Crushorama

HOPLAND, Calif. — Within the next three years, Associated Vintage Group will be crushing enough grapes to make 3 million cases of wine, estimates company president Allan Hemphill. This would make the firm, founded less than two years ago, one of the 20 largest wineries in California.

But don’t look for the Associated Vintage Group’s brand on the shelf of your local wine store. AVG is a custom-services winery, designed specifically to do work for other wineries. “It’s just too expensive [for them] to own all the mortar and bricks,” says Hemphill.

The economies of scale are obvious. AVG bottled 350,000 cases of wine last year; Hemphill says he’ll bottle 700,000 cases this year and more than 1 million next year. Doing this kind of business, AVG can buy huge numbers of bottles and other supplies and pass along the savings to its clients.

AVG’s greatest service is to existing wineries that are growing rapidly and need extra capacity to crush and ferment but can’t justify the added expense of new fermenting tanks, new buildings and the headache of getting the permits needed to operate a larger winery. Those contracting for space at AVG can have their wine made either by a contract winemaker or AVG’s head winemaker, Kerry Damskey.

Among those who use AVG are Laurel Glen Vineyards, Ravenswood, Hidden Cellars, and McDowell Valley Vineyards.

“It’s great working with them,” said Patrick Campbell of Laurel Glen, who makes his Terra Rosa Cabernet Sauvignon there. “I couldn’t make Terra Rosa any other way.”

Campbell’s small winery on Sonoma Mountain can’t be expanded without great cost. Terra Rosa is a third-label wine made mainly from purchased wine and grapes. (Laurel Glen and Counterpoint are the primary and secondary brands. Both use Campbell’s home-grown Sonoma Mountain fruit.)

The best example of AVG’s services is the case of Ravenswood, whose single-vineyard Zinfandels are nationally famous. Some years ago, Ravenswood owner Joel Peterson decided to make a Vintner’s Blend Zinfandel that could be produced in larger amounts. Expanding his small Sonoma winery would have been very costly, so Peterson crushed a few tons of grapes at AVG’s Hopland facility in 1993 and found it to his liking.

“The key issue for someone like me is the control I have over the wine,” says Peterson. He makes the one-hour drive from the Sonoma valley to the Mendocino winery twice a week during peak periods, but he has able help at AVG when he’s not there.

“Kerry acts as the super-cook,” he says. “I give him my guidelines and talk with him almost on a daily basis, and most of the time it works very well.”

He says that last year he also used AVG’s winemaking facility in Glen Ellen, in the former home of the Grand Cru Winery.

Working with AVG is beneficial to small producers, he says. “One great example happened last year. I’m always looking for top-quality old-vines Zinfandel, and I found one grower who had the fruit I wanted, but he also had French Colombard, and I had to buy it to get the Zinfandel.

“Well, Allan found a buyer who would take the Colombard from me at exactly the same price it cost me, which allowed me to get the Zinfandel I really wanted. So yes, his service is much more involved than just crushing.”

AVG’s fees are higher than most other custom-crush wineries, says Peterson. “But the cost to invest in those fixed assets is pretty high,” he says, “so going to AVG is a small price to pay for the perfect solution for a small winery that needs cash flow. He’s always looking for ways to help his associates.”

Peterson’s Vintner’s Blend Zinfandel has grown to some 40,000 cases and is now a staple in many restaurant wine-by-the-glass programs. Quality remains high, he says, because of his hands-on winemaking skill permitted by AVG.

AVG has blazed trails other custom-crush operations haven’t considered.

“We don’t like to think of ourselves as just a service company,” says Hemphill. “We are strategic partners with our associates. We don’t make the wines for them; their winemakers use our facilities to create their own stylistic wines. We just provide the equipment and the location.”

Moreover, last September, Hemphill added another service to the AVG group when he signed a lease/option agreement for Chateau St. Jean’s modern sparkling wine plant in Graton, in western Sonoma County. Now clients who want to enter the competitive California sparkling wine scene can do that as well.

AVG now has five winery facilities (including Mark West Winery and Martini & Prati Winery in western Sonoma County), and it farms some 400 acres of vineyards.

Founded when Hemphill and partners acquired the former McDowell Valley Vineyards property (McDowell continues to make its wines here and retains its tasting room on site), AVG is headed by Chairman and CEO Richard Godwin, a former undersecretary of defense. The company was profitable within a year of its founding.

Last year AVG merged with Mesona/Equity Vintners Inc., headed by Walt Dreyer, longtime executive with Orowheat Foods and former owner of Grand Cru Vineyards.

Hemphill says the diversity in his front office is matched by the diversity of winery services AVG offers.

“We don’t just crush grapes,” he said. “We’ll also help source grapes, we’ll rent barrels, we’ll do costing support, lab work and a lot more. It’s a real smorgasbord of services.”