Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/912565
december 2017 / the tasting panel / 59 unencumbered," "great structure and complexity," and "racy, savory, and delicate" appearing in their tasting notes, there's no question—and this former somm and current senior wine editor concurs—that the Scheids make great wine. But that's not what this story is about. It's about a family—an extraor- dinarily business-savvy family—and the Monterey-based grape-growing, winemaking empire they have toiled to build. Whether it was intentional or unintentional, I'll let you decide… THE PLANNED ACCIDENTAL BEGINNINGS Founder & Chairman of the Board Al Scheid will be the first to tell you the Scheid Vineyards origin story is not the most glamourous. Established in 1972 as the Monterey Farming Corporation, the company was originally the general partner of several limited partner- ships in which vineyard ownership in Monterey served as a tax shelter for its investors. Al, the one setting up the partnerships at the time, ended up also having to run the company. For a decade and a half, the Monterey Farming Corporation would sell all of its fruit to other wineries; at one point, the company was respon- sible for farming roughly 6,000 acres. It The Scheid Vineyards 2013 Reserve Pinot Noir from Monterey: a blend of the estate's best barrels of single clone Pinot Noir aged 20 months in 100% French oak (80% new). was during this time, however, that Al began to think ahead to an uncertain future. "I woke up one day—this was in the '80s— and realized someday these people are all going to sell out," he recalled. "They're going to force me to sell the property by vote; they're going to try and find someone to buy individual units; or they'll try to throw me out and force a sale that way. That's when I decided I had better start making plans." Al began buying partners out every year using what money he had saved, and by January 2, 1997, "we owned it all," he said. Al then renamed the company Scheid Vineyards as the acreage under vine fluctuated, landing on the final number of 4,000 acres representing what he described as "the choicest proper- ties of all the properties we had." Noted viticulturalist Kurt Gollnick, formerly of Bien Nacido Vineyards, started with the company as the General Vineyard Manager in 1988. Now the COO, he told the Tasting Panel about some of the strategies the Scheid team had to develop and execute as the world around them—and the company itself—evolved: addressing phylloxera in the '90s, as well as the oversupply of wine; upgrading the vineyard; designing and building a winery; producing wine for others; and, of course, finally making and selling wine themselves. "When we decided to build the winery, we literally went all in," Gollnick said. "We The Scheid family and COO Kurt Gollnick drop in on a custom crush grape delivery.