Broughton Quarterly - Fall 2007 - (Page 18) Besides producing excellent grapes and fine wines, Lake L AKE COUNTy, CALIFORNIA has been around a long time, but as a wine growing region it’s a relative pup. Mostly eviscerated by Prohibition, Lake County had a thriving winemaking industry before the turn of the 20th century. Back and going like gangbusters, today’s Lake County growers produce a tremendous amount of quality grapes (mostly Cabernet Sauvignon), which are sold to wineries statewide. Although there are now about 20 wineries in the county, there were no less than 36 operating there over 100 years ago, with some colorful characters planting early vines. The first person in Lake County to plant grapes for winemaking was a gentleman named David Voight, who established the first vineyard in 1872 and would go on to make a winery. Little is known about Voight, except that he lived in Lower Lake Township and that his established winery was located about a mile south of Lower Lake. One early critic happily commented on “Voight’s claret being especially good.” According to early tax records, David Voight planted 12 acres of Riesling, Zinfandel, Burger, and Muscat grapes. By 1884, there were some 600 planted acres, but Voight still had the only winery. Other growers, and then winemakers, followed. Another early pioneer, Prussian immigrant Stephan Nicolai, formerly a stone mason, also planted grapes. But more importantly, he helped design and construct many of Lake County’s early wineries. 18 Broughton Quarterly Fall 2007 In 1882, Richard Nichols of San Francisco planted 300 acres around Lower Lake, mostly Zinfandel. Like many others, Nichols sold his grapes to wineries “over the hill” in Calistoga, using wagons to carefully transport the grapes over the winding mountain road— today’s Highway 29. Nichols eventually built an old stone winery (with help from Stephan Nicolai), but the business failed. A barrel of Nichols’ wine, discovered in the ruins many years later, was considered the finest wine made in California. A famous early Lake County citizen was Chief Justice S.C. Hastings (as in Hastings Law School). He left San Francisco in the late 1800s and moved up to Lake County to buy property and start a winery. He purchased the former Carsonia Ranch, named for Jack Carson—Kit Carson’s brother. (Jack Carson ran into trouble after marrying two women, and apparently moved to Southern California to escape prying eyes.) Hastings owned over 60 acres under vines around Upper Lake, and built a stone winery as well. Hastings however remarried a young woman of the temperate persuasion, who convinced him, in 1900, to shutter his winery. Harvard graduate Charles Hammond came west and arrived in Lake County in 1885. A colorful man, “Colonel” Hammond once worked for Gustav Niebaum at Napa’s Inglenook. In Lake County, Hammond acquired 600 acres and immediately planted 25 acres of grapes, including Semillon and the county’s first Cabernet Sauvignon.
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