With Fess Parker’s death, which was announced by the family yesterday, I started thinking about all the wonderful people who helped shape the modern California wine industry — not way-old-timey people like Harazsthy or Georges de Latour, but the ones who, from the 1960s onward, pushed, pulled, promoted and did whatever they had to do to boost quality, and then let the world know what California could do.

Coincidentally, there came to me yesterday an email press release from Napa Valley College and the Culinary Institute of America announcing a special May 8 dinner in honor of Belle and Barney Rhodes, to “celebrate the[ir] significant contributions and impact…”.

Now, I suspect a lot of you never heard of Belle and Barney Rhodes, who are a married couple. But I want to tell you a little about them, and about some of their friends, who, in the 1960s, were directly responsible for helping make Napa Valley what it is today. (If you’re interested in attending the dinner, you can contact Holly Krassner at 707-252-7281, or holly@hkconnects.com.)

I first heard about Belle and Barney when I read through all of Harry Waugh’s wine diaries, 30 years ago. Harry was a Brit who was long connected with the London wine merchant and auctioneer, Harveys of Bristol, and also was a director of Chateau Latour. Born in 1904, he was already of considerable age when he received an invitation to visit Napa Valley. This had occurred after he ran into Fred and Eleanor McCrea, who had started Stony Hill, one evening in London. They invited him to visit next time Harry was in the States, and Harry dutifully set off his journey, in the Spring of 1969.

Harry already had made the acquaintance of William Dickerson, who ran the “First Growth Group,” a like-minded group of wealthy connoisseurs in San Francisco. Dickerson, learning of Harry’s impending visit, arranged for Harry to meet with Joe Heitz on his Napa trip. Harry’s plane landed on March 28, and who was at SFO to meet him? None other than Belle and Barney Rhodes.

Belle and Barney showed Harry everything there was to know about the wine scene back then. They took him to Esquin’s (later Draper & Esquin’s), the city’s finest wine shop (long since shut). They introduced him to Milt and Barbara Eisele, and served to him “an entirely new name to me [Harry wrote], a Schramsberg, elegant, distinguished and very good indeed.” That was only one of the vinous revelations Harry discovered on that trip. He tasted Louis M. Martini Cabernets from 1955, 1952, 1951 and 1947 (preferring the latter), and three white wines made from another winery Harry never heard of, Hanzell. He tasted the Mendocino wines of John Parducci, and met Dr. Richard Peterson, then Beaulieu’s winemaster (and father of Heidi Peterson Barrett), who served him a Tchelistcheff 1968 Pinot Noir, which he (Harry) called “a huge rich wine…I would like to lay my hands on a case of this.” The Rhodeses also took Harry to meet a rising star vintner, Robert Mondavi…to Buena Vista, in Sonoma Valley…to Mayacamas, where he was hosted by Bob and Noni Travers and declared their 1967 Cabernet “another for my collection.”

I could go on and on, but the important point is that, when Harry went back to Europe, he talked up California wine to “the right people,” at a time when the smart money in London (and, by extension, Paris and Bordeaux) thought California produced nothing but movie stars and plonk.

The Rhodeses were to host Harry several more times on subsequent visits, and in his books Harry always referred to “the Rhodeses splendid kindness to me.” Years later, on yet another visit, they took him to “an extremely popular restaurant called Mustard’s,” and introduced him to yet another generation of boutique winemakers: the Trefethens, Cakebreads, Joe Phelps, Ric Forman from Sterling, Freemark Abbey, Dominus. And once again, Harry wrote about these wines, and connoisseurs the world over learned about Napa Valley, and the excellence of its wines, from an enthusiastic Harry, who probably would not have understood without Belle and Barney Rhodes to guide him.

It was my great privilege to travel for a week with Harry through Washington State, when he was already nearly 90 years old and a little shaky, and the state wine commission asked me to help him (he had come entirely alone). I feel connected to much in the past through reading Harry Waugh’s books and from actually having known him. Nobody should dwell on the past for very long, but it’s worth remembering, from time to time, that we didn’t just get here automatically, like Athena springing from Zeus’s brow. People, like Belle and Barney Rhodes and Harry Waugh, make things happen.

Over the weekend, I finished a story on Cabernet Sauvignon that will appear in an upcoming issue of Wine Enthusiast. I found myself typing these words: Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty much as good as it can get — at least, it’s hard to see where it goes from here.

It’s not a thought I’ve entertained consciously before, at least, not in those precise terms. As so often happens with writers, when you’re on roll, pecking away at the keyboard (or even using a rustic old pen and paper), the thoughts just seem to come from outer space, and you sometimes find yourself writing the damndest things. Of course, every reporter has (or should have) a built-in alarm system warning him if he’s written something unsupportable or just plain stupid. So when I wrote this, I sat back, re-read it, re-re-read it again, and wondered:

1. What prompted me to write that in the first place?
2. Should I allow it to live and see the published light of day?

Because, let’s face it, it’s a controversial statement.

Napa Valley is royalty. It’s America’s Bordeaux and Burgundy, rolled into one. And a commoner doesn’t criticize royalty, not unless he’s prepared to be taken to the Tower of London and have his head chopped off. So what do I mean by saying that Napa Cabernet is as good as it can get?

Background: When I first started interviewing winemakers whose wines I had given very high scores to, one of my favorite questions was, “How much better can your [fill in the blank wine] get?” I mean, if a Cabernet earns a 95 or higher, it is, more or less by definition, a perfect wine, and there’s nothing more perfect than perfection, is there?

And yet the entire premise of Napa Valley Cabernet is, and always has been, better and better.

Well, these certainly are wines that have become spectacular in recent years. You really do have to wonder where their evolution will take them. I know some people who don’t like the Napa cult style, which is based on super-mature grapes (with consequent low acidity) and generous dollops of new oak. They’re entitled to their opinion; I happen to like it.

But when you’re on top, you never dare stay still, for fear of being shoved aside by a competitor. Mercedes-Benz doesn’t rest on its laurels but builds better cars all the time. The New York Yankees don’t rest on their laurels. The United States of America doesn’t rest on its laurels, but endeavors to become “a more perfect union” with each passing day. So if you’re Harlan, Shafer, Joseph Phelps, Spotteswoode, you have to be thinking ahead.

These extraordinary wines don’t seem to have a way to get better, only worse (say, from a bad vintage or some hideous mistake in the winery). I guess some people might say the way to make them better is to achieve ripeness at lower brix levels, which is a magic bullet that could be resolved with new strains of yeast and, I suppose, better clone-rootstock matching. Still, the theoretical destination of “ripeness with moderate alcohol” is a bit of an illusion. California isn’t Bordeaux and never will be. These are always going to be big, rich, juicy wines.

So to my second question: Should I allow this statement to live? Well, I just did, didn’t I, by publishing it here. If anybody in Napa gets all sniffy poo about this, I hope they’ll enlighten me, because I really am not seeing where these wines go from here. Is Bordeaux better than it was in 1961 or 1928 or 1874? It’s probably less tannic but an argument can be made that, no, it’s not “better,” just different. Somehow the Bordealais have managed to keep their image vital and coveted even though their product hasn’t really changed much over the years. That’s Napa’s challenge: As things stay the same there, but improve in other regions, they’re going to have to constantly re-persuade the public that they’re special and different and still worth the premium they request. No easy task, especially in this economy.

Whether or not you like the Napa Valley Wine Train, the fact is that if downtown Napa is to be protected against another winter flood, like the one it last experienced on New Year’s Eve, 2005, some major infrastructure work is going to have to be done, including relocating the train tracks. Planning for that is in the works, financed by a $54 million grant from Pres. Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus package.

Flooded Wine Train Station at Soscol Ave.

Predictably, Republicans are criticizing this (and many other) projects as “wasteful” and “silly.” The Weekly Calistogan reports that the charge is being led by Arizona’s Sen. John McCain and Oklahoma’s Sen. Tom Coburn. From the article, this: “McCain and Coburn scoffed at the hefty price tag associated with the track relocation, noting mockingly in the section of the report titled ‘All Aboard The Wine Train!’ that one of the most popular meals served on the Wine Train is the $124 Vista Dome four-course lunch with a glass of sparkling wine.”

Sparkling wine! Fancy food! There must be some brie lurking around somewhere. Just the kind of effete symbols Republicans love to bash!

The Maverick: more of a hot dog kinda guy

But what’s that old saying about people who live in glass houses? Oh, right; they shouldn’t throw stones. Here are a few tasty little appetizers from Arizona and Oklahoma that are also enjoying funding from the dreaded stimulus bill:

Arizona:

There’s a project to renovate the “streetscape” in downtown Flagstaff by building a “multi-use trail.” For $500,000 in taxpayer money the new trail will include “landscaping and irrigation components [that] will enhance the grounds of the Visitors Center [and] improve the appearance of the downtown area…”.

Gee, I guess it’s more important to Republicans to “improve appearances” in a red state than to actually save lives and property from floods in a blue state. But wait, there’s more. Here’s another grant for $322,000 for the Arizona Commission on the Arts “to award between 19 and 21 Arizona Arts Job…to arts organizations in rural, urban and suburban areas…”. [Click on #16, "The Arizona Commission for the Arts."]

What kinds of jobs? Here are some of the listings that went up on the Arizona Commission for the Arts’ website after the federal stimulus money grant was announced.

I’m in favor of the arts, but isn’t it Republicans who are always against government funding of them? Well, I guess it’s more important for the Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts to hire a program services manager than for an American city to be protected against a flood. Or so John McCain would suggest.

And then there’s $110,548 awarded to the Desert Botanical Garden to add “94,000 [plant] specimens at two herbaria” and $168,091 to Arizona State University to study “peers and peer networks.”

Can you imagine if instead of ASU it was San Francisco State University? The horror! We’d be hearing all about “the homosexual agenda.”

And what’s happening in the great state of Oklahoma?

Glad you asked. They got $2.6 billion in stimulus funding. Don’t forget that Sen. Coburn’s complaint about the “wasteful, silly” spending was accompanied by this zinger: “[T]he money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole.”

The state’s Transportation Secretary just announced that millions of Oklahoma’s stimulus money will be spent on “bridge projects, including “rehabilitation of more than three dozen bridges in the Tulsa area” in addition to dozens of others elsewhere in the state.

I guess when money is spent on bridges that need rehab in California it’s “silly and wasteful” but when money is spent on bridges in Oklahoma it’s a good thing.

And the state’s Indian tribes, a very powerful constituency, are to get $135 million even before they know what they’ll do with it, according to Oklahoma public radio KOSU, which reported that tribal leaders “are hastily coming up with suitable ways to use the money.” [If they offer me $135 million, I'll figure out something pretty cool to do with it, you betcha!]

Didn’t she take federal money for the “Bridge to Nowhere”?

Anyhow, you get the idea. It’s easy to make somebody else’s project look ridiculous. McCain and Coburn are just making trouble, criticizing something connected to California wine (a reliably odious concept to conservatives) in a reliably Democratic (Rep. Mike Thompson’s) district. Sad.

The line between tourism and agriculture has long been an exceedingly fine one in Napa Valley, which depends on the kindness of strangers opening their wallets to pay for things like police and fire services and teachers. But ever lurking on the horizon for the valley’s (and county’s) guardians is the fearful vision of lurid neon signs, crass motels, shopping malls, chain restaurants, theme parks (“Ride the Gigantic Zin-Coaster! Thrill to the Chard-’O-Death Wine Cup Slosher!”), wax museums (Gee, looks just like Mr. Mondavi), and the inevitable gridlock that would choke not only Highway 29 but the Silverado Trail and all cross-roads between, only to result in public clamor for more roads, wider thoroughfares, perhaps an overpass here and there… Has anyone thought of broadening the Napa River and setting up a ferry service?

Well, you get the idea. That’s what Napa wants to avoid, and who could blame them? It’s in this context (the St. Helena Star reports) that “Recently, a hospitality industry proposal came before county supervisors to loosen some of the restrictions imposed on wineries.” Those restrictions date to the so-called Winery Definition Ordinance (WDO), drafted in 1990 by the Napa County Board of Supervisors, which (more or less severely) limited the types of commercial development allowable in most of Napa Valley, whose highest use was defined as “agricultural land.” The WDO represented a compromise between the valley’s pro- and anti-growth forces. One victim of the compromise was the marketing and hosting of non-wine-related events at wineries, such as weddings, corporate retreats, family reunions and the like. This sort of thing wasn’t so important in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the economy was flying high, but nowadays tourism (even eco-tourism) is off, and some wineries would love to be able to make a few extra bucks by letting Chevron or Bank of America come up for the weekend, or hosting the extended family for Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary.

All sorts of third rails run through this debate, which consists in equal parts of environmental, economic, philosophical and political elements. So great is the potential for explosion that the Napa Valley Vintners asked the county Board of Supervisors to postpone tackling the issue until an unprecedented coalition of four major interests could attempt to resolve it. The Napa Valley Grapegrowers, Napa County Farm Bureau, Napa Winegrowers and Napa Valley Vintners now have until Jan. 31 “to come up with a plan that balances various competing interests,” in the Star’s words.

Most of the people I know who live and work in Napa Valley are passionately committed to preserving its rural nature. Andy Beckstoffer and Bill Harlan often speak of the valley’s heritage, and credit Robert Mondavi as one of their inspirations. That’s all fine, but let’s remember also that Mr. Mondavi’s eponymous winery is probably the most highly-visited in the valley, and if there ever were a Disney-fied winery it would likely resemble the Robert Mondavi Winery with its arch and campanile and Bufano’s St. Francis. Then too, Mr. Mondavi co-created COPIA, but as that is in downtown Napa city — hardly an ag preserve — we can forgive him for it.

The bar to development perhaps was lowered when the Napa Valley Wine Train was first approved, and then again when St. Helena permitted it to pass through to that town which is the most winey-touristy-charming in all of California. And with Petrified Forests, balloon rides, Vintage 1870 and Calistoga’s mudbaths and geysers drawing in the tourists, it’s not exactly as if the valley is entirely free of commercial taint. I expect the Big Four will come up with something that will let Grandma and Gramps do their 50th while putting some cosmetic limits on attendance, hours and such. It won’t be so bad; it’s not a slippery slope.

Just a quick post from here in my Napa hotel room before I hit the road for the rush hour commute, in the rain, for Oakland. Yesterday, I blind tasted 52 Cabs and Bordeaux blends at Napa Valley Vintners’ offices, in St. Helena. And as always happens, there were some real surprises.

My scores and reviews will be published in future editions of Wine Enthusiast so I can’t get into detail here, but I will say that some inexpensive wines beat out some very expensive ones. First, I went through all 52 in sequence, then narrowed down my top scorers into a final group of 12. I focused on that flight of a dozen very carefully, then made my ultimate scoring decisions. The entire tasting took more than 3 hours.

Fifty-two wines is more than I usually do in one sitting, but in this case it was very easy. The Vintners Association did a wonderful job setting everything up, which meant I didn’t have to, which freed my energies. I used a swivel chair to move up and down the table of bagged wines. There was water and Carr’s little crackers and spit cups, and that’s all I needed.

I should add that the particular wines I tasted were ones that don’t normally send me review bottles, which is why I traveled to Napa to taste them. I had the feeling that some wineries that never would have submitted to a group tasting did so because of the economy; just because you’re Napa Cab doesn’t mean you don’t have to get out there and market yourself. It was evident, right off the bat, that these were wines of great purity and grace. When you are at that quality, everything is good. It’s just a matter of splitting hairs. There were truly no bad wines; they all that that Napa Valley je ne sais qua. Under those circumstances you’re looking for nuances, not bold strokes, to make quality judgments.

So what does it mean than an inexpensive wine beats a super-pricy one? When you pay $100 or more for a bottle of wine, much of what you’re paying for is image. On the other hand, when you get something great for under $30, you’ve got a great value. I’ve spent most of my career trying to explain that great wine doesn’t have to cost a lot, and yesterday’s tasting proved that once again.

A final word about the handful of wineries I wish had submitted to the tasting, but didn’t. Why not? Fear? Pride? Because they don’t have to, or because they think they don’t have to? They know who they are.