The couple’s intention was to sell all their grapes, but their son John had other ideas. While studying at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, John began making small batches of wine in the basement of his parents’ Napa home. (John’s original foray into fermentation, a batch of apple cider, went explosively awry in a friend’s dorm room, one of many teenage escapades that earned him an enduring reputation as a mischief-maker.) His initial efforts, using trash cans as fermentation tanks, were unpromising. Yet, in 1973, aided by his new bride Janet, John produced Trefethen Vineyards’ first commercial wine. Just three years later, the winery’s 1976 Chardonnay earned “Best Chardonnay in the World” honors at the 1979 Gault Millau World Wine Olympics in Paris. That accomplishment, coupled with John’s good business sense and determination to create a world-class wine estate, put Trefethen Vineyards on the global fine wine map.
Today, John devotes himself full-time to the family winery, inspiring the Trefethen team with his jocularity and still-youthful energy. A talented race car driver, he often spends weekends at the track lapping drivers half his age.
As Trefethen came to prominence during the 1970s, Janet Trefethen took responsibility for the winery’s marketing efforts, becoming one of the wine industry’s first female executives. Having grown up on a Northern California rice farm, Janet knew agriculture and was an accomplished horsewoman, yet she was initially greeted with derision in the heavily male-dominated world of wine. Her savvy and sparkling personality, however, soon won hearts and minds throughout the industry, establishing her as one of California’s most engaging wine personalities. Along with Catherine Trefethen and several other female vintners, Janet also pioneered the promotion of wine with food, creating the groundbreaking Napa Valley Cooking Class in 1973.
Janet still works later at the winery than anyone – among other things, she designs every Trefethen wine label – yet she still finds time to cook dinner for her family and exercise her beloved cutting horses. Among the nation’s top female cutting horse riders, she’s earned a rare belt buckle from the Cowgirl Hall of Fame and was among the top five-ranked riders in the world in 2005. [Source: Trefethen Family Vineyards]
SOURCES:
39. Alice STINSON0638 (Mrs. Lyall)- Correspondence, 11530 La Maida St., North Hollywood, California 91601