Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 41

Joel Peterson:

he best wines Joe Swan had made were from a
Dry Creek vineyard owned by Mike Teldeschi. I'd
gone there with Joe in '72, '73 and '74, but he and
Mike were less than compatible. Mike was an old
Italian farmer; Joe could be irascible; both wanted things
how they wanted things. After 1975 they were no longer
doing business.
Having committed myself to Sonoma County, my
thoughts turned back to this vineyard. Sporting shoulderlength hair and a tie-dyed wardrobe, I paid Mike a visit.
I told him I'd been working with his neighbors at Palace
Hill, but knew from my experience with Swan how good
his grapes were.
In a nutshell, his response was: "I didn't get along with
Joe Swan, and I don't like the way you look."
"Well," I said, "that's unfortunate. Is there anyone else
you'd recommend who has grapes like yours?"
"My brother is right across the road," he grumbled. "He
loves guys like you." (Mike's nephew Dan later told me that
his father, Frank, had certain "hippie" tendencies, such as
taking off all his clothes to sunbathe in the vineyard.) "Go
see him-it's Sunday, he's probably home."
Unbeknownst to me, Mike and Frank hadn't spoken in
20 years. I would later learn that their grandfather had emi-

grated from Tuscany at the turn of the 20th century, when
Italians operated much the way that Mexican laborers do
today-living in labor camps, sending money home, and
gradually importing other family members. Both Mike and
Frank were born in the village of Casabiasciana, near Lucca;
their father, Lorenzo, who enlisted in the Italian army, was
presumed dead at the end of World War One, administered
a memorial service at the end of that conflict, and then
came walking into town a week later.
Lorenzo returned to California in 1922. The rest of his
family followed in the auspicious year of 1929. Frank left
school at 14 to work in the vineyards with Mike, but somewhere along the line they had a disagreement and never
buried the hatchet. Even when they went to mass at the
same church in Healdsburg, they had an agreement that
the first to arrive would sit in the front pew, the second all
the way in back, and the latter would leave before the former so they wouldn't interact. But they still owned adjoining vineyards, which had certain legal ramifications, so
when they had to communicate, they sent their kids back
and forth.
When I knocked on Frank's farmhouse door, I was confronted by a gray-bearded guy with sharp features and
bright, lively eyes. He was only about five feet tall, but his
attitude was about 6'8"-suffused with edgy energy, even
for a stranger at the door.
WINE & SPIRITS

RAVENSWOOD WINEMAKER
JOEL PETERSON, IN THE
LATE 1970S, ABOVE; FAR
LEFT, DAVID DARLINGTON
CRUSHING TELDESCHI
ZIN IN THE LATE 1980S.

ET AS MO VOLESTIA
NONSEQUAM COMNIA
VENDITAT AB IPSAE
POREPEL ENIMI, EA
DOLUPTA QUAECULLAB
INVENDI TESTIUME
POREPRESCIUM QUIA
SOLUPTA NATEST.NEM
QUIA CON REMOL
JUNE 2019

Wine & Spirits - June 2019

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