Frank Leeds
Managing partner, Chavez and Leeds Vineyards
Vice President of vineyard operations, Frog’s Leap Winery

Editor’s Note: Bay Crossings is proud to debut Working Winemaker, a regular feature we’ll include from now on about the grape growers of the fabulous North San Francisco Bay counties of Napa and Sonoma. We know it’s a bit off the waterfront but we just can’t resist.

My grandfather, Apolonio Chavez, purchased our ranch in 1926 during Prohibition. It wasn’t a good time to be in the grape business, but probably a pretty good time to buy vineyard land… When my family bought the ranch, every 5th Zinfandel vine had been pulled in the back of the ranch. In the front of the ranch, every 5th Petit Sirah vine had been pulled out and replanted with a walnut tree. They would ship grapes back east to the big Italian neighborhoods back in New York and Chicago. Every family was allowed to make 200 gallons, so a lot of the grapes sent from the Napa Valley were shipped east to the immigrant neighborhoods.

However the main revenue off the ranch during Prohibition was from walnuts. After my family bought the ranch, they ripped all the rest of the grapevines out. I think my grandmother was actually in favor of prohibition. By the time that prohibition was over, we no longer had any wine grapes. If those grapevines had been allowed to remain, I’m sure they would be creating fabulous wines today.

I wasn’t “born with dust in my crib”, like some of the growers up here. My parents met in St. Helena when my dad was studying to be a doctor. I was born in 1956, raised in San Francisco, and became an aircraft mechanic for American Airlines.

When my Uncle George passed away and there was a lot of family concern over what was going to happen with the Rutherford ranch. We had always loved the area and thought it would be a great opportunity, so I formed a partnership with my brother and sister. We started managing the ranch in 1985, moved up here in 1987 and have been here ever since.

Uncle Roy, my mother’s younger brother, took me under his wing and taught me how to grow grapes. It was just one-on-one. We sat down on the couch at the little house there on the ranch and went through “Ag 101”. If you don’t have the dollar for the stake, don’t put it in the ground. We are not going to the bank. This whole valley went through a lot of problems with phylloxera starting in the late 80’s. Fortunately, my uncle was there and we planted all the right rootstock and slid right through what became a huge disaster for many Napa Valley grape growers.

Taking care of 200 acres of vineyard, I get up about 6:00 a.m., have a cup of coffee and meet my crew at about 6:20 a.m. This is the busiest time of the year - far busier than harvest time. All the work done now sets the stage for the harvest. Traditionally it was always said that one man could work twenty acres of vineyard. This time of year, we have about one man for every ten acres.

My crew spends much of the day “suckering”, removing the unwanted shoots from the vine. I’ve got three tractor drivers. We just finished hoe plowing, removing the dirt and unwanted weeds from around the vines. Every year we plant big cover crops in the vineyards and those are all getting incorporated in the soils right now. We “disk under” the cover crops that we plant. We don’t use any herbicide, and have zero tolerance for weeds in the summer. So there’s a lot of tractor work, mechanically removing all the weeds and dirt and pulverizing it into a soft layer of earth on top to preserve soil moisture and heat up the soil to make the vines perform better.
I walk in the vineyards, checking for pests or problems that might arise. Then I have different meetings segued into my day with my position as president of the Napa Valley Grape Growers or VP of vineyard operations here at Frog’s Leap, all this administrative stuff and I’ll tell you it’s a hectic day. I’m ready for a glass of fine Napa Valley wine by the end of the day. That’s for sure.

Like my Uncle Roy says, there’s a new breed of cat in town. We’re not really trying to compete with somebody who has millions or billions of dollars. What we’re trying to do, and what the traditional Napa Valley grower has tried to do for years, is to provide the most flavorful, highest quality grape that he can. One of the first lessons from Uncle Roy is if you don’t have the deep soils and you don’t have the hot nights, you’ll never compete in quantity with areas like Lodi in the Central Valley. What we do have is quality.

You don’t try to make an $80 bottle of wine. You try to make the best grapes you can. If you are in the right place and have the right varieties, you are going to make a great glass of wine. With the right marketing, somebody might try to sell it for $80, but you don’t sit down and go after the money to begin with. You just do the best job you can.

Fine wine begins on the vine. At Frog’s Leap winery, our grapes are farmed organically and for the most part are unirrigated. The flavors of the wine truly represent our unique soils. I really believe that farmers in Napa County are farming in a much more progressive and sustainable manner. To that end, many of Napa’s leading viticulturists are working with the local Resource Conservation District and have formed the Napa Sustainable Winegrowing Group. Others have raised the notch even higher and are farming organically, many certified by “California Certified Organic Farmers”.

As President of the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association and a certified organic farmer, I’m personally committed to leading our farming community to a greener, environmentally responsible approach to land stewardship. At Frog’s Leap winery, we’ve developed a highly effective river restoration project along 3,000 feet of the Napa River bordering our Galleron ranch.

Both environmentalists and growers need to come together and find common ground. The best chance of keeping Napa green is with farming. All they need to do is take a ride down to San Jose to see what can happen. San Jose was a beautiful farming community - completely paved over. The fruit industry in San Jose was not successful in keeping out development, but the price of grapes, the value that you can obtain from an acre of land is still worth farming.