Visionaries from Mendocino County are looking to break down the walls between fine wine and craft beer in wine country. Don Barkley, a legend in U.S. craft brewing, left his post as master brewer at Ukiah-based Mendocino Brewing Co. in November and is preparing the inaugural releases this spring from a rare winery-brewery in south Napa.

At the tastings following the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, Mr. Barkley plans to release wheat beer, pale ale and amber ale under the label Napa Smith Brewing Co., named after the ownership, Napa mortgage broker Kathy Smith and her family. She acquired the former Hakusan sake winery at the intersection of highways 12 and 29 in March 2006.

Mr. Barkley, 53, said he made the move from Mendocino Brewing Co. to Napa Smith Brewing Co. to get back to his roots with his family, his brewmaking and his customers. He’s working with a 15-barrel batch brewery versus a 100-barrel one in Hopland. And he misses the feedback he used to get from customers before Mendocino Brewing Co. production facility was moved out of the Hopland brewpub to Ukiah in 1997.

“Jack McAuliffe’s favorite comment was winemakers are poets and beer makers are industrialists,” Mr. Barkley said about the iconic founder New Albion Brewery in Sonoma. “We’re going to see whether an industrialist can become a poet.” About 1,000 barrels of Napa Smith beer will be filled in 22-ounce bottles and marketed to local fine restaurants at about $4  each.

Sixty-five tons of winegrapes were crushed at the Smith winery last fall for an as-yet unnamed wine brand to be bottled this summer. Former project manager Robert Brittan has returned to winemaking consulting. The first brewmaster that had been lined up for the project, Denise Jones, now crafts batches at Moylan’s Pub & Brewery in Novato.

Mendocino Brewing’s brewing supervisor Don Tubbs is filling Mr. Barkley’s role at the moment. Mr. Barkley continues to advise the brewery on technical issues as master brewer emeritus.

Also looking to raise the profile of beer is wine-in-a-keg vintner MAS Wine Co. of Cloverdale. At press time, the startup virtual vintner planned to host beer distributor executives and salespeople from Northern California to a “Mardi MAS” berry-to-bottle education day Feb. 22 in Hopland at Jepson Winery, where MAS wines are blended.

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Barely a month after global wine and spirits giant Constellation Brands acquired several North Coast wineries and 1,500 local acres for $885 million, the company is said to be courting buyers for most of those brands and vines.

Constellation reportedly wants to keep the Clos Du Bois brand in Alexander Valley, which was the flagship brand in the Beam Wine Estates portfolio Constellation acquired from Fortune Brands in December.

Available for a total of $200 million purportedly are Geyser Peak in Geyserville, as well as Gary Farrell in Russian River Valley, Buena Vista in Sonoma Valley and 1,000 acres of vines.

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On the legislative and legal front, the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals issued a long-awaited decision on the Washington state direct-to-trade Costco vs. Hoen case mostly against Costco Wholesale, allowing the state’s ban on retailers’ central warehousing of alcoholic beverages, 10 percent markup, uniform wholesale pricing and restriction on discounts.

Ruled unconstitutional were Washington state’s post-and-hold and 30-day hold rules.

The same week as that ruling, the U.S. Tax & Trade Bureau closed the comment period on its proposed rule that would require a serving-facts statement on wine packaging about carbohydrates, calories and other details akin to what’s on food packaging.

The bureau kept extending the deadline on the rule because of a flood of comments. The Wine Institute, for example, called for voluntary labeling and use of typical values rather than analytical findings to avoid production delays.

On another bureau proposed rule, state Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, introduced Senate Joint Resolution 22, opposing the bureau’s proposed rules to establish the Calistoga subappellation and change the way subappellations in general are determined.

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Napa-based winery software developer Cultivate Systems acquired the Wine Business Engine direct-to-consumer software package from Boulder, Colo.-based Six88 Solutions for an undisclosed sum.

Wine Business Engine had been competing with Cultivate’s Internet-based software for managing direct-to-consumer sales in tasting rooms, wine clubs and online. Six88 will focus on the regulatory side of direct-to-consumer sales with its ShipCompliant product.

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Wine People

Austin Peterson was named assistant winemaker at St. Helena’s Ovid Vineyards, which this spring is releasing its first wine, a 2005 estate-grown red Bordeaux blend.

The state Pesticide Regulation Department awarded Laura Breyer of Breyer’s Vineyard IPM in Windsor an Integrated Pest Management Innovator award. She was one of eight winners this year and the only one in viticulture. Ms. Breyer has been teaching IPM, which seeks to reduce the use of toxic chemicals while controlling pests, for Sonoma County grower groups since 2001.

Twomey Cellars, the Duncan family’s sister vintner to Silver Oak Cellars, named Christina Pällman winemaker for Twomey’s wineries in Calistoga and Healdsburg. The family acquired the latter from Roshambo in mid-2007. Previously, she was winemaker at Fritz Winery in Cloverdale.

As the organization rolls out its marketing campaign, the Mendocino Winegrape & Wine Commission has appointed Stella Cadente Olive Oil Co. Sales and Marketing Director Julia Kendrick Conway as public member of the commission board. She has more than 25 years of experience in food marketing and event planning.

The Napa Valley wine industry said  good-bye to Schramsberg Vineyards & Cellars co-founder Jamie Davies. She died Feb. 12 at the Calistoga estate at the age of 73. She and husband, Jack, who died in 1998, revived the Schramsberg brand in the mid-1960s with a novel use of chardonnay in a new-world sparkling wine.

Jack Squires retired from Amorim Cork America after three decades in wine equipment and cork sales and marketing. He helped form and manage FP Portocork and later the local Amorim branch’s predecessor, Cork Associates.

Source: North Bay Business Journal

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