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santa bar bara develo ps wineries g 91 of the family, Parker plunged into the industry and hired Jedd Steele, 1991 International Winemaker of the Year, as their winemaking consultant. After an arduous struggle with the county board of supervisors the Parkers constructed a 11,700-square-foot winery with a separate 4,800-squarefoot wine storage building adjacent to a newly planted 60-acre vineyard. Santa Barbara Niche Wineries of the 1980s The great majority of new wineries during this era developed as small artisan facilities designed to ferret out a niche in a growing national and international wine marketplace. Most could be found in the Santa Ynez Valley , though they relied on winegrapes from the adjoining Santa Maria Valley. This eclectic group of wineries varied from cooperatives to small artisan wine businesses and independent winemakers. cooperatives. One way to form a competitive winery, some concluded , was to bring small growers together in one location to produce their own labels while sharing equipment, staff, and facilities. Continued uncertainty in grape markets in 1976 convinced eight Santa Barbara County vineyard owners to form the Los Vineros (“the vineyard owners” in Spanish) Cooperative Winery. The co-op owners comprised Uriel Nielson , BobWoods, George Ott, Eric Caldwell, CharlotteYoung, Boyd Bettencourt , Bill Davidge, and Dean Davidge. California had a history of such wine co-ops going back to the 1950s.38 Industry watchers at the time touted the ability of these cooperatives to secure large loans, receive tax breaks, and procure grape contracts for their members. In 1976 Los Vineros opened its facility in Santa Maria and formed a partnership whereby each member owned his or her own vineyards and was tied to the winery by right of first refusal. They agreed that all cooperative-produced wines were to be blended from members’ fruit so as not to favor one vineyard over another. The hopeful founders built a substantial facility, bonded the winery, and custom crushed and cellared Los Vineros labeled wines with the help of winemakers such as Bob Lindquist, MaryVigeroso, and Jim Clendenen. In 1977 the winery took the valley’s first gold medal at the Orange County Fair. Despite the optimistic beginning the winery failed in 1985. In the words of Ernest Gallo, “By its nature, a cooperative was primarily a pro- 92 h salud ! ducer, not a marketer.” His brother Julio Gallo saw co-ops as an “honest attempt by growers to bring some stability to the grape industry . . . but co-ops were not the answer.”39 Los Vineros Winery confirmed the reflections of the Gallo brothers—it lacked a marketing program. Bettencourt agreed when he confirmed that “farmers are great people about growing things and so forth, but they are not marketers.”40 In the late 1980s a second and more successful Santa Barbara cooperative enterprise opened when numerous local and state winemakers made reputations for themselves on the 600-acre Bien Nacido Vineyard. The vineyard’s owners, Bob and Steve Miller, designed a style of “custom growing ” winegrapes for individual winemakers. Local independent winemakers like Jim Clendenen and Bob Lindquist were so successful with the Bien Nacido grapes that the Miller brothers constructed the Central Coast Wine Warehouse facility for their use. Thus, small winemakers secured grapes, grape growers secured contacts, and wine enthusiasts consumed the premium wines made under Au Bon Climat (“the good climate”), Brandborg Cellars, Caparone, Chansa Cellars, Gary FarrelWines, Hitching Post, Lane Tanner, Page Mill, Qupé, Richard LongoriaWines, SteeleWines, and Whitcraft Winery labels, to name a few.41 artisan wine businesses. During the 1970s and 1980s a variety of individuals established themselves in wineries. The cultural mystique of wine and its association with the good life have historically made this an attractive avocation. In Santa Ynez Valley professionals such as doctors, dentist, lawyers, and entrepreneurs responded to the primal lure of the land and established artisan wineries (usually producing under 10,000 cases) on small vineyards in the valley.42 In 1977 J. Campbell Carey, James Campbell Carey, and Joseph Carey (all practicing physicians) formed a family corporation and purchased the twenty-five-acre McGowan La Questa vineyard. The Careys dreamed of establishing a family winery that could provide retirement opportunities and a business to hand down to future generations. They converted the ranch’s old dairy milking barn into a winery and augmented their grapes with Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the adjoining fortyacre Adobe Canyon Vineyard.43 [3.12.71.237] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 04...

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