I recently read the interview with him in Great Winemakers of California, Conversations With Robert Benson. Keep in mind this was published in '77 and the interview with Ray completed in 1976. I was somewhat surprised to see how Martin spoke about the same issues we often argue about today in the same manner. Here are some choice quotes from the great one himself:
On Bordeaux for profit versus quality - “You see in Bordeaux, for instance, speaking of the French growers, almost everyone is interested in growing wines for profit, for making money and the more the better.”
On traditional wine making and additions. Remember the thread about Mega Purple recently? - “You might ask what it is you don’t add, well: no chemicals, no sugar, no concentrate–that’s the worst thing ever to hit the industry! It’s hard to buy even a California Cabernet today that is not a bit on the sweet side from concentrate. If you could see the circularization we are subjected to, offering us tankcar loads of concentrate! You know they’re selling it somewhere. And now we’re even getting ads, believe it or not, from France, offering us grape juice concentrate in 100 gallon drums! It’s become the thing.”
On what kind of patrons he has buying his wines. How times have changed. - “I don’t know what’s the matter with attorneys, they evidently think liquor is quicker; I never did have very many attorney customers!”
Chris,
Yup…MartinRay was quite the pot stirrer back then. At the time of Benson’s book, he was well into the twilight of his career. I think his son, PeterMartinRay, was making
wines under that label. By then, his fellow investors had already seized control and became MtEdenVnyds w/ the bulk of the vnyds.
As for the Bordelais comments…that’s interesting. MartinRay’s wines were priced at the equivalent of SQN/Alban/ScreamingEagle nowadays. No…even further out there on
the price envelope. He thought his wines were some of the greatest in the world and had no compunction about pricing them accordingly.
And there were plenty of attourneys out there buying wine then. Just maybe not on his mailing list.
As for grape concentrate additions…that was probably the equivalent then of Syrah enhancements to Pinot is now…widely alledged but no real evidence the practice
was common except in low-end wines.
Early on, I had a few of the MartinRays from the '50’s & '60’s…mostly bought at Beltramos. They were…interesting. And often sealed w/ this tough/hard wax/plastic coating
in place of the capsule.
Of course, the current wines under the MartinRay label have nothing to do w/ the original MartinRay wines…just guys who bought the name.
Thanks for the memories, Chris.
Tom
They also touched on pricing in that interview(which was completely 3 months before his death) and he seemed to dance around the subject. He always sounded sure of himself and his ideas though. I’m glad there is still some good wines made from his property at least.
There’s no doubt he was one of the early pioneers in US wine making and it’s so sad he is often overlooked for all his achievements. The man really was a wine making genius. His book “Vineyards in the Sky” is quite fascinating to read, although it was written by his second wife not him.
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- “I don’t know what’s the matter with attorneys, they evidently think liquor is quicker; I never did have very many attorney customers!”