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by Susan Imboden

On a bright spring morning, Lou Preston had time to feed the fire in his bread oven and say a few words to the chickens before greeting tasting room guests. Before long they would wander off Highway 101 near Healdsburg in Sonoma County, pass Dry Creek General Store and arrive at Preston Vineyards.

Dry Creek Valley in the Russian River Basin has been home to fruit and grape growers since the 1850s. Lou and his wife, Susan, bought a 40-acre prune ranch there in 1973, at a time when grapevines were beginning to replace fruit trees in the valley. They soon acquired neighboring ground that brought their holdings to 125 acres. You might even call them developers─as long as you understand that when Lou tells you about building, he’s talking about the healthy soil, product diversity and sense of place at Preston Vineyards.

Early on they focused on building their 100-acre vineyard. Two of the small ranches they acquired contained 100-year-old Zinfandel blocks from which they developed other sites. “We not only restored those old vineyards,” Lou said, “but we propagated from them to reestablish that clonal identity in other vineyards.” They also converted their prune dehydrator into a winery that produced their first 1,000 gallons of Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc.

As they put down roots it was natural for Lou to fall in with long-established farmers who knew the land and had a passion for sharing their culture and expertise. Neighbor Jim Guadagni, who knew it from the back of a horse-drawn plow, taught Lou how to cultivate a vineyard, cure olives and dry walnuts in the old ways. “He taught me about self-sufficiency,” said Lou. “He personified the neighborhood-based attitude of can do, make do and get by.” Another area native, Americo Rafanelli, shared with Lou the Italian myths of Dry Creek. The quintessential family farmer, Americo grew grapes and vegetables and made home wine. “Most importantly,” said Lou, “he knew how to enjoy what he made.”

Those early lessons in local culture deepened their roots and flavored the expansion of the family business. They built a new winery in the mid ’80s that produced 20,000 cases of a dozen or so varietals and blends and expanded their facilities to include a commercial kitchen and tasting room. The winery produced its last Cabernet Sauvignon in 1989, as other grapes seemed to thrive better in the farm’s environment. Lou will talk about terroir if you ask, but simply put? It was a growing desire to stay true to the character of the land─to farm authentically─that motivated this change and shaped new projects.

They planted imported Italian oil olive stock and constructed two outdoor bread ovens. The first, made of clay and straw, was followed by a second one strengthened with horse manure, which seemed to work better. (A self-taught baker, Lou now bakes 150–200 loaves of sourdough each week in the kitchen’s brick oven.) And they built a second bocce ball court on the premises, an event that inspired the founding of the local tournament, Gara di Bocce.

If this seems like a long day’s work, add wide-scale marketing to the mix. Serving as founding president of the Winegrowers of Dry Creek Valley in 1990, Lou worked to bring the valley into the fold of nationally known wine-making regions. In what he calls his “middle period,” he and Susan travelled cross-country promoting the region and Preston’s new wines─Dry Chenin Blanc, Gamay Boujelais, Syrah and Muscat Canelli.

The seeds of change were sprouting, though, and growing into a view that Lou explained this way: “Given a choice between the pursuit of economic gain and the husbandry of plants and family, I chose to give up those accumulated frequent flyer miles and return to the vineyards.”

Six years ago they reestablished Preston of Dry Creek (the name found on all of their product labels) as a family farm producing 8,000 cases of wine from some of their best sites. “We changed our product strategy from a market-driven product that would sell in Minneapolis or Hoboken to a product that suited our preferences and would please our customers here,” Lou explained. That’s also when they decided to make Preston a certified organic farm.

The decision to go organic stemmed initially from a concern about the potential effects, on both people and the environment, of using synthetic chemicals. They stopped using pesticides and herbicides in the early ’90s, but felt the vineyards weren’t as healthy as they could be. “We felt that we were being kind to the environment and the environment would reward us with very healthy vineyards. But that wasn’t the case,” said Lou. The challenge was to manage weeds and maintain soil nutrition while following organic principles.

In 2002 they dedicated themselves to the organic goal, embarking on a three-year transition process through which they met organics expert Bob Cantisano. Known as “Amigo Bob” to organic farmers, he works largely off the grid of university research, imparting hands-on experience and what Lou describes as “keen powers of observation.” Bob looked at the vineyards and said, “Lou, if you want to go organic, you’ve got to buy as much compost as you can afford and put it out all over your property.” They took his advice and purchased a mix of chicken manure, yard waste, and grape skins from Cold Creek Compost in Ukiah, applying 6 tons per acre. The visual effect was immediate, with pale foliage quickly turning a deep green.

But that was just the first step. Lou muses that building the soil with compost is like making sourdough bread: “It’s the starter that gets it going.” A cover crop is then needed to provide a source of food for important soil organisms.

After they pick the grapes, usually late September through October, they lightly disk the vineyards and apply the compost. Then they seed it with cover crops of beans, peas, vetch and mustard, which grow a large volume of organic material that is tilled into the soil. Bacteria, earthworms and insects then go to work to produce fertility for the plants.

Building soil fertility goes hand in hand with controlling leaf damage from hungry insects. And while Lou admits he’s not an entomologist, he knows the importance of keeping a balance between beneficial and pest insects in the vineyards, orchards and vegetable garden.

He also knows a farmer’s best shot at reaching that balance begins with gathering the experts. After importing ladybugs, which promptly flew away, he started thinking about how to create habitat that would be inviting to ladybugs and other beneficials. With guidance from CAFF staff members Sam Earnshaw and Keith Abeles (who is now part owner of Quetzal Farm in Sebastopol), he installed hedgerows along the vineyards. Together they selected a mix of plants for pollen and nectar─yarrow, monkeyflower, pomegranate and California buckwheat, to name a few─to provide forage for the ladybugs, lacewings, wasps and flies that eat the pests.

Lou has found that you pretty much get what you get when it comes to insects and last year was a good one for ladybugs. “We’d just begun to knock down some of the cover crop that we planted last fall,” he explained, “and you could walk through the vineyard and find incredible numbers of ladybug nymphs and larvae.”

The hedgerows give way to larger trees and shrubs along the farm’s riparian corridor that provide shelter for critters of all sizes. Plantings of willow, coast live oak, bay laurel and a handful of other species along Peña Creek reduce soil erosion and shade seasonal salmon and steelhead trout pools. Beneath the trees, a leafy understory of toyon, coffee berry and California wild rose enhances wildlife habitat and increases shade. Circuit Rider Productions of Windsor (in Sonoma County) propagated and installed the more than 40 mostly native species of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants that frame the farm and thrive there.

An old method for weed control suits Preston’s trellised vineyards and rounds out the organic program. Using a tractor, the vineyard workers tow a French plow along each row to till the soil between and under the vines. It operates with a hydraulic ram that retracts when it hits a vineyard stake, moves around the stake, and resumes plowing. Using this method takes a lot of skill and Lou noted that if you’re lucky you won’t rip out a vine. You can still buy French plows, although not many people use them.

Along with tried-and-true methods for running the farm, the Prestons are employing some of the newer technologies. All of the winery buildings and two irrigation systems are equipped to run on solar power. The 37-kilowatt system converts low-voltage direct current to alternating current, or AC, which is fed into the PG&E system. They’re still on the grid, so any power they generate and don’t use is sold to the utility. In addition, the nighttime rates for electricity are lower, so they save money by operating when they can at night. And PG&E paid for about half of the installation cost.

They also cut costs by using a biofuel to run some of their equipment and vehicles. Lou gathers waste vegetable oil, or WVO, from local restaurants. After the used oil is cooled it is funneled back into its original 4-gallon containers. He then picks it up, lets it warm in the greenhouse to settle the solids and strains it for use as fuel. This arrangement is win-win, cutting down on the restaurants’ recycling costs and reducing the amount of diesel exhaust going into the air at the farm.

Some of their vehicles and equipment run better on WVO than others. The Jetta is kind of finicky and one of the tractors doesn’t like it, but the old Mercedes does just fine. Lou explained that newer engines with fuel injection pumps don’t seem to tolerate it very well, adding, “Old and sloppy like me works best.”

A California Certified Organic Farm since 2005, Preston Vineyards has traded its single-commodity mindset for one of diversity. It produces wine, vegetables, chicken eggs, olive oil, cured olives, apples (you can pick), fermented pickles, vinegar and sourdough bread to sell at the Healdsburg Farmer’s Market and at the farm. They also offer customers a selection of books on food politics and bread-making.

Since they decided to focus on local markets, you no longer can find the Preston of Dry Creek label on supermarket wine racks. But you still can enjoy Preston wines at a few restaurants and buy them in Bay Area specialty shops. And you can place an order by internet or phone. (See the current selection at www.prestonvineyards.com.) If you visit their tasting room, you’ll be treated to Susan’s mixed-media paintings and installation art, which put a playful spin on 100% Organic.

It seems to go without saying that there are plans for the future. Lou shared that he’s getting ready to bring a couple of goats and maybe some doll sheep onto the farm. He’s planted an acre of wheat to use in his bread-making and thinks the chickens will give him 4 dozen eggs a day before long. And so it goes.

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