Stories from Northern California's Wine Country | ABC10 Feature

hello everyone I'm Chris Thomas Northern California is known for its influential music tech Innovation and of course it's wine next is a collection of stories highlighting some of the Vineyards and attractions in Northern California's Wine [Music] Country on a 15 acre Vineyard in loine 120 years of tradition is In Bloom while this plot of land hasn't always been makami Vineyards it's always been grapes for me it's it's really about honoring a tradition third generation Japanese American Jason makami is continuing the legacy of his grandfather T Ruchi makami who immigrated from Japan to Loi in 1896

at 13 years old so mikami uh actually is composed of two Japanese characters the first syllable me means three and Kami in this case means up farming grapes in the areas we know today as aampo Woodbridge Stockton until 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii Japanese Americans on the west coast were forced into internment camps the Japanese Americans all had to effectively give up whatever property they owned to be incarcerated in these camps and in my father's case uh my father and grandfather they were moved from uh Loi to rower

Arkansas this is his father Jim at the rower Arkansas internment camp in 1942 to 1945 his mother at the time facing another first in US history she was living in Hiroshima Japan its name many know because it was the city where America dropped its first atomic bomb and so unfortunately she was an atomic bomb Survivor she had a brother who passed away immediately during the atomic bomb he was effectively evaporated when the bomb dropped and then my mom also suffered burn injuries since 190 as we walk the vineyard Jason recounts the terrible history that had

so much impact on his family when the mami's return from the internment camp to Loi things were not the same because of various um laws at the time they did not own that property um so they were effectively renting out property returning to loai with just a train ticket in their hands and whatever they could carry the makami Men return to the only work they've ever known growing grapes whether you call it the Immigrant Spirit or you call it you know the American way you know my grandfather and father they just continue to work as

you know as as workers as Farm Workers they work different different properties and eventually saved enough to purchase the the initial property uh in in the ' 50s in the 1950s the mcamis were finally able to purchase land in Loi in 1963 they expanded to where Jason stands today as a result of his father's hard work 15 acres in Loi off West Sergeant Road there's a phrase in in Japanese or Japanese americ it's called shagai or shoganai it basically means you have to sort of bear with it after his father's passing Jason took makami on

A New Path in 2005 they began making wine my mom always instilled in me that you know this is our family land and so you know don't don't think about selling it he says it's important to honor tradition so many in his gener have abandoned there were a lot of Japanese American families uh farming in this area um but you know my generation um you know post College tended to move either to the Bay Area or other locations and and to move out of farming wine making is not an industry many minorities have ventured into

even Jason admits it was a risk but one he wanted to take you know to be able to see uh other folks U trying to honor their legacies or honor their history is uh is uh really nice to see but Jason feels the makami story speaks to the immigration policies and inequities polarizing our country today from a Japanese-American perspective a lot of times what I think about is it's unfortunate that with the immigration policies these days there's a lot of negative connotations associated with the you know Mexican Americans Etc and you know their story today

is no different than my father's story story you know 50 years ago uh in terms of whether it be either forms of racism or having stereotypes um put upon you and so to you know it's it's really important for us to not relive that history of of treating you know mexican-americans the way the Japanese Americans were you know during World War during World War II same thing for the Muslim Americans as well for makami keeping his family story alive is very important to think about about uh what my grandfather had to do to come as

a 13-year-old or 14-year-old boy to the United States back in 1896 to what my father had to endure during World War II and now being able to actually carry on their tradition of grape growing and now producing wines what keeps him going today and doing this hard work is his family I think they would be very proud they would be very happy that I'm continuing to still own and operate the property and try and produce something under a family name a story that spans 120 years and three generations of wine growing it really means a

lot to be able to pass that along to my [Music] daughter this stunning Vineyard view is just an hour and a half drive from downtown Sacramento in fair play in El Dorado County Dina Santos and John Avila have been married for 21 years and with a lot of hard work the couple is living their dream of owning a Vineyard there's very few um Latinos that that own Vineyards and that that have you know uh their own wine so we're proud of what we've done they had been yearning for a weekend escape from the stress of

their day-to-day lives so they bought this 45 acre property in 2008 and got to work planting be the Oro means wine of gold in Spanish and and our property here in ELD County Fair playay Appalachian is actually an old gold mine they mainly grow Spanish varietal grapes so my dad is Mexican and my mom is Spanish so you know hence the Spanish varietals this is who we are the couple says their wine pairs really well with Spanish dishes oh yeah the tempero goes really nice with spicy foods the Malbec again good with big you know

like heavy mullet and Gard of Salas things like that it's a labor of love bringing the couple back to their Roots Dena grew up in Arizona working the fields with her dad you know you work so hard to get educated because you want a better life you want more opportunities and then you find that you actually really did love some of your past and love the land and so you know I feel like for me I've come full circle [Music] Susie Vasquez spends most of her time surrounded by wine as a kid I never dreamed

of being a wine maker it's just life took me there and I'm so thankful she's the senior wine maker at Lange twins Family Winery and Vineyards in san waen county and I just fell in love with the process uh the transformations to the grapes all the way to the wine Susie moved to California from Bolivia at the age of 24 and credits family for her success I grew up with example of hard work I was able to put in place these values and this Heritage for my family and work through achieving the goal to become

a wine maker she says more diversity is needed in the wine industry I would love to see more Latinas more female Latinas in the wine industry as wine makers as director of wine makers as president of of wine making It's a Wonderful industry and I see the more and more interest that the Latinos are [Applause] [Music] having Melissa Sanchez wants to advance representation too the more representation you have the more perspectives you have that's why she organizes events like this one to bring Latinas and others together in Sacramento for the love of wine people from

all over the world come here so I thought it would be really great to be able to sort of showcase that you know Latinos in wine um of course we are the backbone of the wine industry here in California but we don't get a lot of um coverage of that we're usually not visible across a lot of different genres of Industries um let alone wine which is already a heavily male-dominated industry Gabriela Fernandez with the nonprofit Hispanics and wine explains the importance of representation on all levels having Latinas and positions of power like high leadership

positions of power allows you to not only create effective change but also allows you to set the tone for the team the culture that you're building but she says breaking barriers can be challenging a lot of times you're box into being a Vineyard Steward somebody who's out in the fields we're we're kind of boxing into a monolith it will be wonderful to see in the future all these doors that will open from the next Generations that are coming so as a Latinas right now fighting these spaces right and and and and embracing these challenges what

we're doing is opening these doors for the next Generations coming in and and taking [Music] over before the internal combustion engine and before electric motors were widely in use it was the water wheel that powered many early machines they were the uh movers of Industry let's say standing at 36 ft tall and turning at a speed of about six revolutions per minute is California's oldest working water-powered Grist Mill well a Grist Mill is a a mill to was used to grind grain into flour Rob grai is one of the many caretakers Akers at the B

Grist Mill State Historic Park in Calistoga His official title is historic Mill right a title that few people in the world hold and for good reason what I've been into since I was a kid really but there's not enough money to be made really doing it so I've always done other jobs for full-time it's been kind of a part-time passion of mine it's Rob's job to keep the wooden water real and all of its moving Parts well moving and it's not an easy task the historic Mill was built in 1846 by a mysterious man by

the name of Dr Edgar Turner Bale they really didn't know a lot about him I mean there wasn't a lot of written about him the mysteriousness is the fact that we don't know a whole lot about yeah and he died young too what we do know is that Dr Bale was an English army doctor hired by General Vallejo before California became a state he ended up marrying General vallejo's niece and consequently he became a Mexican citizen and he got a land grant shortly after Bale got that Mexican land grant and had the Grist Mill built

the gold rush started and Bale got gold fever but he actually went to the gold gold fields and he came back sick and died it was Bale's wife that ended up running the mill after he died in 1849 then in 1925 the mill became a Historic Landmark since then the Mill's been repaired and restored a number of times so tourists like me can be put to work grinding rain like it was done in the old days there oh yeah there you go that is that feels just like moving a rock essentially Grist is just another

word for grain and the small hand crank Grist Mill gives you an idea of how hard it was to get enough flour to make bread the shelf life of flowers can be years and years they only had months so that's why they came to the mill as often as they did and they had to grind their grain typically every few months today we know Napa Valley as Wine Country but during the Gold Rush era this was the Bread Basket of California when we had the Gold Rush there was a lot of Mesa feed so the

price of flow went way up wa this is coming out so much faster the giant thinly spaced Rock Grinders make quick work of turning the hard grain into powder it's a very dusty business in here oh AB you have flower boogers all the time yep uhhuh here Gravity is the Workhorse and it's pretty power powerful the weight of the water turns the wheels which power the belts spin the wooden gears and create a lot of flour when these were working commercially they could produce up to upwards of 900 lb an hour and watching the wooden

Mill in work is like stepping back in time from the Bale Gris Mill in Calistoga I'm John Bartell hope to see you on the back roads it's going to be a long time before I get enough flour to make some bread here [Music] a good glass of wine can bring people together it can spark conversation and in 1972 it forged a new relationship between China and the United States the Chinese people are a great people president Niel went to China for the first time in 1972 and he brought a bot of Napa Valley along for

his trip in what is now known as the toast of Peace President Nixon and Premier Joe enl drank a glass of sparkling Napa Valley Wine the shurg Blan to Blan led to the first diplomatic conversations in 25 years and inspired China to start making wine of their own National Light Industry created this uh wine research group and chose my grandfather to be the leader of this group and he learned wine making in friends Grape Wine in China had never been made before on a large scale so Premier Joe Enlisted the help of Shin's grandfather shenan

and he's the first red one one maker in China and it and produced the first B of red one in um back to 1970s thanks to the work Shin's grandfather did in the 1970s wine making has become a multi-billion doll industry in China his palette shaped the way that wine tastes in his country now Shin is working to introduce the Chinese palette to Napa under her label called 70s love my grandfather is at the 70s so I Nam my one 70s love since Shin was a little girl she had been following in her grandfather's footsteps

and uh instead of going to kindergarten my job is to stay in the cave lifting the BMS from the barus in college she went to UC Davis to learn about the science behind Western wine making a good wine maker is a is a scientific artist so a big part of our job is s scientist and the big part of our job is artist for shin the science and art are Blended together by using both her Chinese and American palette she says her wine pairs well with the spicy plant-based Chinese diet and the fatty meat heavy

American diets because I'm making one here in Napa Valley so I'm not making a Chinese St one I'm still making wines that reflecting Napa yes shins wine is a Napa wine but it has a Chinese influence an influence that is not new to the Napa and Sonoma County region a part of Napa one making history was has Chinese involved in the war early and the beginning stage following California's Gold Rush Chinese laborers planted many of the early Vineyards and dug many of the early wine caves ultimately most of those labors were pushed out during the

Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s but Shen says more than a century later Chinese students are getting back into the California wine industry I graduate from UC Davis and I can see more and more Chinese students come to UC Davis study uh study while making in know with enology and I'm happy to see more um uh faces from Asian countries as it did in 1972 wine helped open a dialogue between two Nations today Shin hopes her wine can do the same how to say this um I want to build a bridge between the two countries

from The Vineyards of St Helena I'm John Bartel [Music] seven times a day The Echoes of monastic chants bounce off the walls at the new clairo [Music] Abbey these harmonic hymns are sung by cstan monks a French Roman Catholic order dating back to the year ad198 the ceran way of life is strongly cobotic which means each monk searches for God individually Brethren here don't hold Services they don't teach or do Parish work they just seek God and do work and historically work for these monks means making wine they were making wine uh wines that were

regarded as the best in the world in the 12th and 13th century reserved for kings and popes there's only about 15 cian monasteries in the United States one of them is at the Southeastern edge of Taha County in the little railroad town of Vina California and around the railroad they saw that there were vines so they named the town Vina brother Luis Cortez says the vineyard's rich history predates him by more than a century some of the first Vines were planted by California Trailblazer Peter Lassen and then later developed by former governor and railroad baron

Leland Stanford he had 4,000 acres here uh at the great Viner Ranch and that was the largest Vineyard in the entire world so we have a a very important role in the uh the history of viticulture in the United States you might in the world today the vineyard is much smaller but they still grow grapes fit for Nobles so this here is our our tempero this is a the Spanish the noble grape from Spain and uh something that a lot of people don't know is that this grape tempero made its American debut here at Vina

during the Stanford era the cian monks took over a small portion of the Vina property in 1955 among the original group was father Thomas Davis who was a monk sent over from a monastery in Kentucky each person believes that God has called him or her to this way of life at first the monks grew prunes and milked cows but father Thomas eventually helped turn the property back into a Vineyard can't go wrong can't go wrong with a good glass of wine from the monastery everyone loves a good GL glass of wine the monks pick and

process the grapes but wine maker Amy sanseri brings out the taste and her Blends have won multiple Awards oh yeah it it goes down very well sure the grapes that go into the award-winning wine do have a lot of historic significance but nowhere near the historic significance of the 800-year-old hand chiseled stones that make up the new clairo Abby each one was removed from a Gothic style cstan Monastery in Spain only to end up in California after an odd turn of events William Randol Hurst brought over parts of this Monastery originally the stone were destined

to be a part of media Mogul Randolph hurst's mansion in Winton California he spent millions of dollars to deconstruct the monastery in Spain and then ship him to the US and due to various circumstances especially the depression he was anable to follow through on his plans this is kind of the grand reveal I like doing this part here the dismantled Monastery sat in a San Francisco Warehouse long after hurst's death father Thomas spent more than 40 years petition in to get the stones delivered to vinaa and then in 1994 they were this looks like a

very confusing puzzle exactly you might say it's a uh it's a mix of four different buildings originally there were 10,000 stones that William Randolph Hurst purchased and had shipped over to to the United States reconstructing the monastery became father Thomas's life work with nothing more than some old pictures and a lot of prayers he and a staff of Builders pieced together one of the four buildings over 25 years to complete one of the buildings uh we're going to rest a little bit today that building is enjoyed by the monks and anyone who wants to attend

any one of the seven daily prayers has perfect acustics excellent from The Vineyards of the new clairo Abbey I'm John Bartell hope to see you on the back roads [Music] have you ever wondered what it's like to sleep inside a real rail car well head over to yville and you'll find out John Bartell here making a little pit stop at the Napa Valley Railway in in the heart of Napa County's Wine Country sits a sleepy little train depot that boards a lot of passengers but doesn't move them anywhere what happened did a train break down

on this thing and someone just built a an inn here um not quite the rail cars and Cabo's do sit on Napa Valley's historic Railroad tracks but owner/ engineer of the Inn Lori Jones says that the real cars themselves weren't pulled here by a train but rather placed here by a helicopter they were um brought in from Oregon a lot of them are from Southern Pacific Railroad Company and uh they had to airlift some of them actually onto the track inside the luxurious sleeper cars and Cabo's you'll find modern amenities like air conditioning and bathrooms

but when they were put here in the 197 s they had a much more rustic feel this room was actually an old cattle car so for being an old cattle car this this this smells pretty good in here yeah I try my best to uh take out that smell from 150 years ago but there's eight rooms in total at the railway end each one with their own history but the most popular room is the Caboose because the old observation windows in the ceiling offer up a great View and if they look out that window the

hot air balloons launch right behind us and so you know 6:00 in the morning but still when do you get to see a hot air balloon flying the nice thing about a stationary sleeping car is that you don't have to worry about missing your train and we're not going to have to worry about these things rolling away during the middle of the night or anything no not at all they're all locked in got the brake set on gu absolutely and that's good because the railway in is centrally located in yville within walking distance of a

number of popular restaurants and shops from the Napa Valley Railway in in yville I'm John Bartell hope to see you on the back [Music] roads if you follow the Russian River through Sonoma County the sound of clinking glasses gets louder as you approach the town of corbel this is the corbel bottle Factory the oldest and largest champagne production facility in California we did 18,000 cases the other day since 1882 corell's California champagne has been at some of the most iconic celebrations in American history including every inauguration since Ronald Reagan but that iconic Bottle Pop of

corbels all started with the pop of a gun supposedly fired off in the air by Francis Corbell at a protest in Prague he was thrown in jail the hapsburg guards pounced him and threw him in jail Corbell Winery tour guide Hillary ready says that jail sentence might have been the end of Francis corell's story had it not been for his grandmother his grandmother broke him out of prison by smuggling his clothes in under her hoop skirt once clothed Francis apparently lit a cigar and walked out disguised as a commoner shortly after that he and his

brothers fled to California to strike it rich in the gold rush they missed the gold rush so they came up here and bought this property the area that she's talking about is the Russian River Valley in somoma County the corbel brothers made it rich by cutting down redwood trees for cigar boxes they invested a lot of that money into a number of businesses one being a champagne production we were the first ones in America to make champagne the word champagne is only reserved for wine made in the Champagne region of France but because the corbels

hired a Champagne region wine maker and they won a series of lawsuits they were allowed to call their sparkling wine California champagne even during prohibition the corbels continued to make champagne the wine makers were so bold they even sent a bottle to President Roosevelt two months later to the day he toasted the end of prohibition with Corbell SE in front of the world under a sign that said Corbell SE now Corbell wouldn't be one of the nation's largest wine makers had it not been for innovation you see champagne is difficult to make because the bottles

must be rotated every day but when the heck family bought the corbel company in the 1950s they started inventing ways to rotate the bottles and mass-produce corell's champagne this is what ad offc invented the automatic riddling Rack in 1970 and it really did change the industry Hollywood discovered the Corbell Winery in the late 60s while filming the World War II theme TV show combat starring Vic Maro TV producers persuaded Corbell to allow the combat scenes to be filmed on the property by promising to blow up and remove old stumps in the vineyard they blew out

over a thousand stumps in 6 months well whether you're celebrating the end of a war a new year or a presidential inauguration Corbell put California on the map for Premier champagne production now is it proper should I hold my pinky out is that what I should do only if you're feeling very presidential I am feeling presidential today from California's oldest champagne seller Corbell in gerville I'm John Bartell hope to see you on the back [Music] rows thanks for watching this ABC 10 plus collection highlighting Northern California's Wine Country don't forget we have more features just

like this on the abc10 Plus app you can also find the latest news and headlines and stay up toate on weather conditions thanks again for watching I'm Chris Thomas we'll see you next time