“What was Napa like before there were grape vines?”
That question was asked during a virtual tasting I led two weeks ago, and my response was embedded in two threads of the conversation: the modern agricultural developments of the Napa Valley, and the further-back history of the area before the California Gold Rush of the mid-nineteenth century.
Agriculturally speaking, prior to the 1960s, you’d have seen a landscape of livestock, grains (including wheat and rice), and orchards of nut and fruit trees like walnuts and prunes. (Please visit the Napa County Historical Society for more information.) For a rich and comprehensive perspective, please also consult M. Kat Anderson’s Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources.
If I were to be asked that same question now, I’d weave another layer onto the conversation. That layer is courtesy of Mary Ann McGuire, who I met recently during a virtual tasting as she described Napa in its early days of grape growing. McGuire was a driving force behind the establishment of the Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve in 1968, and she is the mother of Oakville-based vintner Tom Gamble of Gamble Family Vineyards.
Now aged 81, McGuire arrived in Napa with her husband George Gamble (a Napa County cattle rancher) in 1960. She describes it then as a “bountiful garden.” For ten thousand years, she said, “this sacred land was historically cared for by the indigenous inhabitants of Napa, including the Onasatis (Wappo) Peoples. We felt we had the moral imperative to preserve that legacy.”
Here are three additional snapshots McGuire describes from the time, that capture both the landscape and the mood of the Napa Valley in the 1960s.
Wide Angle view Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park Calistoga California
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Wild Animals, Gold Poppies and Pink Radishes
McGuire relayed the description of George Calvert Yount’s first view of the Napa Valley, which he recorded in his diary. Yount, a trapper by trade, is identified as the first Euro-American permanent settler in the Napa Valley; he came to California in 1831 and was the grantee of two Mexican land grants.
Yount wrote that he looked into a valley that was more like a garden, McGuire said. “He saw herds of wild animals, hills covered with gold poppies, pink and white wild radishes. There I’d like to build a house [Yount wrote], there I’d like to live, there I’d like to die. That’s what so many of our generation felt when they first came here,” McGuire said. Her affection for the area took root along with her desire to preserve the environmental heritage of the area.
“It was a time of petitions”: Halting Construction of a Six-Lane Highway in the 1960s
That desire was tested in 1965, when McGuire and her neighbors heard of a government plan to build a six-lane highway straight through the Napa Valley. Soon after, she visited the administrative head of the highway department in Sacramento and described the meeting as “crazy-making.” She knew then that it was time to get to work to prevent the construction of the highway, which she believed would permanently destroy the local environment.
It was a time of petitions, McGuire said, which meant putting their kids in the car along with a portable typewriter and going house to house for signatures. (They typed the names because they wanted to be sure the letters were clear.) They also made sure the community meetings and hearings were packed. “Hundreds of people would turn up for these meetings, to get rid permanently of any plan for a freeway,” McGuire said. “That brought us together in a way that I’ve been focused on for the rest of my life. Look at the map of the area. You see the different wineries [but] I see the people who came together and built those wineries. Winiarski, Chappellet, Davies [at Schramsberg Vineyards], Robert and Margaret [Mondavi], I could see it out my window.”
It had never been done before, but the activism of McGuire and the collective group to enact legislation and halt the highway projects was ultimately successful. The Napa Valley Agricultural Preserve was established in 1968 with the passage of Ordinance 274 by the Napa County Board of Supervisors and the Napa County Planning Commission. That success emboldened the group and McGuire individually.
“I learned why you never get between a mother bear and her cubs.”
McGuire recalled another instance of looking out her window one day, from the house where she still lives today, and seeing a bulldozer from the Army Corps of Engineers positioned to strip the Napa River of vegetation.
Her reaction?
“I learned why you never get between a mother bear and her cubs,” she said. “I was a 1960s sorority girl, not someone to confront the establishment. But I drove down [to the river], baby in my arms, and said, don’t you dare go down into that river. If you do, I’m going to call every nursing mother in this county and they’re going to bring their babies and we’re going to sit down in front of your bulldozer.”
The bulldozer driver turned around, got in his truck, and never came back. But that wouldn’t have been the end of the Corps’ efforts to strip the local waterways. So the coalition, spearheaded by McGuire and Jack Davies, advocated again in the same fashion of collecting petitions and attending committee meetings.
It’s a pattern that has repeated itself because, even with the passage of the Agricultural Preserve in 1968, McGuire said that it was not set in stone by any means. Environmental advocacy needed to continue alongside increasing awareness of the local wine production.
“The only way we could ensure its longevity and purpose [of the Ag Preserve was] to have a world class wine,” she said. “Nothing else would work against the pressure we’d be feeling to develop and over-develop. We had to market Napa Valley wine, and get it into the consciousness.”
The Link LonkFebruary 26, 2021 at 08:00PM
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Napa Before The Grape Vines: Three Snapshots Of The Napa Valley From The 1960s - Forbes
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