Adventures on the Backroads of Napa Valley

Heibel Ranch Vineyards

2011-06-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

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Family members and proprietors of Heibel Ranch Vineyards Bruce Nelson, left, Helen Heibel Nelson, Trent Ghiringhelli and director of sales and marketing Marion Blanchet with “Sugar Magnolia,” the antiquated U.S. Navy Jeep that serves as an icon as well as a functioning vehicle for the business. John Lindblom photo

Appropriately, the Sept. 3 wedding of Trent Ghiringhelli and Marion Blanchet will be an idealistic blend between France and the Napa Valley. The two are, after all, devotees of wine — he as proprietor of Heibel Ranch Vineyards in the Howell Mountain/Pope Valley area; she well steeped in the lore of the Bordeaux region where she was born and raised.
The two share a dream of carving a niche for Heibel Ranch among boutique wineries with Ghiringhelli’s mother and stepfather, Helen Heibel Nelson and Bruce Nelson. Last Saturday they took a tentative step in that direction by hosting a party celebrating the release of Heibel Ranch’s 2008 Napa Valley Red Blend at Aetna Springs Resort. More than 100 people attended the celebration.
It has been a long, hard climb, albeit a labor of love for the four of them to get to this point. Heibel was conceptualized in 2001 and the first 2-acre vineyard planted in 2003 on 185 acres of a site that Trent Ghiringhelli calls the “back side of Howell Mountain.”
When his grandfather, George Bennett Heibel, purchased the property in 1945, it also included the historic Aetna Springs Resort acreage that Heibel sold in the 1970s to followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, although George Bennett didn’t realize it until the sale was consummated.
Of the Heibel vineyards, Trent Ghiringhelli confides, “Our family virtually cleared the land of trees and brush and got the water system going. For the first couple of years we did it ourselves — 100 percent hands-on — on weekends, holidays and during vacations. It has taken a lot of hard work and a little good fortune to make our dream a reality.”
The work included installation of a weir and a mile of
4-inch pipe to collect spring water.
“After three years,” Ghiringhelli added, “we brought in the professionals.” Johnny White’s Pina Vineyard Management used a Caterpillar to clear rocks and rake the vineyard site in 2002. The following year, Josh Clark and his Clark Vineyard Management crew installed the deer fencing and water tanks. In 2008, Matt Hardin, who has deep roots in Pope Valley, took over the farming.
“Now, here we are 10 years later, excited to be releasing our first vintage,” Ghiringhelli enthused.
Roughly an acre of the vineyard is planted in cabernet sauvignon, a half-acre is dedicated to zinfandel and the remainder to petite syrah. In the total buildout, Heibel is targeting the planting of 15 to 20 acres of vines and increasing production from 250 to 300 cases today to 3,000.
The irrigation system, pump station, frost sprinklers, trellises and other necessities are in place for a world-class Napa Valley vineyard.
Backtracking to Trent and Blanchet, the pair met two years ago in — of all places — a pool hall. Billco’s Billiards and Darts in downtown Napa, it was. Vineyard-wise, it was a terrific match right off the bat. Marion has been the export manager for Nadalie Cooperage of France since 2007. Ghiringhelli was a tasting room manager and wine educator while learning winemaking at ZD Vineyards during an 11-year period.
“Then we launched our first vintage at Heibel and I took a day job as director of sales for Page Wine Cellars to pay the bills. I’m working on transitioning to make (Heibel) my full-time project,” said Ghiringhelli, who estimates he puts in 60- to
80-hour work weeks.
“But it’s rewarding work,” he said, adding that having won CCOF certification in 2007, “We are focusing on making the best wine we can from our certified organic grapes.”
Heibel’s signature wine is a 2008 Lappa’s Napa Valley Red Blend — described as a blend of
35 percent cabernet sauvignon, 30 percent cabernet franc, 20 percent zin and 15 percent syrah.
There is also a Heibel “signature” vehicle: a 1963 Willys C-J3 Jeep that formerly served the U.S. Navy. Heibel got it at auction and soon after named it “Sugar Magnolia.” But the rusted relic is a Heibel Ranch icon and doubles as transportation for touring the property.
Although Heibel Ranch’s debut into the wine industry is fairly recent, the family heritage on its land is worthy of consideration, launched when George Bennett, a chef of four-star skills, bought it in 1945.
“Dad came out from Texas and went from pot washer to chef at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles,” said Helen Heibel Nelson, a third-generation San Franciscan, who was 3 years old when George Bennett purchased Aetna Springs and the vineyard property. The elder Heibel also held esteemed positions in San Francisco, including executive chef and manager of the officers’ dining quarters at Fort Mason.
Helen Heibel Nelson and her first husband, the late John Ghiringhelli, followed in overseeing the resort until it was sold. But the family remains an important one in the Pope Valley/Howell Mountain area.
Trent Ghiringhelli asserts that his father and grandfather have been his models for doing business.
“I try to emulate what they did,” he said. “A look in the eye and a handshake was all that was needed.”

(Article written by John Lindblom)

Zinfandel Harvest

2010-10-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of the Zinfandel harvest. The grapes are very sweet and I like to eat them when they fall out of the hopper. We are also picking Cabernet Sauvignon and we expect to be finished with harvest by Friday!

Eye on the Bay: The Road to Nowhere

2010-10-09T14:26:00.000-07:00

Hello, just wanted to let you know the “Eye on the Bay” episode featuring our road trip from St. Helena to Lake Berryessa will be airing on Tuesday 10/12 and Wed 10/13 at 7pm on Channel 5.(CBS-San Francisco)

Here’s a list of the places featured each night:

Part 1 (airs Tue 10/12)

Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg

Pope Valley Garage

Aetna Springs

Hubcap Ranch

RustRidge

Part 2 (airs Wed 10/13)

Rustridge cont’d

Turtle rock

Peter Kilkus & Lake Berryessa

Monticello museum

Cucina Italiana

Zodiac history

Lake Berryessa Boat & Jetski

Turtle Rock

2010-08-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

Every backroad community needs its own watering hole. Ours is Turtle Rock, which is perched on the corner of Hwy 128 and the Berryessa-Knoxville Road. Here neighbors hang out, visitors to the area pick up supplies for the lake and everyone eats Pete's world famous egg rolls.

Eye on the Bay

2010-07-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

Brian Hackney, host of Eye on the Bay, Ruben Maness, producer of the show, and Daniel Murphy, CBS cameraman, chat on the porch of RustRidge B&B with Jim

"Eye on the Bay", a KPIX Channel 5 evening show is filming a two part segment on the Napa Valley Backroads. They began in St. Helena, drove up through Angwin and filmed at the Pope Valley Garage and the Pope Valley Store, before coming to RustRidge Ranch & Winery to film our B&B, our tasting room and Jim riding his racehorse through the vineyard. The following morning they filmed Brian, who drives his cherry red MG through the countryside on their various adventures, as he departs from RustRidge to go to Turtle Rock, the local hangout on our backroads.

Massage & Yoga @ RustRidge Ranch

2010-06-23T09:23:00.000-07:00

On the weekends, Mona Dunham offers both yoga and massage at RustRidge Ranch & Winery, a 600 acre property on Lower Chiles Valley Road.

Storm Olive Oil is now Grove 45

2010-06-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

This year Bonnie Storm and Nena Talcott qualified for Social Security and Medicare. It’s also the year the longtime friends launched a business venture that has taken off with a roar of success that has astonished the two farming women.

Their Grove 45 Extra Virgin Olive Oil, named for the year in which they were both born, sold out within weeks.

And, Talcott noted, “We haven’t had to sell it to our friends.”

The story of Grove 45 olive oil begins with the friendship of the two women who met on a tennis court — “Nena knocked me down,” Storm recalled — in St. Helena almost two decades ago.

Storm, a native of Sonoma, had moved over the hill when she and her husband purchased the historic Storm Ranch in Chiles Valley, a place whose lively anecdotes include tales that the Symbionese Liberation Army, notorious for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, had used the place as a hideout in the 1970s.

Storm was interested in olives, and imported a shipment of bare root trees from Italy, which she planted on the ranch and began to grow organically. She produced an olive oil that by 1997 she was selling commercially, and that won the first gold medal awarded to a California olive oil in Italy at the Orchiolo d’Oro.

Talcott and her husband had moved to the Napa Valley in 1974 “to have a good life for our kids.” She planted her first vineyard in 1975 and by the mid-’80s she was growing more than 60 acres of premium grapes for wineries in the valley.

After their meeting on the tennis courts, Talcott became interested in olives, and in 1996 Storm shared 500 cuttings from her greenhouse. Talcott tended them in pots at her home until they were ready to go in the ground, and then she planted them around her vineyard. Soon, she too was making olive oil and selling locally. Tra Vigne restaurant in St. Helena was one of her clients.

Then came a series of life-changing events. Both women were diagnosed with cancer. Both went through divorces.

“By 2005, my vineyards were in escrow and I moved into St. Helena,” Talcott said. “I had no more farming. I decided I wanted to do something.

In a conversation with Storm, now the owner of Storm Ranch as a result of her divorce, Talcott learned her friend was thinking of retiring from the olive oil business.

“When Bonnie said she wanted to quit producing olive oil, I had an idea. I said, ‘Let’s try it together.’ Then I had a nightmare. What were we doing?”

They decided to try producing 60 cases. Storm recalled, “I said if we sell 60 cases, it’s a miracle.”

“And I said, ‘If we can’t, there’s something wrong,’” Talcott said.

With their combined experience — more than 45 years of farming between them — they knew they could produce a good olive oil, “but there are a lot of really good olive oils out there,” Talcott said. “We knew what we had to have is a stunning packaging.”

While rows and rows of artisan olive oils now line grocers’ shelves, most are in glass containers. Their choice to package their olive oil in round, aluminum cans with pewter labels came from a decision to find a container that was “both beautiful and practical.”

“We knew that metal is the best container for olive oil,” Storm said. “It preserves olive oil from UV rays that can swiftly deteriorate a fine olive oil.”

This explains why dark green glass is more effective than clear for preserving olive oil, but metal is even better. Their eye-catching bottle, however, would prove to be more than just the best choice for preserving quality. Its distinctive style was an eye-catcher, their product stands out on a shelf filled with bottles.

They harvested their olives last Nov. 23 and 24 and pressed them the same day. By Jan. 30 they were ready to bottle their product. The finished oil is a blend of pendolino, maurino, leccinoio and frantoio varietals with 25 per nocellara de bellici.

Then came the real test: selling it.

Feb. 6 they delivered their first case to Sunshine market in St. Helena. Diane Defilipi, a local olive oil expert, tasted their product and promptly ordered a case. In late February, the two women set off on a marketing trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City, setting up accounts with Zabar’s and Murray’s Cheese.

Back in California, Draeger’s Markets in Menlo Park and Blackhawk wanted it. Oakville Grocery took five cases and in two weeks sold all but three cans.

Then came the real shocker. They’d called on Dean & Deluca in New York. “By the time they got back to us we had to say, ‘We’re sold out.’

“I was in shock,” Talcott said.

And requests keep coming in.

It’s like we came in the back door and went out the front,” Storm said. “It’s happened so fast. We misjudged how fast it would move.”

Not only has their product gotten off to a flying start, but their friendship has grown too. “Our friends were concerned when we said what we were going to do,” Talcott said. “They said, ‘you’re such good friends, but you’re so different.’”

“Nena likes manicures,” Storm pointed out.

“And Bonnie is the farmer,” Nena added.

“But this has been fun for both of us,” Talcott said. “We are good friends and like to travel. When we have a good day, we stop and have a martini.

“We both like to laugh a lot and find humor in our own lives.”

They credit much of their success to their product and to the fact that they are the ones selling it. Whether talking to retailers or pouring samples at demonstrations, “We tell people ‘we are Grove 45; it’s us,’” Talcott said.

And factor into this age and experience. “No one has been unkind or closed a door, but even if they had, at our age we don’t take it personally,” Storm said. “It’s knowing yourself and not being intimidated.”

“It’s one of the pleasures of arriving at this stage of life, to be comfortable in our skin,” Talcott added.

Storm quipped, “What you see is what you get.”

They’re now looking ahead to next year, when, to meet demand, they’ll be making more than 60 cases.

For any woman of a certain age, Talcott concluded with this advice, “Don’t slow down; don’t stop. Just keep reaching for something. Just keep reminding yourself — find something that makes you happy to get up in the morning.”

Heibel Ranch Tour and Tasting

2010-06-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Trent Ghiringhelli of Heibel Ranch gives vineyard tours in his 1963 military Jeep. © James Baigre.

A Hidden Gem-Cucina Italiana at Lake Berryessa

2010-06-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

Cucina Italiana in the Spanish Flat Village

Stefano (standing) with a group of locals enjoying another wonderful dinner.

Come Celebrate Berryessa History on May 30th

2010-05-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

Out on the Harley in Pope Valley

2010-05-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

Local harley enthusiasts Dawn and Barry sent me these photos from their ride around Lake Berryessa and back to Pope Valley.

Napa County Iris Garden

2010-04-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

Every year around this time, the Napa County Iris Garden comes to life with fields and fields of beautiful irises that you can wander through and then decide which ones you would like to plant in your own garden. Tucked away on Steele Canyon Road a short distance from the 121 & 128 junction at The Corners, it is a wonderful place to experience and it feels like you are walking through a Monet painting.

http://www.napairis.com/about.html

Pope Valley Winery Event April 17, 2010

2010-04-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Pope Valley's 2nd Annual Winery Event

Cleavage Creek

Lorraine & Budge Brown

Aetna Springs Cellars

Sally & Paul Kimsey

Heibel Ranch & Vineyards

Bruce Nelson

James Creek Vineyards

Scott Brown

Pope Valley Store

Snell Valley Olive Oil

Flying Horse Wines

Pope Valley Winery's picnic area

The High Valley

2010-03-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

The High Valley
(Click on this link to read article)
This recent article published in the NorthBay Biz Magazine gives a comprehensive history and description of the Chiles Valley grape growing appellation and includes interviews with several of the winemakers of the region including Volker Eisele, Jay Heminway of Green & Red, Susan Meyer & Jim Fresquez of
RustRidge and Duane Dappen of Brown Family.

Smittle Creek Trail from Oak Shores at Lake Berryessa

2010-03-18T00:53:00.000-07:00

The hiking trails at Lake Berryessa this time of year are breathtakingly beautiful. Wildflowers abound, the forest, meadows and shores are full of life.

Pope Valley Winery Event April 17, 2010

2010-03-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Pope Valley Vintner's Tasting

On April 17th, the Pope Valley Winery will be hosting the second Pope Valley Vintner's Tasting. This year will feature a collection of the finest wineries, vineyards and labels from the Pope valley region.

Along with this great collection of wines, there will be cheese platters, olive oil tasting and live music performed by Johnny Smith. And all profits from the event will be donated to St. Jude Children's Hospital- it's a chance to have a great time while supporting a great cause.

Where & When
6613 Pope Valley Road
Pope Valley, California 94567
April 17, 2010
11:00AM-5:00PM

This is the big event of the year for the backroad wineries. Come out and experience the Napa Valley of Yesteryear!

Pruning the vines

2010-03-07T17:35:00.000-08:00

On dry days during the winter while the plants are dormant, the vineyards are pruned and the canes and cordons are tied to the trellis.

The changing landscape

2010-02-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Dinner on the Napa Valley Backroads

2010-02-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

Sharyn and Stefano created a special Valentines Day meal at Cucina Italiana on Sunday February 14.

The restaurant was packed all evening. Jim and Susan enjoyed themselves.

Winter on the Backroads

2010-01-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

January 30, 2010

December 25, 2009

More Fall Colors

2009-11-30T17:19:00.000-08:00

Fall Colors on the Backroads

2009-11-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

Found on the Backroads

2009-10-28T10:43:00.001-07:00

My dad Charlie has been living on the backroads of Napa Valley in the famous grape growing region known as Pritchard Hill overlooking Lake Hennessey. He was found on the road without a collar by a kind lady named Gwen who stopped and opened her car door for him. He gladly jumped in and she took him to her home. She read our lost and found ad and knew that her polite and affable house guest was my dad and called us yesterday. Thank-you to all the neighbors of the backroads who looked for him and prayed for his safe return.

Lost on the Backroads

2009-10-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

If you live out here or are travelling our Napa Valley Backroads please look out for Charlie.

Storm Olive Oil Ranch

2009-09-28T20:34:00.000-07:00

In the early 1990's, Bonnie Storm found her piece of heaven in Chiles Valley. She purchased a 130 year old cattle and dairy ranch and decided to grow olives not grapes in Napa Valley!

Her venture proved to be successful and her oil was the first American olive oil to receive the Grand Prize at L'Orciolo D'Oro, in Pesaro, Italy. She has also received gold medals at the LA International Olive Oils of the World Competition and other prestigious competitions as well. Her olive oil is made from Tuscan varieties and is bold and brash. Bonnie is carrying on the olive oil tradition from her German great grandfather who emigrated to the United States and made his living by growing olive trees and producing olive oil. To visit and purchase Storm Ranch Olive Oil contact Bonnie at 707-965-1544 or oilranch@aol.com

Our backroads restaurant: Cucina Italiana

2009-09-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

Those of us who live on the backroads of Napa Valley are fortunate to have the peace and quiet, the beautiful vistas and lots of open space. What we had missed in the past was a local restaurant where we could meet and have a great meal. Well four years ago a delightful couple named Stefano and Sharyn opened a wonderful Italian restaurant on Berryessa Knoxville road on the west side of Lake Berryessa. With fabulous pastas, chicken and veal dishes, risotto and seafood specials, creative salads and their signature Tiramisu, we have finally gotten the culinary experience we were craving in a comfortable and relaxing setting.

Pope Valley Winery & Nichelini Winery

2009-09-18T19:01:00.001-07:00

On the back roads of Napa Valley are two historical wineries, Pope Valley Winery and Nichelini Winery.

Pope Valley Winery

William Pope, aka Julian Pope obtained the Mexican land grant named Locoallomi in the 1840's for the expansive eastern valley behind Howell Mountain and which is now known as Pope Valley. Visit Pope Valley winery along the Pope Valley Road and learn about Ed Haus, the blacksmith who founded the Pope Valley Winery in 1897 and view this historic winery which was built into the hillside and which used gravity flow to produce its wines.

Nichelini Winery
Located on Highway 128 in the southern corner of Chiles Valley, Nichelini Winery is the oldest continuously family run winery in the Napa Valley. Anton Nichelini a Swiss Italian, homesteaded the land in 1884 then established his winery in the 1890's and became well known for Zinfandel. The Nichelini vineyard has Zinfandel vines that are over 100 years old from Anton's original plantings.

Come discover the backroads of Napa Valley

2009-09-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

The eastern hills of Napa Valley comprise a much larger area than the well travelled paths of Hwy 29 and Silverado Trail. Access to our beautiful hills can be made from Hwy 121 in Napa, Hwy 128 in Rutherford, Deer Park Road in St. Helena and Hwy 29 in Middletown. This aerial photo faces north east and shows the narrow strip of Chiles Valley, with Pope Valley to the north and Lake Berryessa to the east.