We interviewed him several years ago. Here’s our story:
The year was 1942. Pearl Harbor had been attacked just a few months earlier, on Dec. 7, 1941. The nation was at war with Japan, Germany and Italy.
And Charlie Barra, a Ukiah Heights High School senior, leased a 30-acre vineyard in Mendocino County, Calif. “The market was good because of the war,” he told us. He got out of school at noon, and then farmed.
“I hadn’t any capital,” he recalled. “The owner of the ranch put up the cash, and I paid him back, and split the profit. My folks had migrated from Italy. They felt this area was like where they came from,” and so Charlie had been in and around vineyards from an early age, he recalled. “When you grow up as a young person in the vineyard, you’re very comfortable growing grapes.”
And so he did. After the war, Barra sold grapes for $20 a ton in 1947 (just a couple of years earlier, grapes had fetched $150 a ton). In 1955, he bought the 175-acre Redwood Valley Vineyards, which had phylloxera-infested vin ordinaire.
He started planting chardonnay and cabernet grapes, and well ahead of Robert Mondavi and others credited with creating the fine wine movement in America, Barra decided not to produce for cheap jug wines, but rather to plant varietals because that’s where he thought the market was going.
Ideal Climate
And he considered himself blessed. “In Mendocino, we have the ideal climate. It’s climate that makes the greatest contribution to the quality of the wine,” he noted. “We have nice warm days, with very, very cool nights, which expands the ripening of the fruit.”
Still running an active vineyard at age 83, Barra adds that “if you wait until October or November to pick, it’s a lot more flavorful.”
Over the years, he saved some of his profits, got up to 400 acres, and then sold 200 to buy the old Weibel Winery, which had gotten into some financial trouble. That was a setback – but not a fatal one – for Weibel: “They are still a large champagne producer,” he said.
And that transformed the business. While Barra now has a total of 200 acres, “We do custom crushing for a lot of growers, and store a lot of wine for the big wineries.
“When you have grapes on the vine, they are perishable as a grower. You have no bargaining power. But once you crush them, they are no longer variable. Even if you have to carry them for a while, if it’s good juice, you’ll sell,” he explained. “In Europe and Italy, you can’t buy grapes,” he said, “only wine. If you pick good grapes and make good wine, you don’t have to worry” about your finances.
Sales Up Slightly
Even though some wineries are suffering lower sales, Barra says his own bottle sales are up slightly. “The quality has to be there, but the price too,” he explains. Barra’s wines are targeted at the $15-$20 a bottle price point. “Our wines are different” than some other producers, he said. “They are easier to drink. We’re trying to make wines that are consumer friendly. We’re after the consumer,” not the wine snob, Barra explained. And Barra’s target market likes “something that’s easy to drink.”
That strategy has earned him sales in 30 states, as well as internationally. The day we talked, Barra had just shipped a lot of wine for the first time to Eastern Canada – Ontario, Quebec and eastward.
Growing Organic Grapes
We got interested in Barra when we learned he had been growing organic grapes for 50 years, longer than most people have been in the wine business.
He confirmed that, and added “I didn’t know I was growing organic grapes for the first 30 years. Our family came from Europe and they didn’t use pesticides.”
With all the pests that beset wineries, we wondered if that wasn’t a risky strategy. After all, it’s pesticides that are supposed to suppress the European grapevine moth and other nasty critters. Doesn’t he worry that the vineyards are wide open to invasion by every pest known to a vineyard owner?
“If you’re converting to organic, until you get the balance back into the vineyard, it’s a nail-biting experience,” he agreed. “But if you stay with it, you get through it. And once you’re through it, climate takes care of anything.”
“We don’t use any fertilizer,” he said. “We plant beans in the row between the vines, work them into the soil. Those beans produce the nitrogen the vines need. It costs less if you do it right,” he added. “This year we had trouble with grass and had to do a little extra handwork.”
Barra conceded that organic vineyards don’t look as neat as those treated with chemicals. “My interest is the environment,” he said. “We have all kinds of ducks, geese, etc. We built nests for the osprey. All of my neighbors are organic. Mendocino is nearly all organic,” unlike Napa, he said.
But isn’t he worried about the European grapevine moth, the pest de jour? “We monitor our vineyards,” he said. “We have traps out.”
Special Handling
When we talked with Barra, he was getting ready for the first crush of the season. It’s a custom crush, and may be from one of the quarantine areas. That means it requires special handling. “At the winery, we put all of the stems into a locked box and send them to an area that treats them. All of the waste is kept separate,” which helps prevent the spread of any pests.
“It not just our vineyards that are organic,” Barra said. “Our winery is also organic. Every time we bring an organic load in, we have to wash everything down.”
All Barra’s wines are estate-grown and crushed. If it’s been a good harvest, and there are more grapes than Barra needs, he’ll sell them to another winery.
“A lot of people don’t understand how fortunate we are to be in this country,” he said. “The opportunities are here.”
Barra had two brothers, one of whom, a Marine, was killed on Iwo Jima. The other brother has his own vineyard and sells his own grapes. “This year I understand he wants to crush some grapes over at our place,” Barra said.
Globalization a Worry
Barra confessed to worrying a bit about the future. “Globalization is having an impact on American industry. When the price of grapes goes up in this country, grapes come in from other countries. The government welcomes it, but it costs American families their jobs,” Barra says.
“They’re not thinking about working families,” he added. “People have to have a job.
“Trying to improve living conditions throughout the world is a noble effort. But it’s not fair that American families should have to pay for that.” Barra told us he believes any country exporting to the U.S. should be required to have a minimum wage law.
If a low-wage country had a minimum wage law, those wages would rise, Barra believes. That would level the playing field between U.S. and foreign workers without having to impose tariffs.
“Globalization is going to hurt American workers unless we do something,” he repeated.
But globalization isn’t the only thing making it harder for working families to move up, as Barra has done.
The Trouble with Banks
“When I started, I borrowed most of the money. The banks back then would tell you that if you can’t make the principal, just pay the interest. Now, the banks aren’t understanding” of bad years, or bad economies.
“The fact all our vineyards are paid for makes a difference in the selling price of wine, because your costs are different.”
Barra’s wines are carried in 30 states. His daughter, Shelly, is director of sales and promotion, which his son, Sean, takes care of the winery business. “It really makes you feel good to have your children in the business,” he said.
Barra worries about the possible return of the death tax.
“I hope they’ll see the light and make some changes,” he said. “To keep agriculture from generation to generation, they have to change the tax. A rate of 50% of appraised valuation is a lot,” he said, especially when the appraisal is based on the “highest and best use,” which usually means turning farmland into housing or industrial land.
No Worries About Water
Barra said he wasn’t worried about water shortages plaguing much of California. “The governor can’t find the money to build reservoirs, but in the 1950s I built five reservoirs to catch rainwater as it rolls off the mountain. I use the water to irrigate. In 50 years, I’ve saved over $1.5 million in water costs on a $100,000 investment.
“Every year, when it rains, they fill up,” he said. What if it doesn’t rain too much in any one year? “That’s why I have five reservoirs.
Advertising is largely through brochures and magazines.
Looking to the future, Barra said he thinks “consumption will continue to grow, but globalization will hurt U.S. producers.” It’s a matter of U.S. producers having to pay workers $10 an hour, while some foreign producers pay less than $10 a day to their workers.
Barra Vineyards & Winery is a family business. His wife, Martha, focuses on distribution, organic certification and private label and bulk wine relationships. His son Shawn was trained as a civil engineer. Today he manages all financial aspects of the business, shares sales and distribution responsibility with his sister, Shelley, and heads up all bottling, logistics and capital improvement projects.