Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the operations dating back five generations of continuous winegrape
growing to the 1860s. A hundred years later, Napa winemakers created
their reputation by pursuing quality and promoting it through aggressive
marketing. In contrast, the Lodi region had an established reputation for
growing inferior winegrapes used only for cheap wines, and growers here
were reputed to suffer from an inferiority complex. As the Napa grow-
ers continued to pursue and expand the premium wine niches, other
regions could move up to fill the mid-price range. Because of its
geographic setting near the cool breezes of the Sacramento Delta, the
Lodi region had the potential to produce much better wines than its
neighbors further south in the San Joaquin Valley. To enter the quality
wine market would require grafting over most of their vines to varietal
grapes—an expensive gamble—but maintaining the status quo would
result in a slow but inevitable economic decline.
Randy Lange and John Ledbetter led a small group who wanted to
emulate some of Napa's success in the Lodi area, but at that time, the
State of California was suffering from yet another budgetary paroxysm.
They recognized that to achieve their goal, they would need scientific
resources, and that they could not rely on their traditional sources, the
UC Farm Advisors. UC simply was not investing in field-based research
to help the practical needs of agriculture as they had in previous genera-
tions. Lange, Ledbetter, and their colleagues were going to have to take
matters into their own hands. They were going to have to fund their own
research and extension program to add value to their product by distin-
guishing the quality of their wine and the quality of their environmental
stewardship. They built on a history of regional cooperative marketing
dating back more than 100 years. In 1986, they petitioned the federal
government to create the Lodi American Viticultural Area. In 1990,
Lange and Ledbetter lobbied the state legislature to amend the laws
governing commodity organizations—previously requiring statewide
agreement among growers—so that local crush districts could become
their own winegrape commissions.
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Lange, Ledbetter, and 25 other
growers each put up $5,000 of their own money to campaign for the
creation of the Lodi Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. Their original
impetus was to foster applied research, but a significant number asked
for help with marketing as well, which proved to be a popular selling
point during the run up to the election. The commission was established
by a majority vote of the region's winegrape growers in 1991.
