Fetzers move forward

Jim Fetzer remembers cooking meals over a Coleman stove with his late father, Barney, in an abandoned house in the wilds of Redwood Valley circa 1958. Jim’s two older brothers, John and Joe, were there too. They’d wake up in the pitch black of night to hear rats tearing up the attic above their heads.

It’s a scenario detailed in a letter from his father found after his death, recalling the elder Fetzer’s gut-wrenching decision to buy the ruined house and its surrounding 720 acres.

At the time, Jim’s mother, Kathleen, was expecting her eighth child. There would be 11 Fetzer children in the end, just about all of whom continue to this day to share a common set of values rooted in the Northern California land they grew up cultivating and revering: stick together, grow your own, and respect nature’s ways.

The Fetzers — Barney and Kathleen, and their six boys (John, Joe, Jim, Richard, Bobby and Dan) and five girls (Kathleen, Patti, Mary, Diana and Teresa) — eventually turned that early promise into a wine empire, Fetzer Vineyards, which was officially launched from their modest land in 1968.

When Barney died of a heart attack in 1981, the Fetzer winery was making an impressive 2,000 or so cases a year of finely crafted, fairly priced wine.

“In the early days we all worked every aspect of the business, from picking grapes in the vineyards to winery work and marketing,” Patti Fetzer recalled. “On a given day I might go from bookkeeping to topping barrels in the cellar to the bottling line. When a 40-foot semi pulled up to the dock, my younger sister, Mary, and I would hop on the forklift and load the truck.

“Eventually, with the help of my dad, we all found our niches in the business,” she continued. “He encouraged me to focus on design and marketing; I created the calligraphy on Fetzer’s first labels.”

The kids, with strong work ethics firmly instilled, took their father’s vision further,turning Fetzer into a2-million-case-per-year powerhouse and Mendocino County’slargest winery. Along the way, with visionary winemaker and company president Paul Dolan in the mix, they also launched Bonterra, a line of wines made from 100 percent organically grown grapes.

Kentucky-based Brown-Forman came calling in 1992, paying a reported $82million for the Fetzer name and its signature property at Valley Oaks. The family held on to most of the remaining vineyards (1,000 acres or so), meadows, homesteads and memories.

Respecting an almost decade-long no-compete clause, the Fetzer clan stayed local and stayed quiet, intermingled in each other’slives yet eager to each carve out their own piece of the world.

“They’re pretty dynamic,” said Kenwood Vineyards’founding winemaker, Mike Lee, whohas workedsince 2005 with Patti Fetzer on her sauvignon blanc brand, Patianna Organic.

“John Fetzer was at my wedding when I got married in the tasting room at Kenwood in 1973. I’ve always known the Fetzers.They’re good people, they’re builders, they don’t sit around,” Lee said.

Patti Fetzer owns a 126-acre property along the Russian River in Hopland, where grapes have been certified both organic and biodynamic.

Eldest brother John has Saracina Winery, which is also in Hopland and organic. Next door is Jeriko Estate, home to Danny, the youngest Fetzer.It’sorganic, too.

Joe Fetzer grows grapes on a property tucked behind his two brothers’ acreage, while sister Teresa grows grapes and makes wine less visibly under the name Oster, her married name. Mary, who used to work innational sales for Fetzer, maintains a vineyard called Haiku (Ukiah spelled backwards), near sister Diana’sGhionda Rose property, which is also near a plot of land that Diana and husband Paul Dolan own, Dark Horse Vineyards.

Not as involved in the wine business are eldest Fetzer sibling Kathleen, who runs the Fetzer Family Foundation, and Richard, who has found thatraising cattle is more his calling. Bobby Fetzer’sMasut Vineyardscarries on despite his death in a rafting accident in 2006; sons Jake and Ben and wife Sheila continue to produce biodynamic wines and organic grass-fed beef.

Among the grander visions is Ceago Vinegarden, Jim Fetzer’smajestic eco-agritourism temple laid out on a former walnut orchard on the shores of Clear Lake.

“The soils are really deep, really rich,” he explained about why this spot spoke to him viticulturally. “I knew the soil was in really good shape. We’re about 1,300 feet elevation, that’sup above Mendocino Ridge. Everything in Lake County’srelatively high; and we have no fog in the summer because it can’t get over the mountains.”

The first Fetzer to visibly plant stakes beyond Mendocino County, Jim sees Ceago not only as a tourist draw, with tasting room and eventual luxury accommodations and marquee restaurant, but as a showcase for biodynamic farming. It’sa concepthe embraces wholeheartedly, as do many of his siblings, not to mention former colleague and current brother-in-law Paul Dolan.

“I first came here in 2001,”Fetzer said from Ceago. “My idea was to kind of retire, but here we are. I decided I wanted to build a biodynamic farm that people could come to and walk around and get a sense of what (biodynamic farming) is. It’sso mystical.”

But not just a biodynamic farm, with its attendant grapes and olives and lavender and recycled palm trees and sheep and chickens, all of which are there now. Long-term, Fetzer envisions building a biodynamic resort, with a hotel, spa and restaurant as well as posh units people could themselves own either lakeside or amid his hillside vineyards.

Fetzer said he got most of his ideas from atop a tractor as he was shaping the pieces of land that would become Ceago. He then traveled in Mexico, Spain and France to find inspiration for Ceago’sphysical look and feel. His creation is so unlike anything else on Clear Lake that visitors flock by boat to visit the tasting room, picnic or roam through the lavender fields; seaplanes can land here, too.

“Most people have no idea where food comes from in their daily life,” Fetzer said. “And the aspect of biodynamic farming and the influences of the cosmic, lunar and solar forces; people are just enamored.

“Eighty years ago, everybody was pretty much farming that way,” he added.

“I think we’re seeing that movement come back. There’sa balance, bringing back the old technology but incorporating the new technology.”