After our tour of the MacMurray estate and vineyards, our guide (who asked not to be named directly – although they were very professional and well informed) brought us to Frei Brothers Vineyard. Frei Brothers is totally off the grid. No signs and no markings off the street. Unless you turn down a small dirt road, it is hard to tell there are grapes growing on the property, but grapes there are.
Frei Brothers grows alot of grapes. ALOT. From what the guide told us, the Frei Vineyard was one of the few in this country to survive prohibition. Brothers Walter and Louis managed to get their product sold for religious and “medicinal” purposes. Once prohibition was over, the Gallo family took an interest in the vineyard since it was one of the few still operational. The brothers did not want to sell it, so an arrangement was eventually reached in which the Frei brothers sold to the Gallo family exclusively. Once the brothers were ready to retire in the 1970’s, the Gallo Family successfully managed to purchase the property.
One of the more interesting features of the Frei Vineyard is that the grapes are grown on hills. Our guide said that not many vineyards in California have the permits to do this anymore due to erosion issues, so it makes Frei stand out. The hills are also surrounded by pristine mountain ranges. While not as large as MacMurray Ranch, the land has been used as a vineyard for over 100 years, so to put it bluntly, it is all business.
After driving around acres of well managed grape vines, our guide pulled over and gave us a taste of Gallo Family 2008 Zinfandel. Slightly more spicy than the MacMurray wines, I picked up hints of black pepper and nutmeg. After walking around the vines and seeing nothing but rows of grapes that seem to lead into the mountain ranges, we got back into the car to check out the processing facility.
This place was simply massive and state of the art. The Frei Vineyard uses both hand and automatic pickers. The pickers feed into large trucks. The trucks offload the grapes into a huge crushing system (the scale is simply epic). As our tour guide explained the whole process, I was distracted by a friendly goat that the one of the groundskeepers keeps on the property. Soon one of the trucks needed to get by and our car was blocking the road, so off we went.
We were taken back to our car and the dirt semi-secret road in order to leave. I managed to get lost twice before finding my way out of this oasis hidden in plain view. Visiting MacMurray and Frei Brother Vineyards was a wonderful way to spend time in California. Tours of these properties are not common and I am extremely grateful to the good people at Gallo (and Kress Wine) for making it possible. It is inspiring to see a company have a commitment to preserving both the landscape and history of the vineyards they manage and they also make a damn fine product.
Joey Lombardi
Sewell, NJ
blog.joeylombardi.com
twitter.com/joeylombardi
