No Wimpy Wine

Filed in archive Wine Making on July 30, 2006

This is a wonderful story about a hippy, turned winer maker, turn millionaire. I'm sure many of dream of hitting it big like Joel Peterson who started his own winery with $4,000 and no winery or vineyards.

From Ravens to Riches:

Peterson has been into wine since he was 10, when his father asked him to take tasting notes for his parents' East Bay wine tasting group. In 1976, at the age of 29, he and business partner Reed Foster, whom he met in that group, started Ravenswood with $4,000, no vineyards and no winery. For labor, they called all their friends to help for free.

"I went through a lot of friends in the first year," Peterson says.

Thirty years later, Peterson is still an excellent winemaker producing some of the most terroir-driven Zinfandels in California, even though his now much larger winery doesn't appeal to wine aficionados the way it once did.

"This is a business. At the end of the day I can't do what Helen Turley does," says Peterson, referring to one of California's most-sought-after winemaking consultants for top-end wines. "I can't tell people ... it doesn't matter if we make money. Because it does. Otherwise it becomes a hobby, unless you charge exorbitant prices for it. But I've never wanted to put wine up on a pedestal. Wine should be part of your everyday life."