From Tueday, April 16, Vacaville Reporter under the title Baby Steps Produces Wine Made the Hawk and Horse Way.

Mitch Hawkins has a good dentist.

I know because I can see every one of his teeth when he smiles. It's hard to resist a guy who smiles like that and brings you icy water on a hot day.

Like Gomer Pyle in a David Mamet play, he's got a twangy, nonstop patter that must have served him well in his days as a bartender. He's a good ol' boy in a checkered shirt with a princess for a wife.

Tracey Hawkins claims humble roots, she grew up working in her mother's restaurant in Sonoma, but her cadences conjure boarding school all the way.

When I drove up to their ranch house, she emerged wearing a Western shirt, riding pants and knee-high boots, an outfit that only someone with a perfect derrière would risk -- I was jealous. Perhaps her patrician air comes from selling luxury wine for Windsor Vineyards for many years or, perhaps, it's the influence of her stepfather, high-stakes attorney David Boies.

Boies is the lawyer who took on Microsoft in United States v. Microsoft, George Bush in Bush v. Gore, and is now defending same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court. In 1982, his enthusiasm for wine and of California's North Coast wine-growing region led him to purchase, in 1982, the historic El Roble Grande Ranch, a former horse-breeding facility on 900 acres of wilderness in Lower Lake County.

Tracey's family took turns managing the ranch but, after awhile, it became clear that Mitch and Tracey had a special love for the property. They took over daily operations of the ranch in 1999 and began to plant their vineyard, called Hawk and Horse Vineyards.

If a Supreme Court lawyer seems improbable in Lake County, an area known for cowboys, Indian casinos and methamphetamines, biodynamic farming may seem equally preposterous.

But a trip to the vineyards at elevations of 1,800 and 2,200 feet, surrounded by nothing but wild hills, spring water and a pristine sky, makes any other approach to farming feel like a travesty. The low-grade diamonds sparkling in the red dirt are a ready metaphor for the crystalline beauty of the Red Hills AVA (American Viticultural Region).

"We're micro-managers big time. We baby this stuff at every step," said Tracey.

Biodynamic farming is similar to organic farming in that it avoids chemical pesticides and herbicides.

Easy when you're growing petunias on the deck but an awesome commitment when you are clearing decades of brush, brambles and poison oak, which is what the Hawkins pair did for their vineyard. Biodynamic farming goes a step further by treating the farm as a single ecosystem, thus the importance of the cattle, hawks and wild turkeys on their ranch.

"Other biodynamic growers use chickens in their vineyards; we have wild turkeys. If they eat a few grapes, well, God bless them," said Tracey.

The ranch's herd of Scottish Highlander Cattle, a breed chosen for its easy calving and gentle nature, supply a key ingredient to the nutritive preparations that are part of biodynamic farming: manure.

In fact, the Hawkins share their "bounty" with other biodynamic farmers, many of them associated with premier wineries in Napa.

"There's enough love for everyone," quipped Mitch. Added Tracey, "I call it alchemy. They leave and I have biodynamic wine and honey on my table. They left with dung."

The ranch is also home to horses that Tracey and her daughters ride in local rodeos.

They love the horses, they love the land. But, most of all, they love their vines.

"I have my head in every vine," said Mitch and I believed him. Whether it's the hawks, the diamonds, Boies or the Scottish Highlander manure, I'll never know.

But  the end result is a special-occasion cabernet that is rich with black berries, cocoa and soft tannins. For more information about Hawk and Horse Vineyards, visit www.hawandhorsevineyards.com.

Gina and Annalise RichmondDon't tell Gina Oberti Richmond you can never go home again. A fourth-generation native of Suisun Valley, Richmond traveled across the Pacific to hone her winemaking skills and picked up a New Zealand husband in the process.

She is now home in every sense of the word, the couple living steps from the house where she was raised.

Richmond, along with her partner, Gary Mangels, are part of a winemaking renaissance that is Solano's best hope for keeping Suisun Valley the undeveloped gem it is today.

The Richmond-Mangles partnership came about the old-fashioned way. Mangels farmed wine grapes in a former orange orchard that belonged to Richmond's father, seven acres that had been in the family since her great-grandfather sold produce from his horse and buggy. When her dad mentioned to his old friend that his daughter was studying enology, a partnership was born.

Matt Smith of Blacksmilth Cellars and his crossflow filtering machineRichmond had been planning for a career in law when a friend stopped by and told her, "Hey, I just found out you can get a degree in winemaking!" "I said, 'Really! No way!' " recalls Richmond. Considering UC Davis to be "a little too close to home," Richmond chose California State University, Fresno, to get her degree.

To complete her education, Richmond worked as a harvest intern in Napa Valley and then in New Zealand. Asked about the signature grassy flavors of New Zealand sauvignon blanc, Richmond is forthright: "I prefer the California style of sauvignon blanc. They (New Zealand winemakers) hate being known for that grassy style." But because the British have fallen in love with New Zealand's sauvignon blanc, Kiwi winemakers are forced to continue making it.

Still ... "They hate drinking it and they hate making it," says Richmond.

With her own label, Richmond is under no such constraints. "I make all the winemaking decisions: when it gets picked, if we're going to try some new fermentation practice or a new yeast. (But) When it comes to blending, it's a group decision."

Gina and her husband both hold day jobs in Napa, which helps them operate their Mangels business. He works as a viticulturist and she at a winery specializing in volume production for retailers like Trader Joes. Despite wineries blossoming everywhere from China to Missouri, Richmond says Napa Valley is still the mecca for wine pros. "It's like being in finance and working on Wall Street," she says.

Crossflow filtration has a self cleaning design and can get winemakers pretty excited. We thought it looked a lot like pumping blood.When I caught up with the Mangels at their Suisun Valley property, Gina, with baby and toddler in tow, was filtering red wine with the help of another vintner, Matt Smith, from the Suisun Valley Cooperative.

Meanwhile, Richmond's daughter played among the vines, the morning sun polishing her hair -- an idyllic childhood. I wondered, is this the fifth generation that will see the world and come home again?

You can try Mangels Vineyards wines at the Suisun Valley Wine Cooperative tasting room at 4495 Suisun Valley Road. Don't miss their tempranillo, a chewy mouthful of fruit and spice that screams for a summer barbeque.

Monty Paulsen

The collection of lava lamps at the door, the mysterious name, and a bathroom outfitted with jungle noises, Don Ho music and a Tiki head dispensing tissues are your first clues that EBGB Underground Wine Bar is a refreshingly different approach to wine tasting.

If that were not enough, enter Monty’s partner, Gigi Benson.

The first thing Benson might tell you is that she is an actress and an “Intuitive Extrovert,” referring to the Meyers Briggs personality profile. The next might be the story of when the cat, upon hearing the bathroom’s jungle bird sounds, jumped into the toilet. No Napa nature girl here, Benson rocks short skirts, high heels and a charismatic transparency that is hard to resist.

Lava lamps and bubble chair signal something differentThe Monty/Gigi dynamic has a Lucy and Desi quality:  she’s outrageous, he’s deceptively reserved. Deceptive because Monty has a droll humor of his own, not surprising for the son of Pat Paulsen, a comedian best known for his appearances on the Smothers Brothers TV show and his tongue-in-cheek bid for the presidency in 1968.

Something of a Renaissance Man, Monty found his way into the wine business after earning degrees in English and enology from U.C. Davis, followed by an MBA from Duke. As head of operations and winemaking at Rosenblum Cellars, Monty nurtured lasting relationships in the wine business. According to Benson, “He has a talent for blending wine and he has these connections, they’re not networking connections. They’re real.”

When Rosenblum Cellars was sold to beverage giant Diageo, Monty had the time and money to re-invigorate his father’s label, Pat Paulsen Vineyards, and as a wine consultant, leverage his contacts with over 100 different growers. If he helps to make a wine that turns out especially good, he suggests a partnership. “I say, ‘Hey, I made this, can I claim it? They say sure, take a couple barrels,’” said Paulsen.

Tiki bathroom complete with jungle soundtrackThis talent for blending, of people as well as wines, is one of the reasons Pat Paulsen Vineyards garnered nine medals at the 2013 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. A partner with a local angle, Stefanie Jackson is a winemaker who met Monty when she was a “cellar rat” at Rosenblum Cellars. Jackson created a Cabernet for Pat Paulsen Vineyards from grapes grow at Wirth Ranch, in Suisun Valley’s Green Valley appellation. “I’m a single mother and I didn’t have the money to get my wine into bottles. Monty had the wherewithal and it made for a good partnership. The difference with Monty is that he preserves the story. He gave me an opportunity.”  Jackson is bullish on Suisun Valley grape growing. “I love it as a winemaker because it is stellar fruit, wonderful terroir that is a well-kept secret. The prices are still low enough for a winemaker like me and that plays out for the consumer.”

Jackson’s 2008 Wirth Ranch Cabernet is ripe with cherries and blackberries, with velvety tannins and a juicy finish. You can find it at the Pat Paulsen Vineyards website at http://www.patpaulsenvineyards.com along with other wines at a range of price points, from the edgy EBGB series at $14 to the winemaker collection at $18 and reserves at $34. Better yet, visit Monty and Gigi in person at the EBGB Underground Wine Bar. Their next event is an Academy Awards Party on Sunday, February 24, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The dress code according to Benson is “Black tie or shorts.”  And check out the Tiki bathroom, don’t let the jungle birds scare you.  

I sensed a kindred spirit when Parker Hall told me about a friend of his who lives near downtown.  He also walks in the evening, and his ritual is to count the people in the restaurants, "Morimoto was busy. Uva about 15." Parker filmed a cooking demo for the local public access station this afternoon and at the end he included a "Restaurant Report" from his friend.  Only in Napa.

Parker told me this story over dinner with his wife Janet. We had a fresh salad with fuji apples and carrots dressed with his secret (or it should be, but he shares everything) green dressing and enchiladas that were so deeply, roundly and richly flavored with ancho chile steeped in beef stock I'm not likely to forget them soon. 

He cooks for his friends, so don't be a stranger. Get on his Park Hall Comfort Takeout email list for your own enchilada fix. 

Far Niente Cabernet labelThis column was first published in the Vacaville Reporter on January 15, 2013

Fifty items in 50 minutes -- that's a typical trip to the grocery store. Convenient, yes. Fast, sure. But choosing wine in the supermarket has all the charm of online dating.

Yet grocery sales account for 40 percent of the wine sold in the U.S., which means the mighty wine label needs to tell its story in nine-square inches of paper or less.

Wine marketers and label designers create mental cues, most of them unconscious, that tell the consumer what to expect.

"I am a luxury, I will impress your boss," or "I am an everyday wine, it's Monday, pick me up," and "I am French, ma chérie d'amour!" Creating a label so compelling that it is chosen over the thousands of other bottles of wine on a shelf, it is no wonder that wine-label design must be an exacting art.

Most wineries approach their wine labels, or "trade dress," which includes all aspects of the bottle's appearance, as an ongoing process. Trade dress brings to mind a bottle wearing a dress (I once bought a hula skirt for a wine bottle-- yes they sell such things), but I digress.

According to Jim Caudill, the director of public relations and hospitality at the Hess Collection, wine marketers believe labels and related trade dress need constant care, with regular updates to reflect evolving market tastes. The Hess Select brand was recently refreshed with brighter colors to appeal to younger consumers without alienating their core customers.

"We're constantly absorbing insights and information as we interact with consumers, getting feedback from retailers, our distributor partners, often directly from consumers we talk with at events all around the country," said Caudill.

Given that consumers (would you believe 75 percent!) sometimes can't remember the name of the wine they like, icons on wine labels serve as useful mnemonics. Thus everything from kangaroos to Jesus, Mary and Joseph, all make an appearance.

A friend once recommended an inexpensive syrah, saying "I can't remember the name, but it has a rooster on the label." That sounded simple enough. But gazing at the Safeway syrahs, I wondered, "Which rooster?" I think there were five.

My favorite wine label does not have a rooster on it. An artist who was originally commissioned to create a stained-glass piece for the winery owner’s home designed it. According to Rachelle Newbold, Far Niente Winery's communication coordinator, the label has changed very little since its original vintage in 1979. Framed in gold foil is a pen and ink drawing of the historic winery and vineyards, with the Mayacamas mountains in the background.

Clustered around the drawing are water-colored grapevines in an art-nouveau style. It reminds me of a Tiffany window and the sumptuousness of the label's craftsmanship suggests an equally rich and artistic wine inside.

Far Niente comes from the Italian saying, "dolce far niente," the sweetness of doing nothing, a reminder to take a breath and smell the wine.

A wine label's work is never done. The bottle sits on our table as we drink, melding in our memories the flavors, the food and the friends.

And perhaps, when the party is over, it remains on the counter, too beautiful to throw away. 

Screen shot of Amazon's wine store

"The self has become the screen; the onlycopy truly detectable is price, ounces and a logo," It is even more imperative in the online-shopping experience, as brand are condensed to a one-inch image." (Terri Goldstein, Goldstein Group)

When the "story" is so central to selling wine, and when, presumeably, wineries team up with Amazon to extend their reach, how is that story communicated in one inch and one second of a viewer's attention?  

 I can't say I liked it or "got it," especially the disappearing "C". Now that it's been dubbed a flushing toilet, I'm unlikely to see it as anything else.

 Perpetually loading computer icon? Can you hear me grinding my teeth?

Bottom line, logo changes are perilous, especially when there are so many smart,  vocal, social-media using stakeholders--234,464 of them. I'm surprised there wasn't more student engagement in the design process. Maybe there was- if so, that's the first message I would have sent when unvieling the new look.

No one enjoys the guilty pleasure of a season's worth of TV consumed over a weekend as much as I do. I was halfway through the first season of "Boardwalk Empire," the HBO series about Atlantic City bootlegger Nucky Thompson, when a genuine artifact from Prohibition arrived in my mail.

It was a book, "The Complete Wine Book," by Frank Schoonmaker and Tom Marvel, that had once belonged to my grandfather. He died before I knew him, so this connection in the form of a wine book is a treasure. A personal treasure for sure, but it is also a historical gem, because it was published in 1934, months after Prohibition was repealed. It gives the reader a firsthand account of what it was like to be a wine lover at a time when drinking wine was not allowed. Maybe I should say that, legally, it was not allowed, there were loopholes.

People who made wine at home, either because of old-world tradition or new-found necessity, were permitted to make up to 2,000 gallons a year. During Prohibition, the amount of California acreage planted to wine grapes actually increased in order to supply these home winemakers. Yet Schoonmaker and Marvel bemoan the state of domestic viticulture at that time.

The problem was that in order to stay in business during Prohibition, grape growers were forced to uproot their tastier varieties, which were thin-skinned and didn't travel well, for heartier grapes that made inferior wine, which, according to the authors, were the alicante bouschet, zinfandel and petite sirah. I strenuously disagree with their condemnation of zinfandel and petite sirah, but I digress.

It takes about four years for a grapevine to produce a marketable crop, and even longer to age a wine. After repeal, even if grape growers had immediately replanted the better varieties, Americans would have to wait years for good domestic wine.

"To expect of American vineyards any real quantity of fine wine before 1940 or 1945 would be to expect a large-scale repetition of the Miracle of Cana," wrote Schoonmaker and Marvel.

They were also upset with grape growers appropriating the names of French localities such as Chablis, Burgundy and Champagne for California wines.

Steve Buscemi as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson "There is no indication that California wine would ever be considered as good as European wine. To attempt to maintain, as Mr. William R. Hearst, a loyal Californian, does with laudable, if mistaken, patriotism, that under these conditions the wines of California are 'just as good as those of France, if not better,' is even more ridiculous."

However, the authors were optimistic about the future of California wine, recognizing the ingenuity of California grape growers.

As evidence, they cite a product that may be the most inventive packaged good of the 20th century, the grape block. It was a brick of dried grapes, seeds and pulp, for making "juice," with explicit instructions of what not to do. Don't add sugar or yeast or keep in a dark place, otherwise your juice might ferment and turn to wine, cautions the grape brick label. This marvel of marketing speaks volumes about the eventual demise of Prohibition and ultimate success of California wine, something on which I'm sure my grandfather, Schoonmaker and Marvel and Nucky Thompson could all agree.

Steve Jobs was an unapologetic perfectionist. He drove those around him crazy, but his uncompromising commitment to the customer experience built a six billion dollar empire. Here’s a few “takeways” for your own empire building.

Use your intuition: Market research is fine, but small businesses are successful because they can act quickly when they know they are on the right track.

Mediocrity is not an option: For Jobs, everything, from advertising campaigns to the people who worked for him, were limited to one of two categories: junk or genius. If something wasn’t the best it was abandoned or reworked till it was genius.

Networking AND cold calls: Starting out, Jobs networked with former employers and other contacts but was equally fearless about calling up a powerful CEO to pitch an idea.

Simplify: Just because you can add a feature doesn’t mean you should. Simple is elegant. Simple is fun.

Design: Jobs understood the importance of designing products that were not only functional but beautiful. This passion for design extended even to the inside of his computers, something his customers would never see.

You can't have quality without control: Jobs wanted to control the customers experience from the moment a package was opened. His attention to detail was legendary - from the stone used in the floors of Apple stores to the color of the ipod’s earbuds.

Image is everything: Jobs designed an early desktop computer with a handle, not so much so that it could be carried, but to “impute” it with a friendly, approachable image for folks who found computers scary.

Focus: Say no to all but the top three directions your business can go and then focus like a laser.

Gabrielle Hamilton

Blood, Bones and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Gabrielle Hamilton learned to cook coming up through the ranks of diners and catering gigs, not at a fancy culinary academy. Her memoir opens with the summer her parents, a French mother and set-designer father, kind of lost track of her in the midst of their divorce. To keep herself going she got a job washing dishes, and ate from the mysterious jars of food her mother left behind. She has some scrapes with the law, does a stint in the catering business with tales of un-fresh and much-too-handled food, finds a very small restaurant covered in rat shit and transforms it into Prune, and falls in love with an Italian doctor, his family and Italy. This woman loves food, men (women too) and life: Agreed.  I swooned for her, Charlie Rose did too.

Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams

This badass soldier went to Iraq as an interpreter because she had learned a little Arabic from a bad boyfriend back in Florida.  She recounts the badassitude of the female soldier along with the dirt, grit and general confusion of war.

Wild by Cheryl StrayedCheryl Strayed

When I'm debating the safety of hiking Mt. St. Helena by myself, a popular hike with a paved path and cell phone coverage most of the way, all I need to think about Badass Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (at least the part that wasn't snowed in) by herself, even when, with only 2 cents in her pocket, when on a break, her hiking boots tumbled over a cliff. (To be precise, one tumbled, she threw the other one after it). You'll have to read the book to find out how she survived that and other challenges.

What you'll remember about Cheryl, Kayla  and Gabriella is that they perservered because they just couldn't afford to quit.

Who can?