Over the past 50 years, the Wine Road has evolved, and so have vineyard and winemaking practices. Since we looked into how the Wine Road has changed over the past 50 year, it seems appropriate to also explore the evolution of vineyard management and winemaking practices over that time.
Since this isn’t my area of expertise, I asked some of the icons along the Wine Road to share their perspective on what has changed in the past 50 years.
Vineyard Practices
An Extra Long Perspective
In 1927 Jim Pedroncelli’s parents purchased a vineyard, a shuttered winery and a home, which we know today as Pedroncelli Winery. As soon as Prohibition was repealed, the Pedroncelli family bonded their winery and began producing and selling wine. 2027 will mark their 100th anniversary, a rare feat in today’s world.
Jim Pedroncelli in 2022
Jim, now in his 90s, retired in 2022. He was kind enough to share his decade-spanning perspective on how vineyard practices have changed.
There are a lot of changes!
From dry farming in the 1960s to overhead irrigation in the 1970s with pipe laid out in each of the blocks on a rotating basis so vineyards had one good soak mid-growing season. Now, we have drip systems with soil meters to determine water needs throughout the growing season.
The hillsides where the vineyards were planted were pretty challenging to farm. We used horses to plow in the 1930s-60s, and had narrow gauge tractors in the 1970s to navigate the rows. Vine spacing was closer than it is now. Head pruned vines then; trellis systems (now quite diverse) are used more and are more efficient for many of the varieties we have planted.
Hand picking into heavy wooden boxes gave way to machine harvesting and much lighter buckets when handpicking. There have also been changes in varietals. What we planted then vs now: Carignane, French Colombard, Napa Gamay, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were removed to make way for the right grape in the right spot, like Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and our long-established varieties like Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Love of the Land
Fred Peterson, owner of Peterson Winery, exudes enthusiasm for his Bradford Mountain Estate Vineyard. The vineyard, located on the western edge of Dry Creek Valley at 1264 feet, is also home for Fred and his wife, Kathleen Stewart. Fred’s commute to the vineyard is a short one and the views of Dry Creek Valley are stunning.
Fred Peterson in his Bradford Mountain Estate Vineyard
Here is Fred’s summary of vineyard changes during the past 50 years:
Beginning in the early 1970s, vineyard farming practices in Sonoma County began experiencing significant and dramatic change. For over 100 years, from the 1860s to the 1960s, vineyards in Sonoma County were dry farmed (non-irrigated) and head trained (non-trellised). Along with rising popularity of table wines in America and subsequent increased corporate investment in wineries and vineyards, the “old school” farming practiced in existing vineyards in Sonoma County began utilizing techniques used in vineyards in California’s agro-industrial Central Valley. This included using steel wire to trellis the vines, increasing the number of fruit buds left on each vine, and installing the relatively new technology of drip irrigation to be able to provide the additional water needed to grow the larger crops on the bigger vines obtained by growing the vines on trellis wire. Along with drip irrigation came the use of applying fertilizers through the drip system, another technique that allowed for more vine growth and capacity to carry and ripen a larger crop.
Recently, the realization that during the time growers were adopting these new farming techniques, we were ignoring soil health. Sustainability has given rise to considering “regenerative” agriculture, incorporating practices such as planting cover crops, using compost, and reduced or no tillage to build up the soil health and organic matter. Rather than depleting the soils, the growers is increasing the soil health and fertility.
Reduced water use, or where possible no irrigation, is being practiced by more grape growers, both to conserve this increasingly scarce resource, but also with the knowledge that we can produce more intensely flavored and balanced grapes/wine by cutting back on watering. With the greatly increased cost of hand labor in vineyards, there has been a push for mechanization of much of the work that used to done manually. This includes harvest, but also vineyard practices like suckering, leaf pulling, and hedging.
Synonymous with Pinot Noir
Tom Rochioli, working with his father Joe Jr., helped to catapult Russian River Valley Pinot Noir onto the national and international wine stage. If you’re not familiar with Rochioli Vineyards & Winery, or their story, I’d recommend you take the time to get acquainted.
The Rochioli Family Ryan, Theresa, Tom, Rachael (l. to r.)
Tom shared his list on how vineyard practices have changed over the past 50 years.
Tighter spacing of vines.
Rootstocks and clones are much more of a factor now.
Moving to all no-till cover crops. Only disk as situation deems it necessary.
Use of organic-approved pesticides. Not exclusively but as much as we can. Actually, going back to the old days of sulphur dust!
Presorting in the vineyard prior to harvest.
Picking exclusively at night.
Using grape harvest shears to lessen the damage to clusters. Safer too! No knives.
Winemaking Changes
Tom Rochioli also shared his thoughts on changing in winemaking practices over the past 50 years.
Minimal pressing of all varieties.
Whole cluster pressing of all whites.
Double sorting. Clusters sorted then destemmed berries.
Grapes are not pumped to fermentation tanks.
Use of precise yeasts. There are hundreds of cultured yeasts available now. They had to be native at one point! In the old days we had very few choices of yeast and native yeast was risky.
If you’ve been drinking wine for more than 20 years, you might think back to what wine tasted like in the 1970s, 80s or 90s, and how much the overall quality and consistency of wine has improved.
Comprehensive Overview
I’m grateful that David Mounts, the Mounts Family Winery winemaker and co-owner with his wife Lana, took the time to write out a comprehensive overview of winemaking changes over the past 50 years. He also shares some of his preferences.
When visiting the winery, Lana Mounts is often the person pouring for you, and is also extremely knowledge about both their vineyard and winemaking practices and how they have evolved.
David Mounts pouring for guests at a Wine Road event
David Mounts’ overview:
Practicing winemaking… how has it really changed over the years? Not just 50 years, how about 500? But let’s focus on the last 50.
At the end of the day, it still takes grapes, sugar, yeast, and someone to bring it all together. That hasn’t changed.
Before and into the 1970s, fruit was picked at lower sugars. Wines had more acid, often showed underripe character, and weren’t very approachable on release. Some say they aged better. I don’t think so.
Back then, fruit handling was rough. Grapes were dumped into augers, pushed through machines that acted more like blenders than destemmers, then fermented in large redwood tanks. There were only a few yeast strains available, and they were expected to handle everything.
Temperature control was minimal. Fermentations could run hot, and if they got too hot, you risked killing the yeast. Cooling existed, but it wasn’t precise.
As equipment improved, sorting came in and destemmers got better, keeping berries more intact instead of turning everything into a slurry. Cleaner fruit, higher quality in the vineyard also changed the game and created a better starting point.
By the 1980s and 90s, more yeast strains became available, giving winemakers more control, but not magic. At the same time, picking shifted to higher sugars. Wines got darker, softer, and more approachable early on. My style.
Sanitation is where things really changed. Today, we’re far more dialed in. Ozone, steam cleaning, and proper winery detergents keep tanks, lines, and barrels truly clean. CIP (clean-in-place) systems let you clean everything thoroughly without tearing it apart. That consistency just didn’t exist before.
We also understand microbes now. Lab work and monitoring let you catch issues early instead of discovering them in the bottle.
Fermentation vessels evolved too, redwood to oak to stainless steel with full temperature control. Now concrete is back in the mix. All tools, just different approaches. And that’s really what it comes down to, tools! How many do you need, and how many do you want?
Barrels are still one of the biggest decisions. American oak had its place, big, sweet, sometimes aggressive. French oak is more subtle. It adds structure, lift, and a better finish. I lean that way. I prefer standard 228-liter wine barrels, sometimes I’ll use a larger format.
The trend now for little to no new oak. Not really my preference. When it’s done right, tight grain, light toast oak barrels add something you can’t replace.
These days, economics are driving more decisions than they should, equipment, barrels, even fruit. Hopefully we don’t lose sight of what actually ends up in the bottle.
The Queen of Zin
Carol Shelton started her winemaking career when very few females ventured into this once male-dominated industry. Her reputation as a stellar winemaker quickly grew, and in 2000, Carol started her eponymous winery. Carol’s love for wine and the winemaking process—from working with vineyard owners to the final step of putting the wine in the bottle—is quickly evident when she talks about her wines. Always hands-on, Carol has experienced first-hand the changes in winemaking over the past five decades.
Carol Shelton during Wine Road’s Barrel Tasting
Here are Carol’s reflections:
Can it really be Half a Century?!
Many changes have cycled through the 50 years since I my first job in the wine industry in 1976. I was only one of three women to graduate in “Fermentation Science” from UC Davis in 1978 and it was an uphill battle to land a job that was not either sales/marketing based or just “stuck in the laboratory” doing endless analysis. I wanted to do cellar work, drag hoses and fill barrels! The prevailing attitude was that women were not strong enough for the physical demands of cellar work, and I was also told that “women carry yeast infections that could spoil the wine!” Of course, we now know that is nonsense, and there are many more women in production jobs at every level from hose dragger to CEO.
We have also seen major changes in the technology and tools available to us as winemakers, from pure active-dried cultures of many different yeasts and malo-lactic bacteria to cross-flow filtration, alcohol reduction and micro-oxygenation. Trends do continue to cycle though, and one of more recent ones to return is the non-interventionist, hands-off style, where all technology is avoided, sometimes at the cost of resulting flaws and defects that are suddenly declared more “interesting” than the good, clean wines that could have been made with a bit of “intervention.” Sorry, but my old school training tells me that’s lazy winemaking, and that most wines can be deliciously improved by the judicious use of the fantastic tools at our disposal.
When I first started in this business, there were only two or three dry yeasts available, with very limited range of flavor impacts. If I wanted to use a different yeast strain to achieve a specific flavor profile, I had to build up a culture from an agar slant* that I obtained from the UC Davis yeast culture collection. Gradually more yeast strains were isolated from fermentations that produced desirable flavor, aroma and mouthfeel attributes, so there are now well over 80 strains commercially available as “active dry” cultures that can be directly added to juice or must without even building them up in volume! I hand-inoculate barrels with at least 8 different yeast strains in my Coquille Blanc white Rhône-style blend because I value the different contributions in aromatics and textures that each yeast brings to the party—how fortunate we are to have such a selection from which to choose!
All in all, no matter what style of winemaking you choose, it is still the passion and skill of the winemaker that drives our decisions and choices; styles have fluctuated in popularity over the past 50 years, but they remain the signature of each winemaker and the growers and teams that support them. Here’s to 50 more years to come!
*Agar, a gelatin-like substance extracted from red algae, is commonly used to culture microorganisms. Various nutrients are added to agar to enhance the growth of bacteria in either shallow plates or test tubes. When agar media is placed in test tubes it is in liquid form. The test tubes are placed on an angle to cool and congeal, creating a slanted surface, or an agar slant.
Tim Bell, the director of winemaking at Dry Creek Vineyard, brings the changes in winemaking back to the vineyards.
There is a lot to talk about how winemaking practices have changed over the last fifty years. I’ll comment on a few highlights. The changes having the most impact, in my opinion, are what we’ve done in the vineyard. Top of the list is a greater diversity of rootstocks and use of budwood sources focused on producing quality wines, not high yields in the vineyard. The whole general movement in vineyard practices has been to reduce inputs and rely on more precise scientific information to guide what we do.
The same is true in wineries: we use way less SO2 (sulfur dioxide) than in the past, have adopted vegan practices, and have more ready access to analyses that can help us make the best decisions for wine quality. It matches a trend to greater health in our society, and winemaking has embraced it.
Tim Bell in one of the Dry Creek Vineyard blocks
A Lot of Changes,
A Lot Stays the Same
Everyone agrees the wine industry has changed over the past 50 year, but if you look around you, there is also a lot of continuity.
The countryside along the Wine Road is still beautiful year-round. Wineries are welcoming, and are serving superb wines. In the smaller, family-owned wineries, you can have conversations with the owners, winemakers and staff members who are at the heart of the operation. Fred Peterson, David Mounts and Carol Shelton are always on hand during the various Wine Road events, and often near the tasting room during the week, so they can answer a question or two.
Fred Peterson pouring for guests during the May 2025 Wine Trail
If you’d like to hear more about the changes during the past 50 years, come visit, ask questions and enjoy this area seeped in grapegrowing and winemaking history.
Rebecca Germolus, co-owner of Maximum Value Marketing, loves Sonoma County and playing along the Wine Road. Rebecca daily immerses herself in wine country by providing cost-effective marketing and writing solutions to wineries and restaurants.
Wine Road Celebrates Turning 50 
Once-in-a-Lifetime Wine County Experiences 
My Life Before the Wine Industry, Part Four 
Animal Pals Along the Wine Road 
Come Over October 
Story Behind the Name – Part Two 