To Kalon: Land or Brand?

Constellation Brands, the company behind brands such as Robert Mondavi, Kim Crawford, The Prisoner, Corona Extra, and SVEDKA Vodka, is currently engaged in a Goliath-versus-David battle to overturn the creek-naming iniative of the MacDonald brothers and, in so doing, strengthen its argument that "To Kalon is a brand, not a place." In this post I provide some background to this 'conflict."

I like to say that I have written the second best history of Oakville's To Kalon Vineyard, with Matt Stamp's effort on Guildsomm being demonstrably the best. What both efforts have in common, though, are the testimonies and documents on the vineyards provided by the MacDonald brothers, Alex and Graeme. In addition to providing 90% of the fruit for the Robert Mondavi To Kalon label, a large portion of the fruit for the Mondavi Reserve, and the fruit for their limited-production wine, the MacDonalds are avid preservationists and curators of the history of the land on which they ply their trade.

The MacDonalds believe that "... there is a genealogy of the land and that we have a responsibility to preserve that history for future generations." Towards that end they have conducted extensive research on the origin, owners, and utilization of the To Kalon Vineyard through the ages and have freely shared their findings with all interested parties.

In addition, they have:

• Registered the creek running through the vineyard as To Kalon Creek with the US Board of Geographic Names
• Published the To-Kalon Vineyard Historic American Landscape Survey
• Submitted a To-Kalon Vineyard National Register of Historic Places nomination with the National Park Service

Constellation has appealed the creek-naming effort on the grounds that To Kalon Vineyard is a brand and not a place.

The To Kalon name has been embroiled in a number of legal battles over the years. Robert Mondavi registered the name To Kalon in 1988 and To Kalon Vineyard in 1994, trademarks that came into the possession of Constellation with its purchase of Robert Mondavi in 2004. The first of the trademark battles was with Andy Beckstoffer.

Beckstoffer requires that winemakers purchasing his fruit designate the vineyard of origin on the wine label.  Schrader Cellars followed this dictate and placed the To Kalon name on the label of its 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon which was made from Beckstoffer-sourced grapes. Robert Mondavi promptly filed suit against Schrader and Beckstoffer for infringement of copyright.  After a year of back and forth the suit was settled with Mondavi granting a perpetual, royalty-free trademark license to Beckstoffer allowing him to use the To Kalon Vineyard designation for grapes grown on his part of the original Crabb estate.

In 2011 Constellation applied for three new trademarks -- To Kalon Wine Company, To Kalon Vineyard Company, and Rooted in To Kalon -- but abandoned those applications in the face of staunch opposition from Andy Beckstoffer "who argued that To Kalon is 'geographically descriptive.'"

More recently, Vineyard House Winery filed a claim to gain the right to use the To Kalon name based on (i) its small plot being in the original Crabb holdings, (ii) large portions of the current To Kalon Vineyard falling outside of those original holdings, and (iii) an assertion that the original trademark names were obtained fraudulently because To Kalon has always been a place name and, as such, is not "trademark-able." This case is still pending before the courts (The To-Kalon Vineyard Historic American Landscapes Survey stipulates that Crabb had purchased 165 hillside acres in Oakville, proximate to present-day Harlan Estate, but that his probate specified this land as used for timber production rather than being planted to vines.).

In an attempt to lure the brothers into their camp, the Constellation legal team, in a meeting at their New York offices, offered them the rights to use the To Kalon designation on their label in exchange for support of the removal of the To Kalon Creek name. In other words, to trade in their integrity for future monetary benefits (as the use of the word To Kalon on their label would allow the brothers to immediately increase the price of their wines into the range of current To Kalon offerings). The brothers demurred.

The MacDonalds' efforts to memorialize To Kalon as a place has received broad-based support, with 9 of 11 owners signing on for the National Register nomination and Constellation being the sole dissenter in the To Kalon Creek appeal. On a more global level, Antonio Galloni has spoken out in an Instagram post in support of To Kalon as a place:

What is at stake is not just the legacy of To Kalon but the entire concept of place in American wine... My position is clear: To Kalon is a place not a brand, no matter what might be written on some legal document somewhere. Napa Valley and the US need to protect the integrity of our sites ...

I also believe in To Kalon as a place and had provided Constellation with a path-forward to leveraging the brand acquired with the purchase of Schrader while further entrenching To Kalon as a place. In 2017 Schrader Vineyards sold its business to Constellation Brands for a little less than $50 million dollars (even though it owned no vineyard or winery). Schrader was a brand built on the marketing prowess of Schrader, the winemaking reputation and skills of Thomas Brown, and the quality of fruit and name recognition of the Beckstoffer Vineyard.

My thought process at that time was that Constellation intended to leverage the Schrader name into creating new branded products with fruit obtained from its own vineyards. Much as I had proposed in my discussion of the Vietti sale, Constellation could create a number of high-end vineyard designates from fruit that is "underutilized" today based on the prices that Beckstoffer To Kalon wines command.

In this model, Constellation would treat To Kalon as a cru with multiple owners (much as is done in Burgundy and Barolo), each practicing its own discipline but leveraging the reputation of the vineyard into ever-increasing rewards from the marketplace. The current commercial owners of To Kalon land are Andy, the Macdonald Family, the Detert Family, Opus One, and Constellation.

If Constellation focused on delivering premium lines from the property it owns in the historic vineyard -- the two large plots on either side of the Beckstoffer et al block -- it could designate a number of sub-cru plots and label the products as Schrader Alpha To Kalon, Schrader Beta To Kalon, etc., and these would line up seamlessly with the naming convention established with the Schrader Beckstoffer To Kalon wine.

This opportunity is still available to Constellation.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

MACDONALD: Site and practices combine for an excellent representation of the To-Kalon legacy

A 43-acre plot of the historic To-Kalon Vineyard was purchased in 1954 from the Stelling estate by Mrs. Hedwig Detert, Greatgrandmother to the generation currently growing grapes on that selfsame property. Shortly after the purchase, Mrs. Detert apportioned the property between her two children and those plots are currently farmed by her GreatGrandchildren under the names Detert Family Vineyards (25 acres) and MACDONALD (21 acres, inclusive of a subsequent purchase of 3 acres from Robert Mondavi for property construction). The Detert and MACDONALD plots are shown in the map below.

Map of the historic To-Kalon Vineyard and
 "Stelling Extension" (Drawn by Sarah MacDonald)

MACDONALD is currently operated by siblings Alex and Graeme MacDonald. I recently visited and walked the vineyard with Graeme and have split reporting on that encounter into a post on the history and this one on the vineyard and wine.

I got to the MACDONALD offices a little early (plus I had missed the turn) and came onto the premises from the rear. I asked a man who was mowing the lawn for directions to Graeme and he pointed me to a walkway and a cottage at its termination point. I walked up to the door and knocked and it was opened by Sarah (Graeme's wife) who was quickly shuffled out of the way by a toy-toting tot and a similarly equipped dog. Graeme was on his way from St Helena so Sarah invited me in and provided a folder of To-Kalon artifacts for me to feast my eyes on while I waited.

Graeme showed up soon after and apologized profusely for the delay. He had a nice easy smile and conversational tone. I knew right away that it was going to be a good day. He suggested that we go outside and walk the vineyards so I said goodbye to the toy-toters and struck out into the vines. We circumnavigated the vineyard in a counter-clockwise direction.

As shown in the map above, the MACDONALD plot is just outside the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains, on an alluvial fan that has been created by Tokalon Creek bringing gravel, stones, volcanic rock, and sand down from the mountain and depositing it in a fan-like shape onto the valley floor. The fan forms deep gravelly soils with excellent drainage and forces the vine roots to go deep underground in search of water. This action places stress on the vine, resulting in small berries (according to Graeme, they are the smallest berries in the Mondavi stable) and optimal ripening.

Towards the bottom end of the alluvial fan the soil is shallower, has a higher percentage of clay, and is more fertile. This latter fact was demonstrated by the size of the trees lining the path separating the MACDONALD and Mondavi vineyards. At the upper reaches of the path, the trees were about 8-feet tall while towards the bottom they are twice that height. A sample of the various soil types present  on the MACDONALD plot is shown in the pictures below.

Tokalon Creek

Graeme is responsible for vineyard management and winemaking at MACDONALD. He subscribes to what he calls natural farming, a requirement, he says, for getting natural flavors out of the grapes:

• Integration of plants into the environment
• Minimal tractor use to minimize compaction
• No fertilizers -- planting of Fava beans between rows
• No roundup
• Minimal canopy management (only one trellised block in the vineyard)
• Creation of their own compost on site.

The vineyard is oriented NE - SW which allows fuller access to the morning sun and limited access to the searing afternoon sun. Vines are 20-, 40-, and 60-years old with the youngest vines California-sprawl-trained and the oldest head-trained. Graeme is able to get away with minimal canopy management because, he says, the California sprawl creates its own balance. The trellised vines are planted at 1089 vines/acre while the rest of the vineyard is planted to 565 vines/acre.

The vines are all Cabernet Sauvignon: Clone 4 on 110R rootstocks for the younger vines and St. George for the older vines. The trellised vines are irrigated once or twice per growing season while the older vines are dry-farmed. Yields on the vineyard are between 1.5 and 2 tons per acre. Damaged vines are replaced using massal selection of the To-Kalon clone.

The grapes are sold exclusively to Robert Mondavi with a small amount held back for production of their MACDONALD label. The grapes that they provide to Mondavi comprise 50% of the raw material for a label called Tokalon and 10 - 15% of the Mondavi Reserve. Mondavi's only involvement with the vineyard is turning up to pick the grapes at harvest time.

The MacDonalds can use grapes from any part of the vineyard for their wine. They tend to pick earlier than most. For example, there is a 1-month gap between the start of harvest at MACDONALD and the start of harvest at Beckstoffer To-Kalon. Graeme picks on taste and seeks out a certain nuttiness in the seed as his trigger.

After harvest, the grapes are transferred to Kongsgaard for creation of the wine. The grapes are destemmed and then placed into a tank for a 5-day cold soak. The grapes are fermented by natural yeasts in stainless steel tanks with pump-over for cap management. After a 35-day maceration, the wines are racked into 100% new, medium/medium-plus-toast French oak (Taransaud, Sylvain) barrels for malolactic fermentation and aging. The barrels are employed primarily for their micro-oxygenation function. The wines are racked once or twice a year to minimize oxidation opportunities.

After the vineyard walk, we went into the offices to taste the 2014 vintage of the MACDONALD wine. The wine tasted was a 2014 vintage. It had been opened two hours prior to the tasting.

Graeme MacDonald, grower/winemaker

According to Graeme, 2014 was the earthquake vintage and the wines had started to shut down to conserve energy. The wine had a perfumed nose along with dark fruit and spice. Light on its feet and perfectly balanced. This was a beautiful wine. I have tasted many To-Kalon wines; and this is competitive. I have tasted many Napa wines; and this is competitive. I kept asking Graeme for seconds. I did not spit.

Production levels for the wine is as follows: 227 cases in 2013; 350 cases in 2014; and 425 cases in 2015.

In summarizing, Graeme said that, from his perspective, under Mondavi, To-Kalon was going towards the Bordeaux model. That is, one Chateau owning many acres and with newly purchased land incorporated into the existing estate with full accreditation. In the current environment, To-Kalon is moving more towards the Burgundian model -- many different owners. In his estimation, the latter approach will help to improve the vineyard overall.

I joined the winery's mailing list.

Graeme is an avid student of Hamilton Crabb and the historic To-Kalon and, to a large extent, he seeks to model the Vineyard according to his perception of the relevant precepts. He farms assiduously and with an eye to the future. He collects and studies artifacts of the To-Kalon historic age and steeps himself in them. He maintains an experimental vineyard on the property, a shoutout to Hamilton Crabb but also as a knowledge and resource bank for future generations.

Hamilton Crabb would recognize the spirit that exists here.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme