Dixon isn’t known as a grape-growing and winery district. We’re better known for our tomatoes, sunflowers, alfalfa and nuts. However, being in a flat-land area doesn’t mean one can’t grow good grapes. For example, there are many acres of vineyards in the flat lands near Clarksburg and Lodi.
Working against the grain locally are two alliterative vineyards and their accompanying wineries, Jess Jones and Purple Pearl. Jess Jones is a couple miles south of Dixon and Purple Pearl, a couple miles north.
I’m going to write three articles about the Jess Jones winery covering grape growing, wine making, and then wine marketing. I also hope to write another piece about Purple Pearl later.
I had been out to the Jess Jones winery once before for a wine tasting, but on this visit I wanted to go into some depth about growing grapes. Jess and his wife Mel have three and one-half acres of grape vines next to their home, just off Hwy. 113 and just south of Midway Road.
Jess, 71, isn’t a hobby farmer and vintner who retired from some other occupation. He’s a lifelong farmer, first and foremost. Before grapes, he was growing popcorn for many years, first for Orville Redenbacher and then for his own label. But popcorn faded as a local crop, and Jess began to cast around for a more lucrative product.
In 1997 grapes were a rising star (just as almonds are now) and he made the leap to planting various varieties on his farm. At first, he viewed the young vineyard as a test, to see if grapes would grow well in good Dixon Ridge soil with cooling delta breezes, and then to see which varieties did best. As it turned out, most varieties did well. He ended up growing merlot, cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, zinfandel, pinot noir and sangiovese varieties.
His plan was to sell the grapes and lease the surrounding farmland to other farmers. Unfortunately too many farmers jumped on the grape bandwagon, resulting in a glut on the market. Some growers sold their grapes below cost, and some others yanked out their vineyards and returned to other crops.
Jess endured five to eight years of “tough sledding” before an equilibrium returned to the market. Eventually, rather than being dependent upon selling grapes to middlemen or wineries, Jess decided to use most of his grapes to make his own wines.
Back when he was first getting his feet wet as a vineyard owner, Jess worked with a soils expert, Hal Carlson from Healdsburg, and used an experienced vineyard manager as a consultant. Over three years, the consultant showed how to properly prune vines among other things. Jess also took viticulture classes at UC Davis.
At one point, says Jess, Bob Gallo of the winemaking family came to taste Jess’s wine and wondered aloud why there weren’t more vineyards in the Dixon area.
When it came down to the nitty-gritty of maintaining a vineyard, Jess says that “Grapes are some of the most labor-intensive and highest-priced crops to establish and maintain.” For many years he did a lot of the hand labor himself (they hand-harvest their grapes), but now because of carpal tunnel syndrome and getting older, he uses some contract labor for pruning two or three times a year. In addition, he uses a group of 12 to 14 local women for harvesting in September.
Right now, in May, the work involves vine thinning and training. He says that cabernet vines grow so vigorously that they often connect with vines in adjacent rows. Jess says that he’s “borderline organic,” and only needs to spray for weed control and to curtail powdery mildew, mostly on the chardonnay grapes. “Everybody has this problem (with mildew), whether they’re in Napa or Fresno or Bakersfield,” he says. Perhaps every two or three years he sprays for white flies just before harvesting, because clouds of them can irritate the harvesters. However, he keeps insecticide spraying to a minimum, because it can kill beneficial insects (such as ladybugs) as well.
By far the most serious threat to his crop comes from hungry birds such as starlings, crows and magpies which seem to show up just as grapes reach ripeness. He’s tried just about everything to keep the birds at bay including repeating sound guns, fluttering reflective Mylar tape and fake owls and hawks. One year he lost his entire crop of chardonnay grapes to the marauders.
He uses drip irrigation, but only waters several times per year using well water (the water table is only 15 feet deep at his location). If he needs to fertilize, the fertilizer is spread via the drip system. To decide what fertilizer components to use he doesn’t go the usual route of testing soil. Instead, he actually has his grape leaves analyzed.
Grapes begin their life usually during May when the vines produce clusters of “flowers” which aren’t flowers with petals in the usual sense, but look more like tiny grapes or buds. But they are pollinated like flowers. As the grapes form around inner seeds and grow larger during the summer, they gradually become sweeter.
To know when to pick the grapes, Jess crushes some, and then uses an instrument in the field which measures the percentage of sugar in the grape’s juice. He usually wants to attain a 24-percent sugar content before picking. This is also expressed as a brix count of 24. Sometimes vineyards will allow grapes to reach a brix as high as 32 before harvesting. At maturity, wine grapes are much sweeter than table grapes such as Thompson seedless.
The first of his grape varieties to reach ripeness is chardonnay, followed by pinot noir. The picking of each variety lasts about a week and all picking is usually done during mid-September. Surprisingly, his 3.5 acres of vineyards produce about 20 tons (40,000 pounds) of grapes each year.
Usually, weather isn’t a problem, but the chilly spring of 2011 resulted in fewer grapes.
Jess Jones enjoys working with his productive vineyard. “Grape growing is almost therapeutic,” he admits. “Back when (in the first years of his vineyard), you’d go out there and you’d have your little Walkman radio and dog and it’s quiet and you’re clipping grapes; you have a lot of time to think. It wasn’t drudgery. I’m a lifelong farmer and I enjoy growing things.
“If you enjoy that sort of thing, grapes are a beautiful crop to grow. Very satisfying; a good thing to do.”
The next installment will talk about winemaking and bottling at the Jess Jones winery.