We continue our series of podcast episodes featuring women in the wine business this week, since there is no new show today due to ongoing Coronavirus coverage on our home station KSRO in Santa Rosa, CA. This episode with Bernadette Byrne from the Mendocino County Wine Growers, is originally from July 11, 2018. 

Bernadette Byrne, Executive Director of the Mendocino County Wine Growers, is our guest on California Wine Country today. She joins Steve Jaxon, Dan Berger and Barry Herbst to talk about Mendocino County grape growers and vintners and to taste several examples of their production.

Dan Berger describes the Mendocino County as having a series of sub-regions regions such as Anderson Valley, Redwood Valley and Potter Valley. Each one has very different characteristics that come out in the different varieties that they produce. Potter Valley produces a lot of good Riesling, it’s cooler and produces a finer quality of wine, same as Anderson Valley.

There are eleven different sub-AVAs in Mendocino County, says Bernadette. This page on the Mendocino Wine Growers’ website has detailed information about the AVAs and sub-regions.

Bernadette has been in the Mendocino County wine business for thirty years, including time working for Fetzer and then in other wineries in Napa. She was the hospitality director for Fetzer in the ‘80s and ‘90s when they were growing rapidly. They were innovators in organic farming at the Food and Wine Center in Hopland, and introducing the Bonterra line of wines. She was marketing director for McDowell Vineyards and had a wine shop called Sip Mendocino, which she later sold.

Barry says that Mendocino County wines are on the move and that there is an intertwining between Sonoma and Mendocino counties, because some Sonoma based vintners are using grapes grown in the cooler climates in Mendocino.

Dan says that for a long time, Mendocino fruit was sold outside the county but now, Mendocino County is making more of its own wine than ever before. The fruit from Mendocino County is high quality and costs less than Sonoma or Napa grapes, so some vintners in those other counties will buy some fruit from Mendocino.

More than a quarter of the acreage is organic, and they have more biodynamic vineyards than anywhere. Dan says Paul Dolan gets credit for this. He was wine master at Fetzer who gave lectures on biodynamic farming. He and the late Dennis Martin were leaders in this. Barry says it’s expensive to get certified so many farmers apply the techniques without being registered. Full biodynamic farming means zero pesticides and herbicides. There are a lot of wineries that could not afford to make the change because there is risk in awkward and bad vintages that they risk losing their entire crop. Yet, sustainable farming is a step toward that and many more farmers are farming that way.

Bernadette Byrne describes the land is very diverse in the county, with unique microclimates. The inland corridor along Hwy 101 is a warmer place so they grow more Rhone varietals and traditional reds. Mendocino is also known for Zinfandel. They have some fabulous 100-year-old vineyards in rugged land that is still managed by the same Italian farmers who settled the area and planted the vines a century ago. They grow Caranant, Petit Syrah, Barbera and lots of old vine Zinfandel. Coro Mendocino is their project dedicated to their heritage variety of Zinfandel. Coro means “chorus” in Italian and the wines must have 40-60% Zinfandel then blend with a list of allowed varietals. They do a blind tasting to choose the wines. Dan says sometimes, people would reject their own wine.

Dan Berger mentions that if you blend Zinfandel with Barbera the result is in one direction and if blended with Grenache, the result is quite different.

First they taste a Seebass Grenache Rosé.