But the boys were determined to revive and preserve it as a (their term) palimpsest of the past. To say the stately manor had fallen into disrepair would be quite the understatement. When they took over the property it was a dilapidated turkey farm. bond was burnt in protest, and wine would not be (legally) made on the property for over 80 years.įast forward to 2007 and meet brothers Andrew and Adam Mariani. Sadly, at the height of their success, Prohibition was enacted in 1920. Carl’s commitment to quality earned the wine first place honors at the 1904 World’s Fair and the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. When Julius’s son took over in 1891 he became one of the first California vintners to sell wine with varietal designations, such as Semillon and Cabernet Sauvignon. The grafting system he used revived the industry and is still used today.
In 1878, when Phylloxera threatened the California wine industry, Julius became the first grower in the state to plant vineyards on disease resistant stock. The Dresel Family can lay claim to several firsts. Emil and his brother Julius, who succeeded him in 1869, went on to become wine industry leaders, fervent Abolitionists, gamblers, land stewards and intermittent outlaws. He planted these cuttings and the rest is, as they say, history. By all accounts, these must have been the first Riesling and Sylvaner varieties imported to the United States. Among his belongings, though likely not officially declared, were vine cuttings from his homeland. Old records show that on March 12 th, along with three fellow Germans (including Jacob Gundlach), Emil purchased 400 acres of land two miles east of Sonoma Square, the spot where, just 10 years before, the Bear Flag Revolt had established California as a state in the American Union.Įmil had come to America in 1849 aboard the sailing ship Franziska. Realizing the region’s extraordinary grape-growing potential, he searched the Northern California valleys for the ideal vineyard site. In 1858, Emil Dresel, son of a famous champagne producer in Weisenheim Germany, came to California in search of fortune. It is, ironically enough, also where the first grapevines were cultivated here in Sonoma County. Berkeley, they came across an 1823 journal kept by Father José Altimira during his search for a suitable location to establish a new Spanish Mission.įrom the padre’s journal you could trace his path up the bay, through Carneros, below Arrowhead Mountain and over what is now the Scribe farm on his way to a spot three miles away where California’s northernmost Spanish Mission would be established.
There’s a lot of history to be told about the property upon which Scribe Winery makes its home. Unearthing that history has become a bit of an obsession for Andrew and Adam Mariani and the team at Scribe.ĭuring a trip to the Bancroft Library at U.C.
0 kommentar(er)
