A few years ago, I spent a full day at Chalone. I met Richard Boer, who, at the time, had managed Chalone’s vines for three decades. I rode in then-winemaker Gianni Abate’s pickup truck over impossibly rugged roads and stood in awe with Boer and Abate as we gazed over Chalone and the entire Salinas Valley from one of the highest spots on the property.
One thing that stands out clearly in my mind since visiting is that Chalone is a remarkable place, possessing powerful energy. Once you’ve come and gone, that energy works on you—it tugs at you and beckons you to return.
I can only imagine that it’s the same feeling felt by John C. Dyer, an early caretaker of the property that would become Chalone. Dyer bought 80 acres from the Lindgren family in 1912, set on elevated benchland 1,800 feet above sea level—in the shadow of what would become Pinnacles National Park. The only way in and out of the property was by horse and carriage along Stonewall Canyon, a rough dirt path that led out of the Gavilan Mountains down to the town of Soledad. This nine-mile journey was necessary to obtain essential supplies. There was neither running water nor electricity on the property until the mid-1980s.
While Charles Tamm is credited with planting vines in the area west of the Chalone estate, William Silvear planted the first vines that produced wine at Chalone.
Silvear was part of a group of partners who bought the ranch from the Dyers in 1921. They paid $2,500 in total. Eventually, Silvear became the sole owner. According to former Chalone co-owner Phil Woodward, author of Chalone: A Journey on the Wine Frontier, Silvear’s most significant accomplishment was that he “recognized the benchland’s distinctive soil” and was inspired by his neighbor, Mr. Tamm, to cultivate grapes and produce quality wine.
View of The Pinnacles National Park, upper right, from a block of Pinot Noir vines at Chalone.
A Brief History of Chalone
The modern winemaking era we associate with Chalone began in the 1960s. On July 11, 1961, Chalone Inc. was established as a corporation with three directors—physician Edward Liska, stockbroker John Sigman, and Sigman’s lawyer, John E. Sullivan. Sigman and Liska hired winemaker Philip Togni, who made the first three vintages of Chalone wines.
The year before Chalone Inc. was established, the first harvest began in 1960 “under numbingly difficult conditions,” recalls Woodward. Togni worked with Will Silvear’s “decades-old Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, and Chenin Blanc vineyards,” according to Woodward. Six hundred cases of wine were produced, bottled with a label designed by Arthur Baker, a Berkeley-based calligrapher, who crafted a black-and-white silhouette of Mount Chalone.
By 1964, Togni was gone, and Richard (Dick) Graff, a Harvard-trained musician and former U.S. Naval officer, had entered the picture, ushering in the era that would see Chalone rise to great heights as a publicly traded company, Chalone, Incorporated (CHLN).
Before all that unfolded, Graff first made the drive up to Chalone in his ‘51 Chevy. It was the summer of ’64, and he met with Rodney Strong, who was leasing Chalone’s grapes at the time. Graff became a partner in the company in September 1965. Four years later, after a turbulent start with absentee partners and accruing debt, Graff’s mother purchased the property at the courthouse in Salinas, California, on March 3, 1969, and Gavilan Vineyards, Inc. was formed, marking a new era in Chalone’s history.
In less than two decades from that momentous courthouse purchase, Chalone would rise in the public eye as an incredible success story. In 1982, it even achieved its own appellation with the creation of the Chalone AVA. Many significant figures came and went, including members of the Corti family, owners of Corti Brothers, a world-famous grocery in Sacramento, California. Meanwhile, Graff became increasingly busy with sales—and with founding The American Institute of Wine & Food alongside Julia Child and Robert Mondavi. This allowed a handful of rising star winemakers to pass through its doors, including Graff’s two brothers, John and Peter, as well as Merry Edwards and Michael Michaud—who to this day operates his own winery a stone’s throw from Chalone.
Cases of older vintages, still held at the winery in the famous “chicken coop.”
But January 9, 1998, marks a solemn day in Chalone’s history. Graff, who regularly flew in and out of Soledad from Salinas in his own single-engine Cessna plane, began to lose power in the early evening on his way back to Chalone. He turned the plane around, attempting to return to Salinas, but crashed and was killed instantly.
Chalone Today
In 2004, Chalone was sold to Diageo, then a U.K.-based alcoholic beverage giant. Wine Spectator nicely summarized the assets Chalone, Incorporated, held in an article about the acquisition:
“By taking over Chalone, Diageo snatches away a Constellation target and substantially boosts its portfolio of wine brands, improving its position in the market. In California, Chalone owns Acacia, Chalone, Dynamite, Echelon, Hewitt, Jade Mountain, Moon Mountain, Orogeny and Provenance wineries, as well as a 50-percent stake in Edna Valley Vineyard. It also owns Canoe Ridge and Sagelands in Washington and a 23.5 percent stake in Château Duhart-Milon in Bordeaux. And it owns nearly 1,500 acres of land in California, including vineyards in Napa, Sonoma and Monterey counties. In 2003, it sold more than 675,000 cases and reported net sales of $67.4 million.”
Standing with Boer and Abate on Chalone’s summit last month, gazing down at the iconic Chenin Blanc vineyard where 101-year-old vines still yield grapes, my eyes shifted from the lower vineyards to the winery’s caves and back to the Chenin Blanc vines. I knew the history well, having read about its various ups and downs.
Abate and Boer would spend the entire day telling me more about Chalone. But just before dusk, as I made my way down to Soledad, out of the Gavilan hills, and back toward Highway 101, I couldn’t help but think of the people who had spent years making the same trek—from Will Silvear and Charles Tamm to Philip Togni, Rodney Strong, Merry Edwards, Julia Child, Darrell Corti, Dick Graff, and Michael Michaud. They are just some of the key figures who made Chalone what it is. I also reflected on those who may have spent just a day and barely grazed the surface of its captivating history.
The cellars at Chalone were unwittingly dug into thermal rock, necessitating air conditioning units to keep the cellar cool.
When Bill Foley bought Chalone in 2016, he expressed a desire for a “sense of place” and recognized that Chalone is one of California’s most unique properties. Chalone’s greatest asset is underfoot: the decomposed granite soil, interspersed with true limestone deposits, reminded Silvear of vineyards in Burgundy. “It slows the vine’s growth,” Boer told me, “and reduces the size of the berries and clusters, enhancing the grapes’ flavor.”
The bench upon which Chalone sits was formed from an ancient volcano. “That volcano brought up some ancient seabed floor,” Abate told me, “and that’s where this limestone comes from, the foundation for all our grape growing.” Incredibly, the rock formations that make up Pinnacles National Park behind Chalone are one half of “another half down in Los Angeles,” Abate explained. “That gives you an idea of how old this volcano was—the plate has moved so far it’s gone from Soledad to Los Angeles. We owe everything to this ancient volcano that brought this limestone to the surface, allowing us to craft the mineral-rich wines we make today.”
