Romancing the clone - use of genetic engineering in winemaking

It all began with a romance, 21 cows and a gallon of Mt. Olivet Red. If Bob Dempel's good buddy at the University of California/Davis hadn't fixed him up with a blind date with a young woman at Santa Rosa Junior College (who later became his wife), and if he hadn't followed her back to Santa Rosa, where he paid his bills by milking a herd of cows at a Piner Road dairy, and if that dairy hadn't been just up the road from the little shed where Dewey Baldocchi sold his sturdy red wines, there would be no Baldocchi Zinfandel Clone. But, that scenario played out in just that fashion, so the viticultural world now has a new (provisionally) certified Zinfandel clone.

Going back to the beginning, Dempel, who now runs his Farming Consultancy in Santa Rosa, was aiming for a career in agriculture, when he left Davis for Santa Rosa. Grapevines were just something that he noticed growing in the property he passed every day, as he walked to and from his job. One day he stopped at the little shed where the vineyard's owner, Dewey Baldocchi, sold his Mt. Olivet Red and Mt. Olivet White wines.

When he tried to buy some wine, Baldocchi took one look at him and waved him off. "You're not 21. Out, out." Then one of Dempel's older friends clued him in. "Go late in the day. Dewey gets more mellow after a few glasses of wine." The advice was solid. When Dempel arrived, slightly after 5 PM, Dewey, sitting in the back of the shed called out, "Leave $1.50 on the ledge, and take your gallon of wine." From that casual beginning, Dempel and the Baldocchis, Dewey and Irene, became close friends, and Dempel became a Zinfandel groupie.

Dewey Baldocchi was one of the pioneers of the Sonoma County grape industry. His father, Peter, had worked with Kanaya Nagasawa at Fountain Grove Winery, before establishing his own vineyard and winery on Piner Road. During prohibition, Peter Baldocchi drained the tanks and closed the winery. As Repeal seemed imminent, Dewey and his brother, Romeo, finally talked their dad into leasing the winery to them, and they made the first Baldocchi Bros. wine in 1932. His red wines were always Zinfandel, which he maintained was the grape that made the California wine business famous. "Zinfandel was the grape that Count Agoston Haraszthy brought to Sonoma county," he would say, "and the prizes that were won, all over the world, were for Zinfandel wine."

As Dempel completed his studies and began his career as a farming consultant, he always remembered Baldocchi and his wine, and the old vines which produced the intensely flavorful grapes. His clients kept asking him if he could not get some old-clone Zinfandel to use in grafting, but although U.C., Davis has had three certified Zinfandel clones (l, 3 and 6), since the 1960s, none were the small-berried, tight-cluster grapes produced by the old vines.

In a conversation with the late Andre Tchelistcheff, Dempel asked how he had gone about isolating the Beaulieu-1 clone. Tchelistcheff described how he would walk the vineyard rows, during the growing season, tying yellow and red ribbons on the vines with the characteristics he wanted. Then, in the fall, he would harvest budwood from the plants he had marked.

Some years later, when grower Tom Feeney bought 10 acres of old-vine Zin at the junction of Bisordi Lane and River Road, in Santa Rosa, Dempel asked for permission to mark and make cuttings from those vines. In the winter of 1995/96, he cut five 12[inches] sticks and signed a $1,500 contract with the Foundation Plant Materials Service (FPMS) at U.C.D. to begin the task of qualifying what he had named the Baldocchi clone, in honor of his old friend, for the California Grapevine Registration and Certification program.

In August 1997, Dempel was informed that one of the canes tested Fleck positive, and would not qualify, so it was eliminated from further testing. The remaining four were undergoing leafroll ELISA, herbaceous and other field tests. Hope was still alive that at least one cane would qualify for the program, so Dempel approved a second fee of $1,500. Eleven plants, produced using micro-shoot tip culture from the one cutting which survived the testing, were transferred to soil in the FPMS foundation block on October 10. When Dempel met with FPMS production technician Connie Lopez, and she showed him the two plants she had in the green house, she told him she expected to be able to take hard wood cuttings sometime in the spring of 2000.

In April, 1998, Dempel was able to purchase 29 mist-propagated plants, which he planted in a certified increase block on his ranch in Healdsburg. "They were really extremely small vines," he says. "They looked like tomato transplants, and they still are not very big." At $7.50 each for mist-propagated green cuttings, rooted under mist and established in 4[inches] pots, and $5 each for #1 size cuttings, rooted in the field or greenhouse, it is easy to understand why it is so important for him to get his own nursery producing.

"When you establish an increase block," he explains, "the material must come from Davis, but you are permitted to increase with your own wood; however, it must remain in that block. The plants at Healdsburg are now in their second leaf, and I should get some grapes in 2000 - maybe enough for a barrel of wine. Then it will be another two or three years before we know if the wine is any good. My desire is to take the grapes to a winery that will perpetuate the Baldocchi name on the label. It's all a big gamble."

Dempel has been planting five acres at his home ranch, near Hopland, with 101-14 and 110R rootstock, in preparation for grafting as soon as the certified cuttings are available. When those vines mature, it is Dempel's plan to offer certified old-vine Zinfandel cuttings to his fellow growers in the North Coast.

When the new list of FPMS grape materials offered for the first time was released, October 10, 1998, the Baldocchi clone, Zinfandel 08, was included as a proprietary selection, available with permission from Bob Dempel.

"Anyone could do it," says Dempel. "All it takes is dedication, patience and a few bucks." But would he do it again? He looks thoughtful, then smiles broadly. "Well, I've been flagging a few old Petite Sirah vines in Lou Foppiano's vineyard, just south of Healdsburg and maybe..."

Burgundy '99 Promo Campaign

The Bureau Interprofessional de Vins de Bourgogne (BIVB) is targeting 11 countries on throe continents for tasting seminars, press relations and promotions aimed at the trade and other opinion-makers.

In Europe, the targeted countries are the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and Ireland The United States and Canada are the North American focuses. The other countries are Japan, China (Hong Kong), Taiwan and Singapore.

ONIVINS has contributed a grant from funds allocated to promote appellation controlee wines abroad. The total budget is 10 million francs, of which 5.5 million come from the BIVB communications budget. Execution of the promotions will be via SOPEXA offices in the 11 selected countries.

(Millie Howie is a valued Wines & Vines reporter on the American wine industry.)

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