Profile: Mary Myers Kauppila

MARY MYERS
KAUPPILA • CEO & Co-Owner, Snows Lake Vineyard
• Red Hills, Lake County AVA, CA

Mary Myers
Kauppila is CEO of a sizeable vineyard in the new Red Hills
AVA. This blonde farmer’s daughter is Nordic through and
through: both sides of her family are Scandinavian and she’s
married to a Finn. Ms. Kauppila runs the family’s Boston
office, Ladera Management, handling affairs and assets. A
regular commuter to her family’s volcanic vineyards north of
Napa, she shows youthful enthusiasm for the drama of night
harvest and a keen mind for the evolving whirl of the wine
industry.

OJAI
ROOTS I grew up on
a ranch in Ojai, near Santa Barbara, remembering blooming
orange and apricot trees; it was the idyllic setting for
Shangri-La in “Lost Horizon”. My Midwestern dad had farming
in his blood; after studying at Stanford, he bought our
first small ranch where we raised avocadoes and citrus. My
first job was irrigating in the orange orchard. Our first
venture with grapes was in Clarksburg, near Sacramento;
today we’re growing grapes in Lake County, just up Route 29
from Napa Valley. During Prohibition most vines were ripped
out and planted to apple and pear orchards.

LAKE
COUNTY In 1998, we
purchased Snows Lake, named after a homesteader long ago. It
was always a very attractive agricultural area. Italian
farmers cultivated it in the 189Os; Perini family members
still live adjacent to our lands. Our property was
predominately old walnut groves. Weather-wise, we regard our
wider temperature variation (being both a little warmer and
cooler than Napa Valley) as an advantage. We benefit from
air movement and wind; we’re just south of Clear Lake,
California’s largest natural lake. We’re part of the
Mayacamas Ridge, a hilly region with an elevation range from
2OOO to 25OO feet. We call our management company Ladera,
Spanish for “a gently ascending slope”.

RED
ALERT We chose Red
Hills because it seemed an interesting area – out of the
mainstream – for an exciting new red winegrowing project.
What is special for grape growing is the rich, red volcanic
soil. We did plenty of homework up-front: studied climate
data, tested soil samples and carefully planned blocks to
take advantage of slopes. (Lake County’s volcanic soil, the
ancient residue of eruptions, is highly regarded for
viticulture, as it affords good drainage, limits vine vigor
and adds mineral complexity to the grapes.) Other grape
growers in our area are Beckstoffer, Beringer, Kendall
Jackson, and Bertolucci.

RED
HILLS, RED GRAPES
We own 24OO acres – lots of wonderful red dirt! – about 1/3
of which is planted to all red varietals. Our grapes are
about 7O% Cabernet Sauvignon, with substantial blocks of
Zinfandel, Merlot, Petite Syrah, Barbera, and Cabernet
Franc. I was just out at the winery; it’s winter so we’re
putting the vines to sleep, finishing up erosion control.
We’re settling into a thoughtful critique of last year, and
setting the goals for the coming year.

MISSION
Our mission is to grow superior grapes for the ultra-premium
category. We’re intent on developing very close – in fact,
collaborative – working relationships with our customers,
not just during the summer and at harvest, but all year
long. For example, we regularly schedule barrel tastings. We
want to be doing all we can to support the winemakers’
programs. Since we started in 1998, the learning curve has
been steep. But we use state-of-the-art technology, have an
excellent experienced staff and an unswerving commitment to
all that we do on a spectacular property.

ART
and SCIENCE
Interesting wines are coming from all over the world now.
There’s always been the art of winemaking, but now there’s a
lot more science as well. You’ve got to be doing a good job
at both. With more competition, both small growers and large
companies must attain a higher degree of professionalism.
There is more capital and sophisticated farming and
winemaking. I worry a bit about the family farmers’
perspective versus bigger corporations who must deliver
short-term returns to their shareholders. We want to meet
customer expectations in this competitive environment. We’re
proud to be a family owned business taking a long view;
we’re in it for the long haul. To achieve quality we are
prepared to weather the inevitable cycles driven by many
forces over time.

HIGH-PROFILE
CLIENTS To date,
our clients are largely high-end wineries looking to broaden
their portfolios with a “value” product of middle price
points. We grow Zinfandel for Cakebread, Cabernet Sauvignon
for Stag’s Leap and Diageo’s Dynamite (formerly Carmenet).
We have multi-year contracts with Beringer (Foster’s),
Rosenblum, Flora Springs, Niebaum Coppola (a new customer)
and others. Each vintage, winemakers are showing excitement
with the wine they make with our grapes.

PICK,
THEN TALK I love
being on the scene at harvest time! Picking grapes is one of
the most difficult and complex of all farming operations.
You’re subject to the whims of weather and the winemaker’s
judgment on when best to pick; so you’re constantly testing
sugar and acid levels. It’s an incredible juggling act of
what you can control and what you cannot. We have both hand
and mechanical harvesting. Our full-time harvesting experts
supervise some contract and lots of seasonal workers. It’s a
full-scale staging event and customers usually want their
grapes picked at night. Every morning there are planning
sessions with the whole ranch team, with input from
customers. You ask: ‘Were you here yesterday? What was the
result of your visit? Do you want to pick all or only part
of your block today?’ Then, with almost military precision,
we plan all the troops we must mobilize that night,
including weigh stations and truckers. It’s a thrill to
trail up and down vineyard rows behind workers and machines
on a starlit night.

OUR
OWN BRAND We’ve
started a very small Snows Lake brand and have made our
first vintage. It’s principally an R&D effort so we can
have our own winemaker work with our grapes; we hope this
will enhance working relationships with our clients. We’ll
even take some of it to market in very limited distribution.
It’s a palette for talented winemakers. And while our brand
will help us brainstorm in collaborative sessions with
clients, our business plan does not include opening a
full-scale winery.

TASTING
PANELS The proof is
in the tasting, of course, and the initial reactions we’ve
heard on tasting panels with Master Sommeliers and Masters
of Wine say, ‘Wow! these are big, bold wines!’; other
descriptions have mentioned their intensity, deep colors,
hints of blackberry, cassis, and chocolate. Our clients are
seeking to position moderate price points from their
high-end wines, probably in the $18 to $3O range.

SUSTAINABLE
FARMING We farm
organically as much as we can; but 1OO% is simply not
feasible. We’re cautious to be friendly to the environment
and careful stewards of the land, with, for example,
strategies for very stringent water management and
low-impact chemical usage. We have dedicated 23O+ acres as a
permanent conservation easement and wildlife
corridor.

STRONG
TEAM My brother
George, my partner and co-owner, focuses on customer
relationships. We have a strong viticultural team and a
remarkable staff. John Adriance, our COO is a 2O-year
veteran of Mondavi; our head winegrower Bob Johnson spent
nearly 2O years at Kendall Jackson. Our staff of 45
full-time is supported by triple that number of part-time
and seasonal workers during peak operations.

LAST
BOOK READ The
Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell [exploring trend
dynamics].

LATEST
TRAVELS Besides my
regular California commute, I’ve visited the Czech Republic
and Greece, both countries to enjoy nice wines.

PHILOSOPHY
Work hard, use time well, be lucky, and be good to
people.