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Shop › Benziger
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 Mike Benziger, general partner and manager of Benziger Family Winery, had a goal - grow his own grapes and make his own wine. Little did his family realize that they would become an intrinsic part - and very active partners - in the realization of that goal. Born in White Plains, New York, in 1951, Mike is the eldest of Helen and Bruno Benziger's seven children. Bruno worked for 23 years in the wine import business; first with his father, Joseph, who founded the Park-Benziger import company in 1933 in New York City, and later as the company's president. Mike and his siblings worked in the family business as they were growing up, primarily selling and delivering wine throughout the city's five boroughs. After graduating from Holy Cross College in 1973, Mike moved to California, where his wine background helped to get him a job in sales at Beltramo's. The following year, Mike and his wife, Mary, with their ultimate goals firmly in focus, made a decision to move to Europe. There they moved from region to region continuously learning while working in vineyards and cellars along the way. After returning to the U.S., Mike worked briefly with his father in New York, but soon found he could not resist the desire to return to the beautiful wine country of California. In 1975, Mike took a cellar position with Stony Ridge Winery, where Mike -- as assistant winemaker -- took a giant leap forward in appreciating the craft end of the businesses which sparked his continuing passion for the creation of truly great wine. As their drive to start their own winery grew more insistent, Mike and Mary often spent their free time searching for the ideal site. The discovery of Sonoma Mountain Ranch in Glen Ellen in the Sonoma Mountain appellation of the Sonoma Valley has become a favorite tale from Benziger family lore. To hear it told, while one day driving through the charming little Sonoma Valley town of Glen Ellen, Mike, on a sudden impulse, turned onto a narrow road that began winding up a mountain. One particular plot of land, a hanging volcanic valley spread across the side of the mountain and curiously boasting a somewhat dilapidated replica of the Parthenon, caught his eye. Immediately, he knew that here was the very site he had been seeking. This discovery became the beginning of an all-consuming adventure for the entire family, one that would play a pivotal role in shaping the philosophy of what was to become the Benziger Family Winery. After convincing the reluctant owner to sell, Mike's next challenge was one of finances. Bruno generously offered a substantial loan, and, on October 31, 1981, Mike and Mary and their two children walked into their dream and moved to the Sonoma Mountain Ranch. Within a year, Bruno had sold his share of Park-Benziger to his brother, and with his wife Helen, their two youngest children and Helen's mother, Katherine Williamson, made the move to California to help Mike and Mary with the challenging and exciting task of starting their winery. Mike's younger brothers, Bob and Joe, soon sold their successful wine shop in upscale Scarsdale, New York - one of the largest volume outlets in the area - and followed closely behind their parents. In the early years, Bob, a general partner of the winery, had the responsibility for wine distribution and sales building a critically important wine distribution network east of the Mississippi. Later, he turned his energy to managing sales on the West Coast. Since 1993, Bob has been in charge of business development for the winery. From the moment he arrived in Glen Ellen in 1981, Joe immersed himself into every aspect of winemaking - from crush to bottling - and soon began studying enology and viticulture at Santa Rosa Junior College and the University of California at Davis. Today, as general partner and winemaker of the Benziger Family Winery, Joe oversees every aspect of the production of all Benziger wines from fermentation to bottling. Brother, Jerry, finished his degree in photography and business at Rochester Institute of Technology before joining the family in California. Arriving later in 1981, he, too, worked in all aspects of the business - pounding nails, planting grape stock, etc. - and eventually settling into winemaking. He is also a general partner. Sister Patsy Benziger Wallace worked as an emergency room nurse in New York and in Boston before she moved her family to Glen Ellen in 1988. Patsy quickly found her niche at the winery and created the Benziger Family Winery Apprentice Program. As manager of the program, Patsy is responsible for ensuring the perpetuation of the family tradition by arranging for the Benziger children and the children of employees to spend six weeks working in each of the winery's departments during their high school and college tenure. Chris Benziger was still a high school student when the family moved from White Plains to Glen Ellen. He finished his senior year in California and went on to earn a marketing degree from the University of San Francisco, spending summers, weekends and every other spare minute working at the winery. After completing two years as a management consultant for the international accounting firm of Arthur Andersen & Co., he officially joined the Benziger Family Winery in 1988 as marketing manager and general partner. He also worked for a time as East Coast head of sales and is now the national sales manager for the winery. Kathy, the youngest of Bruno and Helen's seven children, had her first job at the winery when she was only a high school freshman, hammering nails with the rest of the family helping to build the place. She graduated from there to pruning, picking, assisting in the cellars and the bottling line and working in the tasting room. Learning about the wine industry literally from the ground up, she decided to make her mark in the business end of the operation and earned a degree in management from Sonoma State University. Sales positions at ADP in New York and Hoffman Distributing in New Jersey prepared her for a move to Chicago to take charge of Benziger Family Winery sales for the central region. She is now sales manager for the eastern region and currently resides in Glen Ellen. Tim Wallace, Patsy's husband, is a graduate of Brown University and the Harvard Business School. He worked with the Time-Warner International Division in New York and the marketing division of American Home Products Corp. before moving west in 1988 with Patsy to join in the Benziger family adventure. Today, he serves as president and general partner of the Benziger Family Winery, overseeing all aspects of sales, marketing, finance and operations. Mark Burningham came to the Benziger Family Winery via his wine distributing business in nearby Santa Rosa, where he handled Benziger Family wines. He joined the winery in 1987 as plant manager of the Glen Ellen Brand Carneros Winery and threw himself into the development of the business with such Benziger-like zeal that he eventually became an unofficial member of the family. Today, he is a general partner and oversees grape-growing operations. He also has responsibility for working with the 63 ranches from which the Benziger Family Winery obtains its non-estate grapes. Mike's intuitive attraction to the winery site proved to be fortuitous. The overgrown, somewhat ramshackle 85-acre bowl of land surrounded by steep terraced vineyards held a remarkable diversity of soils. Twenty-one distinct types of soil have been identified and grouped by the Benzigers into "flavor blocks." This variety of soil types incepted one of the key elements of the Benziger philosophy - "farming for flavors" - a method of carefully tailoring viticultural techniques to soil type, exposure and climate in order to produce fruit of optimal complexity, concentration and intensity. Today, only about five percent of Benziger Family Winery grapes are grown on the original Sonoma Mountain Ranch. The ranch has become a kind of "laboratory" from which the Benzigers export their concept of vineyard-designated wines to a carefully selected family of growers. In this way, the Benziger family is able to share its knowledge, expand its growing practices, access individual appellations beyond its own properties and maintain the singularity of each grape variety through the use of site specific farming. The Benzigers - the largest family on one of California's smallest mountains - in just fewer than two decades have created a nationally acclaimed winery from the ground up. They have repeatedly charted new territory in the wine industry, continuing today with their pioneering advances in sustainable agriculture. Today, more than three dozen Benzigers live in the Sonoma Valley or on or near the Sonoma Mountain Ranch, the symbol of the beginning and continuing development of the vision of one remarkable family. Visit the Benziger website. |
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All sizes are 750mL unless otherwise noted.
Vintages and ratings subject to change at any time.
All pricing and availability subject to change.