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All in the Sebastianis

One of the best-known names in winemaking is also one of the best-known family dramas in wine country.

As usual, television didn't get it right. The '80s TV series Falcon Crest was never as good as the reality show The Sebastianis. The real deal doesn't have as much sex and violence, but family dynamics are just as puzzling with their battles, endless cast of characters and roster of wine labels.

After all, bottling wine (and fighting) is what true Italian wine families do while the waspy Channings of Falcon Crest, headed by Jane Wyman, were busy building racetracks, fighting the conspiratorial Thirteen, plus surviving fires, espionage and sibling surprises.

Besides, the prime-time soap lasted only 200 episodes, not nearly long enough to tell the story that U.S. wine drinkers have watched play out for a century.

In soap terms, the real-life family wine wars began to heat up in 1979 when August Sebastiani died and intrigue among the third generation started building to the 1986 Big Blow Up.

The fissure has produced three Sebastiani clans. The family members now get together civilly in joint ownership of the original winery and at feasts on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter for 60 or more Sebastianis of various lineages. But they also go separate ways, which is good news for wine drinkers. The families produce innumerable labels of high-quality wine at prices from $6 and up.

The Sebastianis are not the only long-running Italian wine family in California or even in Sonoma County, home of the old Italian Swiss Colony: The Seghesios planted their first zinfandel in 1895 and the Foppianos started in the Russian River a few years later. And the Italians started late compared with the 150-year heritages of Gundlach Bundschu and Count Harazthy's Buena Vista.

And the Sebastianis aren't the only fractious wine family. Consider the Mondavis one county over in Napa. Round One split Robert and Peter in 1967; Round Two between Michael and Tim is still in progress. Nor is sibling rivalry unheard of in a wine world populated by families that have been in the same business and on the same estates for centuries.

Yet the Sebastianis retell a distinctly California story, one that combines Italian immigrants with pride of place in their newfound home in Sonoma (and rivalry with Napa), innovation and a commitment to everyday wine drinkers. All of this was fueled by a genetic gift of gab, perhaps loud and angry words at home, but a genius for smooth salesmanship in the market.

Like many U.S. consumers, I started watching the Sebastianis in the mid '70s when the name was on big jugs of cabernet and chardonnay, one of August's innovations. Then son Sam took over and I saw him stride about America in a Western suit, cowboy boots and an eagle belt buckle with second wife Vicki, a budding gourmet, demanding that attention be paid to Sonoma, not just Napa. In 1986, after Sam got too big and expensive, Sylvia, August's widow, fired him and put younger son Don in charge.

The detailed argument "stays within the clan," Don insisted to me then, but the whole valley was talking about Sam's grandstanding, Don's politicking (he was a vocal Republican in the California Assembly) and their mother's favoritism. As Sam left management and started Sam J. Sebastiani and then Viansa Winery & Italian Marketplace, Don stayed at the winery and steadily expanded its brands.

That is, until 1999: Don also left management of the winery and started a new company with his sons, producing hit labels such as Smoking Loon. August and Sylvia's third child, Mary Ann, her husband and son took over the management of the old family winery.

That means three Sebastiani wine operations under different names, but it's still hard to sort out without a flashback.

Start with B-roll footage of the plaza in the center of Sonoma. Pure old California, with Gen. Vallejo's barracks and an original Spanish mission facing the green square. In the middle is City Hall, a small Romanesque pile of quarried stone that Falcon Crest fans will recognize as the "courthouse of Tuscany County."

In reality, the plaza is the center of Sebastiani country.

"The entire downtown is Sebastiani," says Paul Foppiano, whose family has been friends with the Sebastianis for generations. "They really made Sonoma County what it is."

You can't miss their name, it is in the neon over the Sebastiani Theatre, the ornate picture palace built by August in 1933. Three blocks east of the square, down Spain Street, is the original stone Sebastiani winery with its huge redwood tanks and steady stream of tourists and trucks. On the northeast corner of the plaza is Cucina Viansa, a restaurant, tasting room and retail outpost for the wines and foods of Sam and Vicki Sebastiani's family, whose main winery is south of town. Off the southwest corner, half a block down Napa Street, is the executive office of Don Sebastiani & Sons (his actual winery is in Napa).

But history and soap opera feuds are old stuff, the current vintages of Sebastiani wines all bottle family traditions differently.

Sam and Vicki Sebastiani's eventual project is an ambitious shrine to Italian and Californian food and wine, built on the rock-quarry land where grandfather Samuele Sebastiani once worked at the southern edge of Sonoma County.

Most of the land is natural wetlands, but it's also high enough for a great view of the Sonoma wine country, including the southernmost Carneros vineyards, and the perfect spot for a gateway stop for tourists headed north from San Francisco.

A quarter million come by car and busload every year, stopping to see the wine exhibits, taste salsas, mustards, oils, vinegars and such created by Vicki, plus local cheeses from the Vella Co. and of course, Sam's wines.

While the Viansa Center may give some visitors a first taste of wine knowledge, Viansa's wines are aimed at a smaller market that's savvy-curious and willing to pay $20 and more for rare California versions of old Italian grapes. Varietals such as arneis, teroldego and primitivo are Sam's passion. Viansa currently has a dozen varieties and blends, all in historic black glass and other dramatic packages, with prices of $20 and more.

In a radical change of sales tactics, Viansa's wines are not available at retail outlets, even in California. They are sold direct to consumers only at the Viansa center and through the winery's Web site (www.viansa.com) wine clubs, catalogs and monthly mailings. (Deliveries in Florida go through an Orlando shipper who has a retail license and take seven to 10 days.)

That sounds difficult, but Viansa still sells 60,000 cases a year. "It allows them to skip the retail jungle and offer a cachet of rarity. A lot of our customers feel it's nice to have something exclusive, something you can't get at Safeway," says Lisa Sebastiani-Mertens.

She is one of seven siblings who have just this year taken over management of the winery from their parents, who are divorcing. Viansa, an anagram for Vicki and Sam, will still have Sam as a consultant with a big vote, but Sam spends much of his time in a 2000-acre spread on the North Platte River in Nebraska, ranching and building wetlands preserves for waterfowl.

"It gives you a different smile in the morning," he says.

Sebastiani-Mertens says her siblings aren't worried about another schism. "We've seen how bad it can get," she says. She was a school psychologist and a casino dealer before coming back to the family business.

And she appreciates that "Noni Syl," her grandmother, tried to heal tensions by planning family holiday dinners between all the clans. Plus, "We'd get to try some of our uncle's wine before the general public."

Keeping up with Uncle Don's wines isn't easy.

When he ran the Sebastiani winery downtown, he, like brother Sam and father August, kept trying to raise the quality of the bottles that said Sebastiani. But he didn't forget the lower end of the spectrum, for which he created a number of low-priced new brands, including well-wines such as Vendange and the surprisingly polished Nathanson Creek. At one point they sold 8-million cases a year.

Don sold off most of those labels with their huge sales and left the family winery to start another venture with sons Augie and Donnie Jr. He didn't forget the demand for quality at affordable prices and he had the advantage of California's booming wine surplus and a Last Comic Standing trend in marketing.

The first successes were Smoking Loon with the wisecracking label, less than-$10 price and more than-$10 taste and the cheaper Pepperwood Grove. With two other slightly higher-end labels, Aquinas and Quattro, he was soon selling a million cases a year, again one of the top 20 or 30 wineries in the country.

His commitment to reasonable prices is personal, as well as opportunistic and strategic. He can pick from overproduction across California and he thinks too many wineries charge too much when consumers are reluctant to spend more than $20. Indeed, Don himself prefers Old World wines, especially lighter, more flavorful wines such as Italian Barolos and white Hermitage.

"There's not much going on in New World (wines) for $30 to $40 and I don't think there should be," he says.

Last year, his winery retooled Aquinas from small odd-lots of prestigious grapes into all-Napa cabernet, merlot and chardonnay, raising the "old fighting $5 varietals of the 1980s" to a $10 price point and classier Napa appellation. It already sells 60,000 cases a year.

Don and sons' success and wit didn't stop there. They formed a new operation to specialize in affordable wines closed with screw caps, not corks, called Three Loose Screws.

One is Mia's Playground, a childish label dedicated to their younger sister and using grapes from Sonoma's best appellations (formerly used in Quattro). The other two are brand new: most expensive is made with all-Napa fruit, and named to the delight of Sonoma wags, Screw Kappa Napa. The other, Fusee, will be cheaper and made from wine from all over California. But just for now, because Don envisions it as a "global" product made from wines from all over the world.

Closer to home, he's alert to the smaller, difficult sphere of family and careful that his sons learn to work together, not apart. "A father has his tricks" he says, taking care to notice their differences, making sure one knows when the other compliments him, and to step back. The two boys run the weekly staff meeting. And each can claim at least one of the silly names.

Some credit may go to outsiders: the Australian competition.

"They're to be congratulated," Don says, "I have to admire them."

If the Down Under boom now dominates popular-priced wine the way Sebastiani did decades ago, this branch of the family is writing the manual for counterattack.

"Many people think we're just a packaging and marketing company. But we know it's the quality in the bottle. We want (consumers) to buy three or four bottles," Don says.

Back in downtown Sonoma, at the original winery, Sam and Don retain a share, but the management is now in the hands of their sister and her family. After August's widow Sylvia, who died shortly after Thanksgiving last year, Mary Ann Sebastiani Cuneo became president of Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery.

After decades of dominating Sonoma growers and the jug-wine varietal market, the original winery has downsized and refocused on pure Sonoma wines of high quality that have won critical praise. It has vineyards or long-term contracts for grapes from seven of Sonoma's nine best regions, many of them old-vine vineyards, including the 1919 Cherryblock stand of cabernet next to the winery.

"We went from a 2-million-case wine to 180,000 in 2000," when Sebastiani sold off its mass-production wines, says Marc Cuneo, Mary Ann's son who works with growers throughout Sonoma.

Controlling Sonoma grapes and grape growers was once one of August's fortes, and not an especially diplomatic one. His successors, including Cuneo, have the same knowledge and greater pride in the county's strengths, such as Dry Creek zinfandel, pinot noir from Carneros, Russian River Dutton Ranch chardonnay and cabernet from Knights Valley.

They are blended into wines that are affordable and good value, most from $10 to $25.

"The Sebastiani name hasn't been on jug wine in 10 years," Marc Cuneo, 30, says with pride. Something else that has changed is Eye of the Swan, one of the first blush wines, an August favorite and once one of its biggest sellers. It is more refined now, and made in small quantities for sale only at the winery.

Given the overproduction across California, Cuneo says, "It was the right time for us to step away from the volume business."

That meant smaller production in the vineyards too, cutting thinning crops and pruning leaves to get the best grapes, rather than the most. Nor is he particularly interested in new packaging or new plantings of rare grapes beyond malbec and barbera.

"We're not out chasing the next big thing. After a century, we know what grows in California."

That would be, among other things, wine, tradition and Sebastianis.

- Chris Sherman, who writes about food and wine for the St. Petersburg Times, is the author of "The Buzz on Wine" Lebhar-Friedman Books, $16.95. He can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com