Temecula Pioneer : 20 Years Later, Callaway Looks Back But Plans Ahead

IF A PHOTOGRAPH of Temecula had been taken in the late ‘60s, it would have shown only a few homes, because that community--90 miles south of Los Angeles, 60 miles north of San Diego--then was little more than a crossroads. But today, Temecula has thousands of homes--and nearly a dozen wineries.

One such winery, Callaway Vineyard and Winery, recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. And it is largely because of this winery that Temecula has grown so quickly and now is known as Southern California’s premium wine-making region.

Callaway, which produces only white wines, was the second winery to operate in Temecula. (The first, Brookside Vineyard, is no longer in business.) The Callaway winery began on impetus provided by Ely Callaway, retired president of Burlington Industries. He had a yen to spend his autumn years in California, growing grapes and making and marketing fine wines.

Widely known for his shrewdness and drive, Callaway determined that a winery in Temecula could serve the greater Los Angeles region with direct sales. He also had seen reports on studies conducted by two UC Davis professors who believed that the 1,400-foot-high mesa region, cooled by Pacific mists flowing through the “Rainbow Gap” of the coastal mountains, was a suitable place to plant wine grapes.

Callaway met viticulturist John Moramarco in 1969. Two years earlier, Moramarco, a ninth-generation grape grower whose work reflects his Italian traditions, had supervised the early plantings for Brookside Vineyard. Callaway included Moramarco in his plans for a winery, bought land, and the two started planting their vines that year.

Callaway’s first wines were released in 1975. A year later, the winery’s efforts provided a breakthrough for large premium wineries in Southern California when Queen Elizabeth II, at the Bicentennial luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, asked for a second glass of Callaway’s 1974 White Riesling. It made headlines in the nation’s wine press, especially since the Queen’s preference for orange juice had been noted.

Attention focused on Temecula, and the community’s growth since then has been prodigious. On my recent drive to the celebration, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at the number of new housing developments. I had driven there in January, and between then and now, three additional housing tracts were going up, each with a wine-related name: Chardonnay Hills, Chateau Estates and Vintage Hills.

As Temecula has grown, so too has Callaway. In 1981, Ely Callaway, wishing to pursue other interests, sold the vineyards and winery to Hiram Walker & Sons, a quality-minded Canadian wine and spirits company. With the help of a $3.5-million expansion by Hiram Walker, the acreage, winery plant and output were more than doubled. Today, Moramarco, who had personally pruned the vines at Callaway for years, manages the 720 acres of vineyards. Nearly 200,000 cases are produced annually.

Half of the production is devoted to the “Calla-Lees” Chardonnay, which is made without oak. This prize-winning Chardonnay (the ’87 vintage, $10, won a silver medal in international competition this year) was produced in 1985. That year, wine maker Dwayne Helmuth and managing director Terence Clancy learned, in Chablis, France, that Chardonnay wines do not need to be fermented or aged in oak for perfect development; classic Chablis in France, of 100% Chardonnay grapes, is not influenced by oak. They merely needed close supervision while on the yeast lees.

Helmuth implemented unusually cold, slow fermentation, which accents the “Calla-Lees’ ” fruitiness. And the Chardonnay’s toastiness, definitive in taste and bouquet, comes from the time on the lees. Clean and dry, like the French prototype.

An indication of the “Calla-Lees’ ” popularity is that it, along with the subtly herbaceous 1986 Callaway Fume Blanc ($8), was poured at President Bush’s inauguration in January.

At a candlelight dinner for the 20th-anniversary celebrations in July, Ely Callaway recalled those early days when the vines were young and the winery was yet to be built. Bankers had to be persuaded to loan millions of dollars.

“After we’d made our first wine, in 1974, I told those people that any product must have three points,” Callaway said. First, it must be unique. Second, be top-quality. And third, be the bearer of the winery’s history and reputation. “Our wines meet all those requirements,” Callaway said.

After test-tastings by wine consultant Andre Tchelistcheff and wine authority Leon Adams earned positive marks, the bankers became believers.

And Ely’s son Nicholas remembered, in a toast to his father with the new, pleasant Callaway 1985 Blanc de Blanc Sparkling Wine ($16.95):

“He fused all his talents and heritage as a Southern gentleman from Georgia, as an industrialist, in the creation of this winery project. He loved it because of its difficulties, precisely because of the challenge, which brought craft, art and commerce together with loving work.”

Although the anniversary celebrated the past, the winery is looking ahead into the ‘90s.

“We intend to experiment with other types of white wines, going beyond our 1983 decision to make white wines only because that is what the land best produced. We are moving cautiously forward with sparkling wines,” Clancy said. Not only that, Callaway seeks to make a global name for itself. Its wines will be sold in London in 1990.