liquid assets
THE VINES THAT BIND
Local families follow their
hearts’ desire for making wine.
WRITTEN BY MARNIE MCARTHUR
PHOTOS COURTESY OF WINERY OWNERS
“When men drink, then they are rich and successful . . . and are happy and help their friends. Quickly bring me a beaker of wine . . .”
— Aristophanes, The Knights, 424 B.C.E.
| Churchill Vineyards, Fallon Nev |
F rom the mountains of Lake Tahoe to the high desert valleys of Nevada’s Washoe, Carson, and Churchill counties, men and women of science, business, agriculture, and art pursue a passion as old as time: farming vines and making wines.
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We discovered a group of nearly a dozen residents who create and sell their own wines, working part-time or full-time and in our midst or outside the area. And what’s fascinating is a handful of them are linked to one winemaker.
Three Reno medical professionals entered the wine business through serendipitous meetings with well-known Napa Valley Winemaker Tony Truchard (of Truchard Vineyards), a Reno physician from 1974 to 1986. During that time he met and inspired local cardiologist Kosta Arger (of Arger-Martucci Vineyards), dentist Greg Nitz (of Carrefour Vineyards), and plastic surgeon Steve Grace (of Grace Patriot Wines). Truchard still supplies grapes from his Pinot Noir vineyard to Carrefour Vineyards, owned by Greg and Marilyn Nitz. He also sold Chardonnay grapes to Don Carano in the 1980s and helped Carano locate the perfect vineyard for his Ferrari-Carano Vineyards & Winery Reserve Chardonnay.
Another famous Napa Valley vintner, Joe Heitz, also played a mentoring role to local winemakers. Arger worked the crush at Heitz Cellars in 1976. Encouraged by Heitz, he made his first barrel of wine from a 1976 vintage. Two decades later, Tyler Grace interned with Heitz before becoming winemaker at Grace Patriot Wines, owned by his parents Steve and Bea Grace.
In the 1980s, Arger and his wife Julie were living across the street from Tony and Jo Ann Truchard in Reno.
“Tony had an impact on all of us,” Arger says. “I made my first homemade Bordeaux-style wines from his grapes. When my sister brought me a Burgundy barrel, I made Pinot Noir from Tony’s vineyards.”
Time in a Bottle
In addition to a full-time medical practice, Arger is the winemaker at Arger-Martucci Vineyards, a partnership since 1998 with Reno businessman Rich Martucci and his wife Carol. When asked how he manages to do it all, he answers with good humor, “I don’t golf!”
Arger-Martucci Vineyards makes less than 5,000 cases of estate-grown wines. It is one of the few family-owned boutique wineries in Napa Valley that are open to the public.
Greg Nitz met Tony Truchard and began helping him make wine in 1990.
“Working with Tony was contagious,” Nitz says. “He finally said to me, ‘You should buy your own land.’ In 1997, I did.”
Nitz and his wife Marilyn, a captain with American Airlines, commute every weekend to their Napa Valley vineyard where he happily hops on the tractor.
“I’m not just a gentleman farmer,” he says. “My John Deere and I are attached.”
All in the Family
Between Nitz and Truchard, winemaking is all in the family. Carrefour’s consulting winemaker is Kelly De’Ianni who is married to Sal De’Ianni, winemaker at Truchard Vineyards. Carrefour’s vineyard manager is Truchard’s youngest son, John Anthony Truchard.
Steve Grace also credits Truchard with his family’s decision to enter the wine business.
“Tony was a strong influence,” Grace says. “My office was in the same building in Reno as his. I remember the day he said he was moving to Napa. I was envious of that. My wife and I enjoy wine and we loved the casual Napa Valley lifestyle in the 1970s. We kind of evolved into the business.”
The Grace’s eldest son Tyler graduated from Reno High School as a National Merit finalist. After two degrees and work as a field geologist, he studied winemaking at California State University, Fresno. Steve Grace also took wine courses at University of California, Davis. The entire family, including younger son Trevor, is hands-on during crush at Grace Patriot Wines located on the historic Irving Ranch in the Apple Hill area of El Dorado County.
Family also is at the heart of the internationally known Ferrari-Carano Winery in Sonoma County. Don Carano’s paternal grandmother Amelia Ferrari taught him love for good food, great wine, and gardening. In her honor Don and Rhonda Carano included Ferrari in the winery name.
The Carano family is well known in Reno for its casino interests (Eldorado Hotel Casino in Reno, Silver Legacy Resort Casino in Reno, Tamarack Junction Casino & Restaurant in Reno, and Carson Valley Inn Casino in Minden). They also co-own the Vintners Inn and the adjoining restaurant John Ash & Co. in Santa Rosa, Calif. A new venture for the family is PreVail Mountain Winery in the Alexander Valley. PreVail includes a red blend called West Face made from Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah grapes that were planted on Lookout Mountain. It also includes Back Forty, made from a 40-acre vineyard block of Cabernet Sauvignon on the backside of RockRise Mountain.
Cold and High
At nearly 6,000 feet in elevation and with many days at 32 degrees F, the highest and coldest family wine business in the region (possibly the nation) is Truckee River Winery owned by Russ and Joan Jones. Local to the bone, both attended Truckee High School and Russ skied for the Squaw Valley USA race team. Russ returned to Truckee after earning an enology degree at the University of California, Davis, because, he says, “Where else can you ski powder in the morning and make wine in the afternoon?”
Russ buys grapes from premium California vineyards. But he recently planted three cold-loving varietals – Brianna, La Cross, and Frontenac — along the Truckee River and in front of the tasting room on Brockway Road.
“I’ve always loved growing things,” Russ says. But, he says, it will be a few years before he has enough local grapes to make wine.
In the future, Russ plans to make an ice wine, a perfect choice for sipping après ski.
Desert Vines
Wine grapes thrive in all altitudes and climates. Two Nevada wineries disprove the notion that you can’t grow grapes in the desert. At Churchill Vineyards in Fallon the lineage of winemaker Colby Peckham Frey stems from two of Nevada’s oldest farming families. His great-great grandfather, Joseph Frey Sr., settled in Genoa in 1854 and received one of the first land claims filed in Nevada in 1857. His great-grandmother, Ethel May Peckham, was the daughter of George Peckham whose farm in the 1900s was located where the Reno-Sparks Convention Center stands today.
“As a little boy I loved to play in the dirt, and I always wanted to be a farmer,” Colby Frey says. “Our family (members have) been farmers for five generations, but today it’s harder to get enough water. We planted grapes because they consume only 10 percent of the water used by other crops.”
Frey and his wife Ashley run the family business that produces estate-grown wines from 10 acres of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Semillon, and Chardonnay vines on the 1,000-acre Frey farm in Fallon. They also produce Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Syrah from vineyards in Lodi, Calif. Visitors are welcome by appointment.
Rick Halbardier, CEO and winemaker at Tahoe Ridge Winery, has been experimenting with different varietals since the 1990s when he partnered with the University of Nevada, Reno to build a three-acre vineyard and an experimental research winery at his home in Minden. He now has a full-production winery and tasting room in Minden and partners with eight California and Nevada vineyards for commercial production of 19 different wines. Halbardier also partners with five Nevada research vineyards, including the Tahoe Ridge Vineyard in Minden, to grow 11 hybrid and European Vinifera grapes. You can taste Tahoe Ridge’s wines at the Minden tasting room, which is open 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. Tues. – Sat. and 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sun.
Growing Business
Others in Reno have been drawn to the wine industry because of its blend of science, art, and good business. John Klacking, a Ph.D. biochemist and owner of Brewhouse Pub & Grill on McCarran Boulevard in Reno, founded Double Bond Winery in Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley in 2007. He now owns the winery with a small group of local partners. The winemaker is Klacking’s uncle, John Thunen, a retired Ph.D. physicist from Lockheed Martin Corporation who has been making wine for 30 years.
Reno real estate broker Mike Carwin and independent wine broker Dennis Medina first produced a wine in 2009 under the name Splash! Following a trademark dispute, they renamed the wine Z53, referencing Vat 53 at the winery on Zinfandel Lane in Napa Valley where the wine is blended and bottled. Z53 is a blend of Moscato and Sauvignon Blanc.
“It’s meant to be served sangria style over ice with a citrus garnish,” Medina says.
These Reno-Tahoe men and women of wine bring an eclectic mix of vision and talent to our region. Wine lovers can enjoy many of their wines, and perhaps their company as well, at local wineries and small wine shops and tasting bars throughout the area.
Marnie McArthur has been writing about wine and the people who make it for 30 years. She drinks wine with every meal (except breakfast) and believes in the words of late Leon Adams, founder of the Wine Institute, “All wine would be red if it could.”
