes lead by example and readily share the successes and challenges of their ongoing efforts to redefine “business as usual” in the Golden State and beyond. As the executive director of a non-profit organization that partners with the private sector to identify and implement environmental solutions that make economic sense, I greatly respect the Langes’ “can-do” approach to land ChApter 6 [ 66 ] stewardship and business problem solving. By growing partnerships—at the dinner table, on the farm, and in the board room—the Langes bolster not only their own, but also their neighbors’ and fellow industry members’ ability to address natural resource constraints, engage in restoration projects, and turn a profit. Win-win-wins for wildlife, human health, and agriculture—power in numbers indeed. —ashley Boren, executive Director, sustainable conservation [ 67 ] this is peak period, this is payday,” Brad Lange half-shouted as he swiveled around in his office chair, appearing lean, intense, and animated all at once. although the morning sun had barely broken over the horizon, he had already made a run out to the fields to check on the grape harvest before returning to the office to determine exactly where his trucks, mechanical harvesters, and workers needed to be, analyzed a computer spreadsheet to determine irrigation schedules, and fixed a broken water pump. as his walkie-talkie squawked with the voices of five supervisors coordinating machines and work crews, Brad simultaneously engaged in discussions with his nephew, aaron, who was Vineyard (courtesy Langetwins Winery and Vineyards) “ ChApter 6 [ 68 ] reaching the end of his twelve-hour shift overseeing the harvest,and with his co-manager kelly Brakel. His urgency spoke to the task at hand: managing twenty vineyards comprising 7,000 acres spread across fifty miles, multitasking and juggling all the way. “You’re witnessing a family that works together and plays together,” he enthused, as he clicked on the walkie-talkie to bark a response before resuming the conversation. “our family is not in this business by accident.” Harvest time was crunch time around the Langetwins vineyards, as it has been ever since Brad and Randy Langes’ grandfather, albert, switched from dry-land farming melons to grapes in 1916. the twins, 58, are the great-grandchildren of johann and Maria Lange, who left Germany in the 1870s to seek a better life in Lodi, where they started off farming melons on a small patch of land. every Lange since then has known that all hands are on deck and on call from the middle of august to october every year when the harvest comes in. Modern times are no different, but now the round-the-clock harvest is more intense:giant,noisy,twenty-foot-tall mechanized harvesters shake the trellised vines and pick the grapes in the very early morning, when the temperatures are coolest. after the grapes are separated from the vine comes the critical morning hours of loading six tons of grapes into bins on flatbed trailers waiting in the field, then hitching the trailers to semi trucks to haul the load to the winery, where the grapes are dumped onto a conveyor belt, separated, and then crushed before going into fermentation tanks and aging casks—and eventually becoming fine wine. Brad’s role in this complicated process at this particular moment was making sure harvesters weren’t idling because they had nowhere to dump their grapes. over the course of eight weeks,anywhere from 40,000 to 55...