Vineyards of Dreams

CALENDAR WINEMAKERS SEPTEMBER The Lions Release Dinner Join Harvest14 Tim and Sabrina, fifth-genera- Preview tion family members, and the VINEYARDS Hess winemaking team for their annual feast. Enjoy a garden reception followed by a formal dinner by Executive Chef Chad Hendrickson in the Hess Art Museum. Tickets: $300/$240; OF DREAMS hesscollection.com/event/release-the-lions-19 BY BOB COOPER V. Sattui’s Annual 14 Harvest Ball Celebrating its hen the number of Napa wineries 35th year, the V. Sattui Harvest Ball promises to multiplied in the ’70s and ’80s, workers be memorable. Enjoy a were needed for the harvest, and culinary journey through Italy prepared by Michelin Mexican American immigrants began star chef Stefano Masanti, paired with V. Sattui’s filling that need. Many who came from top tier wines — including Mexico to pick grapes as teenagers the winery’s highest-rated cabernets, perfectly aged large settled in the Napa Valley and now formats and other rare selections. have grandchildren. A few eventually Tickets: $260/$280; vsattui.com/events/ harvest-ball opened their own family wineries. But Inglenook Harvest Party none have more dramatically catapulted 21 Celebrate the official release of 2016 themselves from underpaid teenage pickers to Rubicon at the annual Inglenook Harvest Party, an always festive occasion wine producers, driven by a passion for viticulture, featuring colorful decor, a seasonal menu by Estate Chef Alex Lovick and strains of music than Amelia and Pedro Ceja, Rolando Herrera and filling the air. Tickets: $300; inglenook.com/ Bulmaro Montes. Here are the stories of how they willed their American events dreams, against all odds, into existence. Ballentine Harvest Dinner 31 Experience vineyard dining on a Amelia Moran Ceja was raised to dream her grapes into the gondola [tractor-pulled harvest jobs. But Amelia’s vineyard vision soon become the first California winery to Pedro’s daughter, Dalia, an MBA graduate, Amelia Moran silky autumn evening big, so it came as no surprise to her dad, trailer],” recalls Pedro, his sun-weathered tugged at her, and it soon became shared by pair Mexican food with wines — Amelia’s now serves as Ceja’s marketing director; Ceja and daughter alongside Ballentine Felipe Moran, when she made a bold dec- face creased in a smile. “She let me know that Pedro and their parents and siblings. idea, now a common practice. “The wine sons Ariel and Navek consult on business Dalia, who serves winemaker Bruce Devlin and owners Betty laration while they worked in a Napa Valley she did not want my help.” She didn’t hold “We wanted to grow our own grapes,” industry, which wouldn’t exist without Lati- operations and manage Ceja’s tasting room as Ceja Vineyards’ and son Frank vineyard. the chivalrous act against him, however, and says Pedro, whose nine brothers and sisters nos, ignored people of color,” she says, “so I near Sonoma, respectively; their uncle, marketing director, Ballentine. Enjoy a “One day I will have a vineyard,” she told continued to notice the quiet, handsome also immigrated to the Napa Valley. “My saw an opportunity.” Half of Ceja wine club Armando Ceja, is Ceja’s winemaker and sample the fruits of multicourse dinner him, to which he replied, without a hint of young campesino in the Merlot vineyards brother Armando was getting his enology members today are Latinos. viticulturist, and his daughter, Belen, is the family business. along with live condescension, “Of course you will.” Now 92 and middle-school hallways. degree, my father worked as a foreman for Channeling her father’s activism, Amelia director of wine production. music and plenty and still living in Napa, Felipe had marched Time passed. Amelia returned to Mexico Robert Mondavi, and Amelia knew every- doesn’t merely talk politics. She attended “I’m convinced these kids will take it of Ballentine wine. with Cesar Chavez and later headed the for two years, then attended U.C. San Diego thing about the wine business, so we had all President Barack Obama’s first inaugura- to the next level,” says Pedro. If so, it will Tickets $165/$135; United Farm Workers. He embraced the on a full scholarship. But during a summer the fundamentals. We just needed land.” tion, where Ceja wines were poured in the be at splashy new digs. A chapel built on ballentinevineyards. union’s unofficial slogan,Sí , Se Puede (“Yes, at home between terms, spent planting vines It was Pedro’s mother, Juanita, who White House, and her lobbying contributed the Carneros spread is the first stage of a com/wine-events it can be done”). Like father, like daughter, as and working as a server, she bumped into Pe- spotted the For Sale sign on a quiet road in to the passage of a 2015 law that keeps mi- 9,000-square-foot, mission-style hospital- young, ambitious Amelia would eventually dro again. He asked her to slip away to Lake the Carneros region in 1983. Savings were nors out of the fields when harmful pesti- ity center that will include a plaza, small OCTOBER get that vineyard and much more. Berryessa for a picnic, she agreed, and five pooled, and the 20-acre lot was purchased. cides are used. “Unfortunately, the current museum, and spacious tasting room and Baldacci Family Vineyards It was around this time in the vineyards years later they were married in Yountville. It was five years before the first harvest administration is trying to overturn it,” she demonstration kitchen for food-and-wine 7 Harvest Dinner Enjoy a festive that Amelia again showed her determination Amelia became a winery consultant came in, with the grapes sold to Domaine laments. experiences. The complex should open in and family-style meal with magnums when a fellow 12-year-old immigrant from and Pedro an electrical engineer — surely a Chandon, then 11 more years before Amelia Pedro’s parents, Juanita and Pablo, now three years. Sí, se puede. from the cellar, special holiday wine offers and Mexico, Pedro Ceja, offered to lend a hand. success story for two kids whose first 11 years was able to launch Ceja Vineyards. She was live in a house on the vineyard property, live music to keep the beat. Tickets: $175/$100; “I was there with my mom and sisters, and were spent in Mexican towns while their the first Mexican American woman to be where grandchildren come often to visit and baldaccivineyards.com/events I saw this short girl trying so hard to dump fathers sent money home from California president of a U.S. winery, and Ceja would to help out in the Ceja Vineyards offices. Continued, page 32 Class Act. Voted “One of America’s 100 Best Wine Property Envy. Set on six acres, the newly re- Restaurants” by Wine Enthusiast, Compline is more than imagined MacArthur Place Hotel & Spa in Sonoma a local watering hole. Located on First Street in Napa — MUST unveiled its $20 million renovations in May. The and celebrating its second anniversary this month — the PLACES TO GO luxury boutique hotel, with its nicely appointed wine bar, restaurant and merchant from master somme- 64 rooms, also celebrated the property’s 150th lier Matt Stamp and Ryan Stetins, former wine direc- Turn the HAVES page for anniversary. The full transformation debuted last tor at Charlie Trotter’s, is the place to go to buy unusual more month with a completely new food and beverage wines and for unique tasting experiences. Take one of Wine Country Must Haves program that includes Layla, The Porch and The Compline’s wine classes or “World Tours,” where you can Edition Bar at MacArthur. Take a well-deserved staycation taste the wines of Santorini ($75), indulge in all things and treat yourself to one of their signature spa Champagne ($100), or learn about the wines of Bos- BY DAVID NASH amenities like the Wine Country Detox ($235). nia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia in its “Post-Com- Seasonal rates. macarthurplace.com munist Bloc Party” ($75). complinewine.com 30 SEPTEMBER 2019 | NOB HILL GAZETTE NOB HILL GAZETTE | SEPTEMBER 2019 31 UpHarvestFront Preview he name of the winery says it all: Mi I wanted to come back, so when I Rolando and Lorena Herrera even Valeria [age 12]. I’ve shown Sueno. “My Dream.” Rolando Herrera was 15, I returned with my 17-year- pose with their six children, my sisters how to prune, and we was advised against using the name that old brother.” for whom they’ve named six each take a row.” He’s helped bring naysayers deemed unpronounceable While living in a plant nursery of their vibrant wines. After a in the harvest for most of his life. to Americans, but he wouldn’t back down. “Mi and then a one-bedroom apartment stint at Stags’ Leap, Rolando “By the time I was 12, I was Sueno connected with my passion for what I do,” shared by 18 people, he attended opened the family’s winery, spending all summer in the he explains. The dream has since branched out high school and worked in restau- Mi Sueno, or “My Dream,” vineyards and cellar, and I’m now like one of his well-tended grapevines to enter rants, orchards and vineyards. But more than 20 years ago. spending three mornings and every the minds of his wife and six children, whose his dream took shape when he began Saturday out here. I want to learn names adorn seven Herrera wines (Mi Sueno’s working the 3-to-midnight shift at Stags’ Leap, the it all.” After earning enology and viticulture degrees, premium label).

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