PD wine critic Peg Melnik: How I found myself in this agrarian paradise

“Behind the Byline” introduces you to those who write stories, shoot photos, design pages and edit the content we deliver in our print editions and on pressdemocrat.com. We’re more than journalists. As you’ll see, we’re also your neighbors with unique backgrounds and experiences who proudly call Sonoma County home.

Today, we introduce you to Peg Melnik, our wine critic.

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Sonoma County is rustic chic — part BMW, part Chevy pickup. It’s a quirky crossroads of the entrepreneur and the farmer. And despite the grim reality that parts of it are a fragile fire zone, most will never leave. They’ll always consider this agrarian cradle of grapes paradise.

I’m in this camp.

As a wine writer, I relish this chosen spot and remain steadfast, a reporter’s notebook in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. I love storytelling, capturing the people who bottle their genius and their irrepressible spirit along with their grapes. Like vines finding their way, I, too, have roamed a bit to find myself in this wine-growing culture.

I can trace my curiosity about people, politics and eventually wine to my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Ground, who unwittingly primed me to be reporter, asking questions for a living. I felt even more of a calling to journalism as I watched the Watergate hearings; That’s when I became a fan of hard-hitting reporters.

Studying journalism and English at the University of Illinois allowed me to work on the campus newspaper. My interest in knowing more about political journalism led me to pursue a master’s degree in public affairs reporting and an internship at the state capital in Springfield.

Once I headed west to California, I wrote my most daring story in the early 1990s. I trespassed on the property of what was then Pacific Lumber with Earth First activists to see Headwaters Forest.

Headwaters was the most political woods in California at the time because the company was logging virgin redwoods at an escalated pace. Environmentalists were irate. The Los Angeles Times published my story because it was an insider’s piece giving readers a peek at these endangered virgin redwoods, some with trunks the size of a two-car garage.

Not long after covering the story on the redwoods, I found my way to wine writing. You can’t live in Sonoma County without knowing who calls the shots — the grape, that bossy diva. I quickly became a fan of the diva and those with the relentless pursuit of eking out the best in Mother Nature. Studying at UC Davis helped educate my palate, and I continue to read books on wine, sipping steadily.

I never fully understood why I loved working at a newspaper so much until my former features editor — Corinne Asturias — gave me her sentiments. She once said, “Respectable newspapers are the crossroads of the smartest people you’ll ever meet and the most ethical.”

People have no idea how careful we journalists are with our words. Our first concern is accuracy, which then gets into the gray matter of context, all the while steering clear of conflict of interest.

I’ve had the opportunity to do so many compelling stories at The Press Democrat.

One of my favorites was a profile on Warren Winiarski, the vintner who shocked the world when his cabernet sauvignon beat the best of Bordeaux in the Paris Tasting of 1976. The nine judges — all French — were astonished to learn the American upstart was behind the bottling. Perhaps most disturbing, the grapes in his wine were groomed on three-year-old vines.

Well, the American upstart is now in his 90s, and one day, during the interview process, he grew weary of my barrage of questions. Knowing I had many more to ask, I knew we had to find some middle ground. I finally said, “Warren, you and I are more alike than you think.”

The vintner looked at me quizzically.

I said, “I’m as careful with my words as you are with your grapes. Your grapes are my words.”

All of a sudden, the frustration on his face eased and a smile poked through, like the sun unexpectedly on a cloudy day.

I’m happy to report my brutal questioning of Winiarski was, in the end, rewarded. The profile earned a California News Publishers Association third-place award.

Today, I continue to ask countless questions to tell stories about those behind the grapes. As I sip and write and write and sip, I consider myself incredibly lucky to chronicle the lives of those like Winiarski, that 90-year old upstart.

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.