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Wine: Iconic winery being sold; Napa’s Crimson receives biomass test grant

The owner of 125-year-old Chateau Montelena Winery who helped put Napa Valley on the world wine map at the Paris Tasting of 1976 said he is in talks to sell the winery to a French man who owns a winery in France as well as luxury resorts.

Jim Barrett, who purchased the Calistoga winery in 1972, is talking to Michel Reybier, who owns Chateau Cos d’Estournel in the Saint-Estephe appellation of southwestern France, about an acquisition of Chateau Montelena, according to a joint announcement last week. Regulatory approval of the deal reportedly is expected this fall. The proposed purchase price was not disclosed but is reported to be $110 million.

Chateau Montelena winemaker Bo Barrett, Jim Barrett’s son, would remain in place if the acquisition were to proceed.

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Crimson Wine Group of Napa was awarded a $560,000 federal grant to convert vineyard foliage to fuel at Pine Ridge Winery. The winery was one of four recipients statewide of a conservation innovation grant this year. Crimson applied to the National Resource Conservation Service for a conservation innovation grant to use “biomass” from leaf removal, pruning and other viticultural practices to generate electricity and heat. Currently, the winery uses a trailer-mounted chipper on its 225 acres of vines in Napa Valley to make mulch.

Other products from the forsaken foliage include kindling and wreaths, but vine wood with questionable exposure to diseases is burned. The company has to decide in the next few months whether biomass or a more commonplace sustainable business project such as solar power or water reclamation makes more sense and whether to act on the grant, according to President and CEO Erle Martin.

“A project like this requires some tending, whereas solar is set it and forget it,” Mr. Martin said. Such tending includes transporting foliage to the winery, he said.

Some wineries have installed bio-

digesters, which produce combustible gas from bacterial digestion of grape solids in winery process wastewater. Constellation Brands’ Clos Du Bois and Simi Winery facilities in Sonoma County use biodigesters to reduce their wastewater management and energy costs.

Instead, many wineries, Pine Ridge included, turn their postpress pumace – or grape skins, seeds and stems – into compost.

To figure out the startup and operating costs and benefits of biomass energy, Crimson is taking tips from Dixon Ridge Farms, a large walnut operation in Winters that installed a half-million-dollar BioMax 50 system by Community Power Corp. of Colorado late last year. The BioMax system can use 30 different biomass feedstocks, including wood, nutshells, grasses, fruit skins, paper and plastics. The company claims the conversion ratio for its equipment is two pounds of biomass into 1 kilowatt of electricity and 2 kilowatts of heat energy.

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Wine Institute, American Vineyard Foundation and National Grape & Wine Initiative recently published the “Comprehensive Guide to Sustainable Management of Winery Water and Associated Energy.” Partly funded by the foundation and Pacific Gas & Electric, the guide gives wineries large and small self-assessment tools developed by Kennedy/Jenks Consultants for lowering water and energy use.

To obtain an electronic copy of the guide and spreadsheets, send a request to info@sustainablewinegrowing.org. PG&E and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance will be holding training workshops, and PG&E will be offering related services such as free energy audits to those who attend.

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The California Department of Food & Agriculture predicts that despite frost damage the winegrape harvest statewide will be of average size this year at 3.2 million tons, a decrease of 3 percent from 2007. Frost, heat, wind and wildfire smoke so far this season have many North Coast growers reporting smaller anticipated crops.

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Vintner and real estate developer Steve Ledson is following up the striking tasting room project with cousin Steve Cunningham for the Zina Hyde brand in Boonville of Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley with a planned tasting room with another cousin in Russian River Valley.

Mr. Ledson, who owns Ledson Vineyards & Winery in Kenwood and the Ledson Inn in Sonoma and is a fan of historical reconstruction, has teamed with cousin Guglielmo Luigi Bertetta to establish a tasting room styled upon the rich Italian winemaking heritage of Sonoma County, according to Mr. Ledson. A brand connected to the new venue is still in development, as are full plans for the tasting room.

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Wine people

Latina Style Magazine named Vanessa Robledo as Entrepreneur of the Year for her work as president of Robledo Family Winery until last year and projects as a wine marketing consultant since.

The Hess Collection named Carl Krawitt as senior marketing director. Previously, he was director of marketing at Ste. Michelle Wine Estates.

Tony Lombardi literally has his old office and phone number back as public relations director for Ascentia Wine Estates, which acquired Beam Wine Estates brands from Constellation Brands last month. Previously, he represented some of the same brands with Beam predecessor Allied Domecq Wines USA.

Chalk Hill Estate Vineyards & Winery near Healdsburg named Jordan Fiorentini as director of winemak-ing, replacing Steven Leveque. Ms. Fior-entini was associate winemaker.

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Submit items for this column to Jeff Quack-enbush at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com,

707-521-4256 or fax 707-521-5292.