When Jack Davies took over the abandoned Calistoga winery in 1965, the Napa Valley was a depressed agricultural area dotted with prune trees, apricot orchards, hay fields‹and a handful of struggling vineyards. Over the next 30 years, Davies emerged as one of the forces that transformed the valley into the world-renowned wine-making region it is today.
Davies, who died March 10 at the age of 74, had a business degree from Harvard and was a successful marketing and management consultant when he and his wife, Jamie, decided to make a fresh start by buying the crumbling estate near the town of Calistoga.
Their plan rested on an astute business observation: No one in California was making premium sparkling wine in the traditional style of the Champagne region. They renamed the estate Schramsberg (after its original founder, a German immigrant named Jacob Schram), swept the bats out of the estate's five caves and began learning how to make first-class wine.
By 1970, the winery was producing a modest 1,000 cases of sparkling wine a year. Then, in 1972, Richard Nixon brought 25 cases along on his historic trip to China. Nixon and Premier Chou Enlai toasted the restoration of diplomatic relations with glasses of Schramsberg 1969 Blanc de Blanc. Davies never advertised this coup, but it brought the winery international attention anyway. By the end of the decade, it was producing 20,000 cases a year.
Davies was in the vanguard of the movement to preserve the region's agricultural character while allowing for tourism. He was instrumental in the 1968 creation of the Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve, which blocked suburban sprawl and "ranchettes." In 1970, Davies managed to derail a plan to replace rustic Highway 29 with a four-lane freeway.
Davies had eclectic taste in food and music and enjoyed playing the drums and hamonica. "My dad was someone who was very true to his heart," says Davies's son, Hugh, who is associate winemaker at Schramsberg. "He did things because he felt they were the right things to do."
Davies is survived by his wife, Jamie; three sons, Hugh, Bill and John; a sister, LouAnn; and a grandson.
