Helen Pitt uncorks Sonoma County and finds an appealing blend of winemaking and rustic lifestyle.

When winemaker Brian Croser moved to California to study viticulture in 1972, he fell in love with a little pastoral place called Petaluma and decided when he returned to Australia he would give the name to his wines. At the time, thanks to its thriving poultry industry, the town 60 kilometres north of San Francisco was known as the ”egg capital of the world” and the birthplace of the egg incubator.

”It was important to our decision that there were no vineyards in Petaluma and, according to my viticulture lecturers, unlikely to be because it was too cool and foggy,” says Croser, who set up Petaluma Wines in the Adelaide Hills in 1976. ”My, how that perception and reality has changed,” he says of the town, which is the gateway to Sonoma County wine country.

Croser has since made the name Petaluma synonymous with fine wine in Australia; now vintners of Petaluma Gap, an alliance of premium winemakers, are doing their best to create the same buzz in California. Vineyards abut the Petaluma city limits these days and wine pulses through the place in its wine bars, tasting rooms, restaurants and its women’s wine club.

As happened in many cooler-climate country towns in Australia, such as Orange and those in the Adelaide Hills, grapes now grow in fields that once were orchards. In Petaluma, the old fruit trees have gone the way of the chicken hatcheries; the old wooden barns remaining are more likely to be artists’ studios or cellar doors than chicken coops.

Thanks to the success of Croser’s wine company, it’s fair to say more Australians than Americans associate the name Petaluma with wine. Yet when they come to visit San Francisco’s wine country, instead of heading 45 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge on Highway 101 to Petaluma, most veer right on to Highway 37 to visit the more viticulturally famous Napa Valley.

I confess I was one of them back in 1999, when I first went to Petaluma for the reason most Australians visited: outlet shopping (oh, the shame of it). But when I moved there to live in 2002, I soon learnt Sonoma County – of which Petaluma is a part – is the birthplace of Californian winemaking.

The first wine grapes were planted by Russian immigrants in Fort Ross in northern Sonoma County about 1812. They supposedly gave their wine and religious paraphernalia to the Spanish missionaries, who established the most northerly of their 21 missions in Sonoma township.

Today, there are 404,000 hectares of land in Sonoma County, of which 25,000 hectares are vineyards. Sonoma is less of a monocultural county than neighbouring Napa, where wine is the main agricultural product and the foundation of a multimillion-dollar tourist industry. Sonoma County is home to rugged Pacific coastline, redwood forests, fertile valleys and small, charming towns such as Petaluma, population 55,000. It is still the sort of place where you can ride your bike to the Wild Flour Bread Bakery and organic garden in Freestone for a loaf of brick-oven baked bread and be held up by tractors and cows crossing the road, not ”tasting room traffic”, as is often the case on the two main thoroughfares through Napa Valley.

Napa may have one of the world’s most renowned and difficult-to-reserve restaurants (The French Laundry in Yountville); however, in Sonoma County, you can still find old-style ”greasy spoon” diners, such as Petaluma’s 29er Diner at the Petaluma Municipal Airport, where you can dig into a great burger while watching light planes take off over Sonoma Mountain.

The Sonoma-based correspondent of the US wine bible Wine Spectator, Tim Fish, describes the difference between Napa and Sonoma counties thus: ”Sonoma is blue jeans, Napa khakis; Sonoma is trucks [albeit nice ones], Napa BMWs … Sonoma is generally more laid back, with smaller wineries.”

The wines made in each county are quite different but equally good, he says. Sonoma has a more varied landscape and is developing a reputation as one of the premier growing regions for robust reds such as zinfandel (a variety that has reached cult status in California), delicate pinot noirs and crisp chardonnays coming from cooler coastal regions, where the fog hugs the hills like a fur stole some summer days and acts like a natural refrigerator for the grapes and allows the fruit to stay on the vine longer and develop more intense flavours. Napa, by contrast, is flat in the valley, hot and, in the main, cabernet country. ”Part of Napa’s superiority is money; vintners there have the money to spend on meticulous farming and winemaking,” Fish says. ”They can charge more for their wines because of Napa’s more manicured reputation.”

”What sets Sonoma County apart is its people,” says the mayor of Petaluma, Pam Torliatt, who is running for the office of Sonoma County supervisor later this year. ”The wine-grape growers and winemakers of Sonoma County are casual, rural and very friendly. There are multiple vineyards that are 100 years old and still run by the founding families. Roughly half of the vineyards are less than 20 acres [eight hectares] and 80 per cent are 100 acres or less.”

Torliatt is a fourth-generation Petaluman who knows the first names of most of the area’s grape growers and is a regular at Vine & Barrel, the wine store in the town’s rustic Kentucky Street (she went to high school with its owner). Her ancestors were allegedly involved in bootlegging liquor down the Petaluma Slough, the tidal river that flows from San Francisco Bay and dissects the town, smuggling alcohol into the city’s speakeasies that thrived during Prohibition. (Croser has a photo of himself in front of Petaluma’s temperance monument – a hangover from that era.) One speakeasy, Volpi’s, is now an Italian eatery.

Sonoma County is also the provenance of much of the produce that chef Alice Waters, known as the creator of Californian cuisine, first used in her Berkeley-based restaurant, Chez Panisse. Waters sought out Sonoma’s Laura Chenel’s Chevre, which became a signature dish at the restaurant – when no one had heard of goat’s cheese – and from Petaluma she sourced free-range eggs, chickens and Della Fattoria sourdough bread (although Sonoma has become synonymous with good bread, Sonoma sourdough originates in San Francisco). As US botanist and horticulturist Luther Burbank noted, the predictable northern Californian weather pattern (sunshine for six months, rain for six months) makes ”Sonoma County the chosen spot in all the earth for growing things”.

But if you don’t believe the food, wine and civic experts, let me vouch for the place as a resident of six years. As well as grapes, they grow good people in Petaluma. (And I confess that Tim Fish is my former boss and mayor Torliatt is my friend.) They helped raise my son and I was embraced by a community with a spirit akin to San Francisco in the 1960s; indeed, many are refugees from the city of that era. I joined the movement to turn the disused railway station into an arts centre. I was a founding member of the women’s wine club, a regular at Aqus Cafe at Petaluma’s old foundry wharf (also home to the Sonoma Valley Portworks, which, coincidentally, blends Australian ports). I know it to be the sort of small-town US that John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen sing about: a rural idyll that appears lifted from a Norman Rockwell illustration. It still has an annual Butter and Egg Day parade to celebrate its poultry heritage, as well as a Taste of Petaluma day to showcase its food and wine; grapes and tourism are its main industries.

In many ways, Petaluma’s Victorian downtown is what San Francisco looked like before the 1906 earthquake destroyed it. For that reason, it is a popular setting for period films, including George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and the cult classic, Pleasantville (1998). Its high school, pretty Californian hills backdrop and old Catholic church – built with money from Portuguese farmers who ran many of the dairies on the outskirts of town – are well known among film and television devotees. When the town’s cinema closed, a group of girls – dubbed the superb seven – mounted a campaign to build another, which they did with help from director George Lucas, who lives in nearby Marin County.

Croser no longer makes Petaluma Wines – he sold the company to Lion Nathan – but he visits Petaluma regularly and encourages others to do so. As a veteran of wine harvests around the world, this is his favourite town. And if you don’t like wine, well, there’s always outlet shopping.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

Qantas flies to San Francisco from Sydney (13hr 20min) for about $1270 low-season return including tax; Melbourne passengers fly Qantas to Sydney to connect and pay about the same. Or combine a trip to Asia with the US, as many Asian carriers fly to San Francisco via their base; for example, Korean Airlines flies via Seoul, Thai Airways via Bangkok. Australians must apply for US travel authorisation at https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov.

Hire a car in San Francisco and take Highway 101 north across the Golden Gate Bridge, there’s a $US6 ($6.76), for 60 kilometres to Petaluma. To see the Sonoma Coast, take the East Washington Street exit and follow the signs 48 kilometres to Bodega Bay (where Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds was filmed). To explore Russian River Wine Road in Sonoma County, continue north on Highway 101 to Healdsburg, rent a bike and ride through the Russian River Valley. To visit Napa Valley, go over the Golden Gate Bridge on Highway 101, turn on to Highway 37 and follow the signs.

Top five Sonoma County cellar doors

Bella Estate Winery has underground wine caves in a steep hillside in the heart of Dry Creek Valley, an area renowned for zinfandel and syrah (what Americans call shiraz). Its tasting room opens daily from 11am-4.30pm for tastings ($US5) and tours. The fabulous acoustics of the caves allow for a music room, with jazz in summer and Christmas carols in winter. At 9711 West Dry Creek Road, Healdsburg; see www.bellawinery.com.

Keller Estate is perched high on a hill off a eucalyptus-lined road on the outskirts of Petaluma. The views are as stunning as the award-winning pinot noir. Tastings are $US10; bookings essential. At 5875 Lakeville Highway, Petaluma; see www.kellerestate.com.

Loxton Cellars is run by Australian Chris Loxton, one of Sonoma County’s most awarded winemakers. He left his family vineyard in South Australia to become a physicist but, as a third-generation grape grower, wine is in his blood. He hangs his Akubra on his shiraz. Follow the Australian kangaroo road signs to the tasting room, in an old shed, for free tastings. At 11466 Dunbar Road, Glen Ellen; see www.loxtonwines.com.

Gloria Ferrer has cool-climate wine with warm Spanish hospitality. Sip bubbly from the terrace of this hacienda and take in one of the best views of northern California wine country. Sparkling wines are available by the glass. The tasting room is open daily from 10am-5pm. At 23555 Carneros Highway, Sonoma; see www.gloriaferrer.com.

Sonoma Valley Port Works has port tastings straight from the barrel at the old Foundry Wharf building along the Petaluma River. Pick up a bottle of sonomic vinegar, too. If it’s too early for port, have a coffee next door at Aqus Cafe, run by Irishman John Crowley and his French wife, Anne-Laure. Opening for free tastings, Monday to Saturday, noon-5pm. At 613 2nd Street, Petaluma; see www.portworks.com.

Napa Valley

Domaine Carneros is a French-style chateau that sits on your right as you pass the Napa Valley County line. Picnic on the terrace. Open daily, 10am-6pm. At 1240 Duhig Road, Napa; see www.domainecarneros.com.

Rubicon Estate was known previously as Niebaum-Coppola: filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola has been making wine and movies there for decades. There’s the Godfather Museum and tastings for $US25. Open daily, 10am-5pm. At 991 St Helena Highway South, Rutherford; see www.rubiconestate.com.

The French Laundry is perhaps the most famous restaurant in the US and requires booking two months in advance. Chef Thomas Keller has earned an international reputation for his nine-course meals. Open daily for dinner and lunch from Friday to Sunday. At 6640 Washington Street, Yountville; see www.frenchlaundry.com.

If you don’t like wine

Petaluma Village Premium Outlets is a complex of factory stores selling the biggest clothing and hi-fi brands in the US. These include Levi’s, Gap, Nike, Nine West and Bose. At 2200 Petaluma Boulevard North, Petaluma; see www.premiumoutlets.com

International experts tasted 519 sparkling wines from 24 countries over the course of two days.

173 medals were awarded, including 37 gold and 136 silver, with the top ten entries coming from Canada, Argentina, Switzerland, Italy and France.

France achieved three Champagnes in the top ten.

Results are available at http://www.effervescents-du-monde.com/

With the value of Australian wine exports continuing to dwindle for the second consecutive year, the Australian wine industry is looking to regroup.
Culpability for the export wane has been placed on a number of broad shoulders including the global financial crisis, the increasing market power of competing countries, and more damagingly, failing perceptions of the quality of Australian wine overseas.
But while who and what to blame is debated, there is little question over what needs to be done next, such as improving international perceptions by placing a heightened emphasis on quality bottled wine at good prices, a strategy recently seen in action with the launch of Australia’s First Families of Wine (see photo), and the expansion of Australia’s wine exports to China, which saw a staggering 84.3% increase in volume in the 12 months to June 2009 compared to the previous 12 months – the largest increase in Australian exports anywhere in the world.
Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Emerging Markets regional manager Ali Hogarth says the Chinese market presents a good opportunity for Australia.
‘We’re one of the very few major exporters in the Asian region, which gives us a stronger stance than Europe, the United States and southern America,’ she said.
‘We are in the same time zone and we also have a lot of internationals coming to Australia from China who tend to take back Australian culture, which includes wine.’
China is already Australia’s strongest export market in Asia, currently receiving 41% of Australia’s Asian exports, with Japan the second largest at 20% and Hong Kong third at 11%.
Yet while growing strongly in volume, exports to China did not escape the worldwide fall in export value that saw Australian wine drop an overall $3.24 per litre in value in the 12 months to last June.
‘Essentially what we are aiming to do is position Australia’s wine as a fine wine and high value proposition,’ Hogarth said.
‘There is a growing middle class and as people become more knowledgeable and their taste and interest develops, we expect to see an increase in consumption.’
Wine export to China has subsequently become a priority for the AWBC, a corporation that flagged its intentions when it submitted recommendations to the Federal Foreign Affairs and Trade Department’s China Free Trade Agreement Study Taskforce back in June 2005.
Those recommendations included the removal of wine tariffs for trade between Australia and China, which currently stand at 14% for bottled wine and 20% for bulk wine (in addition to a consumption tax of 10% and value added tax (VAT) of 17%, making a total effective tariff of 48.2% for bottled wine), the opening up of distribution channels to foreign-owned companies, removing convoluted and lengthy Chinese label registration processes, and making further changes to trade regulations to bring about an overall simplification of Australia’s exports.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says discussions are continuing for a FTA between Australia and China on a variety of levels.
‘[But] the next round of formal negotiations has not yet been scheduled,’ she said.
While a FTA still seems some way off, there have already been some accomplishments in the easing of export regulations.
In April this year, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) that addressed the AWBC’s recommendations on labelling.
AWBC trade manager Andreas Clark says this included the establishment of a process for ongoing regulatory and market access issues between the relevant authorities, namely the corporation and AQSIQ.
‘The AWBC has a close working relationship with AQSIQ, demonstrated through recent meetings in Beijing and Shanghai where we had an open and detailed exchange about our relevant roles and processes,’ he said.
‘These meetings and the developing relationship provided us with an opportunity, for example, to clarify how certain Chinese wine standards, including labelling issues are enforced.
‘AQSIQ no longer applies a pre-approval process for wine labels, so that part of the 2005 submission is no longer relevant … [meaning] that Australian exporters no longer have to endure long waiting periods to be able to ship their wines.
‘[But] All of our comments in the 2005 submission other than those concerning the labelling pre-approval process still stand … tariff elimination is a priority as we would like to see Australian producers benefit from the same market access that Chile and New Zealand have.’
Chile and NZ benefit from FTAs that have left Chile with an import duty of 8.4% that will fade out to zero in 2015, and NZ with an import duty of 8.4% that will fade out to zero by 2012 (a consumption tax of 10% and VAT of 17% remain the same for both countries).
But with Australia’s penetration of the Chinese market rising regardless of an elusive FTA, and currently second only to France (45%) by providing 20% of China’s overall bottled wine imports, the AWBC is ramping up its marketing strategy.
This has included basing a market development officer in Shanghai and forming a partnership with AUSTRADE that gives AWBC access to its 13 offices in China, and a wider variety of export promotion initiatives.
Chinese and HK representatives were present at the AWBC’s Landmark Australia tutorial in June that saw 12 wine media and educators from around the world participate in a five-day event in the Barossa Valley.
Two hundred and forty eight of Australia’s finest wines were presented by leading winemakers and commentators, seminars took place and international participants took regional tours throughout South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.
The AWBC has also launched an extensive China Market Program designed to use media and education methods in China to create category awareness and commercial opportunities, and increase trade and consumer knowledge with China.
‘We have been actively marketing Australian wine in China since 2006, and this commitment and investment will continue,’ Hogarth said.
‘The Chinese market offers both mainstream and fine wine opportunities, and our marketing strategies will address these by encouraging new consumer creation through positive association with Australia as a country, as well as ensuring specialist trade, media and educators have access to our regionally distinct and fine wines.
‘Australia is uniquely positioned to deliver to both audiences and the marketing strategy speaks to this.’
She says that unlike previous campaigns in the United Kingdom and United States, the China marketing campaign will not have a focus on price competition but will concentrate on establishing a reputation for high quality.
‘China has a very strong domestic market and Australia will never be able to compete with that,’ Hogarth said.
‘A lot of what we do is very education based and focuses on trade and media.’
One Australian state has thrown its own marketing campaign into the ring. This year the NSW Government organised several initiatives to boost the state’s exports to China. This included investing $100,000 of in-kind support to NSW wineries to encourage their involvement in penetrating the China and HK markets, as well as running business workshops for wineries to gear up towards an advance on the Chinese market. All of this is leading up to a government-led promotional tour of China and HK next month.
NSW State Development Minister Ian Macdonald says the tour will be the first step in developing a long-term marketing strategy to boost opportunities.
‘Up to 20 NSW wineries from a range of regions are expected to participate in this first round of promotional activities,’ he said.
‘NSW wine exports to China grew from $A7.4 million to $A14.8m between the 2006 and 2008 calendar years … and NSW wine exports to HK from $A3.2m to $A5.2m during the same period.
‘Over the past few years, China and HK have emerged as the most important market in Asia for Australian wine.
‘We are focused on growing these markets into the future.’
Hogarth welcomed the NSW initiative but says the AWBC is concentrated on a nationwide approach to building the leading Asian recipient for Australia’s wine exports.
‘It’s important that we all work together, and finding the right distribution is probably the most significant challenge exporter we’ll encounter, so financial and on-ground support from regions and/or states offices located in China may help to overcome this,’ she said.
‘(But) it is important to note that although China has experienced significant growth, it is from a relatively small base from a global perspective.
‘Currently Australia exports 723m litres to the UK compared with just 25mL to China.
‘Of this 25mL, just over half of this is bottled wine, which equates to approximately 1.5m dozen bottled wine exports that have been sent to China in the past 12 months.’
While China may twinkle as a saving grace for the Australian wine industry, with such a little percentage of Australia’s overall export market, it seems the industry is a long way from winning its ongoing battle.

HUNTER wine exports rose more than $1.1 million in the first 10 months of this year thanks to new trade agreements between Australia and China.

Margan wines at Broke has been among those to make its mark, exporting 13,000 bottles this week to Beijing.

Treasurer Eric Roozendaal said NSW wine exports to China had grown at an average annual rate of more than 232 per cent over the past five years.

The Hunter sold $1,115,370 of blended and single wine between January and October, figures from the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation said.

These compares favourably to the first 10 months of 2008, where $826,227 of wine was exported to China.

Australian exports were given a boost in April when Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke signed agreements to improve access to markets in China and Hong Kong.

The two agreements were to give wine producers simplified, improved access to both markets.

Upper Hunter vineyard James Estate opened an office in Shanghai about a year ago.

Senior winemaker Graeme Scott said it had not all been plain sailing, with some language barriers and different labelling requirements but it was well worth the effort.

He said 90 per cent of the sales were in red wine, with rose and white wines making up the difference.

“Things are progressing well and we’re in there for the long term,” he said.

Andrew Margan of Margan wines said China’s drinking tastes were changing.

“We are definitely selling more wine to China. There’s a national trend in China away from the hard liquor and towards red wine,” he said.

Mr Roozendaal said a recent wine promotion trade mission to Hong Kong and China produced immediate results, luring a major buyer to the Hunter vineyards.

Sam Irving, managing director of Hong Kong’s Leisure Wines spent Sunday and Monday visiting Hunter wineries.

He said the Hunter’s shiraz would do well in the China and Hong Kong markets.

Foster’s, Nestlé, Schweppes and Lindt have undertaken to keep their Australian brands free from genetically engineered ingredients, joining other Australian brands that include VB, Milo, Uncle Toby’s cereal and Peters Ice Cream.

The 2010 Truefood Guide released by Greenpeace, which rates over one thousand of Australia’s top food and beverage brands for the presence of genetically engineered ingredients, revealed the news.

The Biological Farmers of Australia organisation says this is a significant win for consumers seeking no GMOs.

“(But) despite this latest win, GMOs are increasingly finding their way into many common foods,” it stated in media release.

“Equally disturbing is the fact that due to loose labelling laws in Australia, most foods aren’t required to declare that ingredients are genetically modified on labelling, and consumers end up unwittingly consuming GMOs.”

The organisation advised people wanting to avoid genetically modified food to acquire the Greenpeace Truefood pocket guide (http://www.truefood.org.au/), or to look for organic certification logos on food labelling, such as the Australian Certified Organic ‘Bud’ logo.

Source: Wine Biz