A Long Dry Spell Comes to an End : Bottling Begins Today of Wine From County

For the first time in almost 100 years, bottles bearing an Orange County label will be filled starting today with wines made from grapes that grew in a green valley below the Saddleback peaks.

The vineyard, started in 1974 in Gobernadora Canyon by the owners of Rancho Mission Viejo, is in roughly the same spot where grapes had become a leading crop in the county a century ago. In 1888, however, a blight killed every plant, and the industry faded into oblivion.

“This is an ideal spot for grapes,” said Bob Clark, vice president for agriculture for the ranch. “It’s 10 miles as the crow flies from the ocean. In the summer, daytime temperatures go to 80 or 90 degrees, and drop to 40 to 50 degrees at night, with increasing humidity in the afternoons. Perfect for the white grapes we grow.”

Sales to Other Wineries

Since 1974, he said, grapes have been sold to several wineries in Riverside County, but the ranch owners, headed by Richard J. O’Neill, were not allowed to press the grapes and bottle their own wines because of a state law that prohibits anyone from having an interest in both producing and retailing alcoholic beverages. O’Neill, the former state Democratic chairman, at one time owned a number of retail liquor stores and now owns several restaurants that serve alcohol.

For that and other reasons, Clark said he doubted that the ranch will ever be able to engage in estate bottling, in which the entire procedure is carried on within sight of the vineyard.

So, at least for now, “we’re settling for having our own name, San Juan Creek wine,” along with the words Orange County, on the bottles, which are being filled at a winery near Temecula in Riverside County.

Clark said chenin blanc and Johannesberg Riesling grapes now are being grown on 38 acres, with the possibility of spreading out on 36 adjacent acres where the raising of red grapes ended unsuccessfully.

160-Ton Yield Expected

He said that last season the 38 acres yielded 138 tons of the white grapes, and he expects to pick about 160 tons this year from vines that are just beginning to show buds and, with luck, will be ready for harvesting in late August or September.

Long before the name San Juan Creek wine came along, German settlers around what is now the city of Anaheim produced wines under the label Mother Colony, according to county historian and author Jim Sleeper. But that name disappeared when the vineyards died. Since then, Sleeper said, the only other name for a wine that he is aware of was for a product called Trabuco Loudmouth.

“Some friends and I used to bring in a pickup-truck load of grapes from somewhere and do our own pressing and bottling up in Holy Jim Canyon,” he said. “But we haven’t done that since a brush fire destroyed our press in 1980.”