Mammoth has characters

(Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the December 2006 issue of Mammoth Monthly magazine. Subscribe here.)

"California" and "wine" go together like "Sierra Nevada" and "granite." As the nation's thirst for Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and even Syrah grows, vineyards have sprung up in parts of the Golden State far beyond Napa and Sonoma's hallowed ground.

Could the Owens Valley be next? If enthusiasm and a surgeon's military precision count for anything, then Eastern Sierra wine has a good chance for success.

Dr. John Ungersma, a retired Navy captain and orthopedic surgeon, is leading the charge to make the Owens and Hammil Valleys California's next wine-producing region. The 72-year-old Vietnam and Desert Storm veteran is the driving force behind the Owens Valley Viticulture Association (OVVA), whose members grow grapes in and make wine from twelve test vineyards on three acres from Benton to the Alabama Hills.

"We believe viticulture could be sustainable in the Owens Valley," said Ungersma in the sun-dappled dining room of his Rocking K Ranch home just west of Bishop, where he and his wife, Hilke, have lived for forty years.

The Zinfandel vines on the Ungersma property were still wintering that bright morning, but this past fall, their fruit was part of OVVA's biggest crush to date. For many plants, 2006 was to be the crucial third year, when vines produce their first viable harvest. For Ungersma and his small fleet of grape growers, this is a crucial step toward the formation of a wine industry in Mono and Inyo counties.

"We're sort of getting serious now," he said.

Ungersma and other OVVA enthusiasts have done their homework, studying sixty-plus years of weather records, comparing "heat degree days" (the number of days with high temperatures over 50 degrees) and latitude with the world's great wine regions.

Ungersma even sends OVVA grapes out for lab testing of sugar levels, acidity and Ph. So far, the local grapes have passed muster; the sagey terroir between the White Mountains and the Sierra Nevada is suitable for commercial viticulture. Even what at first might seem a curse (the lack of rainfall) can be a blessing, as careful irrigation means a more consistent, controlled crop.

There are challenges and, of course, major differences from milder wine-friendly locales. Take the growing season: in Bishop, bud break comes later, but hot, midsummer days and intense sunlight make for a compressed growing season with an earlier harvest.

"This really is a high risk business," Ungersma conceded, adding optimistically, "but it might be a win-win situation."

Current OVVA members (attendance at group meetings hovers around 25) are participating in a long-dormant tradition of backyard viticulture. Century-old vines were found in Big Pine, and a 1931 water survey of the Owens Valley showed vineyards scattered throughout the region.

Today's backyard vineyards range from two Cabernet plants in a Lazy A tract home garden to a thousand Riesling vines on Erick Schat's Willow Springs Ranch 6,300 feet up in the foothills of the Whites.

The majority of vines are planted in Mono County's southeast reaches, where alfalfa now reigns. Ungersma wants to change that. Not only would wine grapes be environmentally friendlier than the current crop (grapes require one-twelfth the water that alfalfa does), but wineries would increase tourism.

"People won't stop and watch alfalfa grow, but they will taste wine," Ungersma said.

Professors at the University of California at Davis' famed oenology department, where Ungersma and other OVVA members have taken courses, reacted skeptically to the quest to grow grapes and make wines in the Eastern Sierra.

But high-altitude viticulture isn't unprecedented. Take Argentina's Mendoza region, which produces highly-acclaimed Malbecs from highly- situated vineyards -- up to 6,000 feet.

There's also the case of New Mexican champagne: the award-winning sparkling wines of Gruet, a house that planted French roots (Gruet et Fils made champagne in Champagne before settling in the American Southwest in the mid-1980s) in the high desert at 4,500 feet near Truth or Consequences. Wine critic Robert Parker has raved about the wines, which are produced without the use of pesticides and with the aid of irrigation (a practice that is a faux pas in France).

Closer to home, the University of Nevada, Reno received a $5.3 million grant to study cold-weather viticulture at an experimental winery.

Similarly, OVVA is experimenting with Zinfandel, Cabernet, Syrah and Riesling vines in hopes of finding the varietals best suited to the area.

All that testing will result in the first local grape glut, and perhaps much more. Ungersma and the OVVA want to secure an official "appellation," or FDA regional wine-growing designation, and hope to form a licensed, bonded winery to sell their stuff. That's all at least two years away, Ungersma said, because of laws mired in post-Prohibition complexity.

In the meantime, count on fierce competition and greater selection in the winemaking category at, say, the world-renowned wine competition at the Tri-County Fair.

Just kidding.