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IT ALL BEGAN WITH LOUIS M.
by Millie Howie
When old-timers and historians of the wine industry get together,
one name that is certain to come up, spoken fondly and with great
admiration, is that of Louis M. Martini, patriarch of the Napa
Valley family that carries on his name and his dedication to
quality in both the vineyard and the winery.
Louis M. Martini’s story begins in 1894 when his father, Agostino
Martini, immigrated to the United States from Genoa, Italy, and
started a business in San Francisco selling shellfish. Six years
later, Louis M. Martini, then 12-years-old, left his home in
Pietra Ligure and joined his father calling on the local
merchants. As a sideline to the fish business Agostino built a
small winery behind his house where he and Louis M. made their
first wine in 1906. They were dismayed when that first vintage
turned out to be truly awful. Agostino sent his son back to Italy
to study at the famed enology school in Alba, and on his return
they prepared the next vintage. It was fine.
Young Louis M. continued selling fish by day and making wine at
night. He would sell the wine from his wagon to neighboring
businessmen, who spread the word about how good it was. Flushed
with success, the Martinis, father and son, rented a winery and a
small vineyard property in Pleasanton and began producing Chianti
and Burgundy in a dry style, selling between 50,000 and 100,000
gallons of wine each year. By 1918, with Prohibition almost a
certainty, they closed the winery and Agostino returned to Italy.
Louis M. continued working for other wineries until 1922 when he
founded the L. M. Martini Grape Products Co. in Kingsburg, CA in
the San Joaquin Valley. With the limitations placed upon wineries
by the Volstead Act, Louis M. survived by making sacramental and
medicinal wines, grape juice and a grape concentrate called
“Forbidden Fruit.” If his customers found a way to ferment this
natural product that was not his concern.
With Repeal, he invested in a vineyard near St. Helena in the Napa
Valley and spent a year constructing the Louis M. Martini Winery.
He incorporated a number of innovative features into the winery:
among them a cold fermentation room, a mix of oak barrels from a
number of coopers, and an underground aging cellar.
Always of the firm opinion that dry table wines were the wines of
the future, he stated that he planned to make “the best dry wines
in California.” He was equally convinced that Napa and Sonoma
Counties were the right place to grow the grapes for those wines.
In 1938 he purchased the 300-acre Emmanuel Goldstein Ranch on the
Sonoma County side of the Mayacamas Range which he named Monte
Rosso. In 1890 Goldstein had built a winery and sold wine in bulk
to other producers. The Martini winery was one of his customers.
When Goldstein died and the property was put on the market, Louis
M. told his son, “We’d better buy it or we’ll lose the grapes.” So
they did.
By 1940 his prediction that he would make the best dry wines in
California was about to come true. He sold his Kingsburg property
and sent his entire line of well-aged wines to market at one time.
The bold move brought what had been an obscure young winery into
national prominence.
In 1942 the two Louis’, M. and P., purchased the Stanly Ranch in
Carneros and planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the La Loma
Vineyard, becoming the first growers to make a substantial
investment in this now famous region.
Among other firsts, Louis M. also became one of the first
vineyardists to use wind machines for frost control in the
vineyards, and he spent a number of years working with enologists
at the University of California at Davis pioneering clonal
research on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and
Riesling grapes.
Louis M. Martini’s son, Louis P. Martini, with an education in
enology and viticulture at the University of California at
Berkeley and Davis took over winemaking duties in 1954, and became
president and general manager in 1968. His son Michael Martini,
Louis M.’s grandson, succeeded Louis P. Martini as winemaker in
1977 about three years after his grandfather’s death.
One of the many tributes to Louis M. Martini, and one he would
have valued the most, was spoken by his Michael at a retrospective
tasting of Martini wines produced over the last 25 years. Said
Michael, “My grandfather and father acquired and developed great
vineyards, built a fine winery and pioneered much of California’s
winemaking knowledge. I knew my grandfather well, and my father
and I worked side by side until he died in 1998. So, I take my
heritage very seriously and personally. To think that my
grandchildren may someday drink the wine I made from grapes my
grandfather planted, well, that’s enough to keep me working hard.”
www.louismartini.com, 254 South Street, St. Helena Highway,
800/321-WINE
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