Published September 22, 2005

Tom Rusert: Rock ‘n’ roll and red varietals?

Bruce Cohn: I was planting vineyards but I knew nothing about growing grapes. I was drinking Dos Equis and Cuervo with the Doobies way before “Two Buck Chuck.” I got a lot of help from Charlie Wagner the owner of Camus after he got past my big hair and the rock ‘n’ roll scene look. He taught me everything about pruning, trellising, root stock... and in between tours I had the entire 48 acres at the time planted. The Doobies thought what the hell are you reading viticulture books for, this is a rock ‘n’ roll band tour. I had vineyards but they didn’t look like these pictures. Eventually I was selling my grapes to all the big guys and they were getting gold medals. I lucked out here with this micro-climate. You could not sell red wine in the ‘70s. Today the easier sell is red wine. The Martinelle’s lived a long time drinking red wine so they had to be on the right track.

TR: You were ten years old when your family decided to head out west to establish a goat farm?

BC: Yah, we had this covered wagon back then. Actually it was 1956 and we moved from Chicago to San Francisco. My Dad was a shoe salesman, sang Italian arias in Chicago and was tired of looking at people’s feet. He took a weekend trip to Russian River and stumbled on a ranch for sale in Martinelle Road in Forestville, with a population of 500. He bought it from this old timer in 1957 who was born in the house. The moving van pulled up in front of our house on this nice golf course in San Francisco and we moved to this 100-year-old ranch. He bought two goats to keep weeds down. Why burn fuel? Then we had four, then eight, then 16 goats and pretty soon I was milking goats at 4:30 in the morning and 4:30 at night seven days a week.

TR: So how did the goat gig go?

BC: We started with a Grade B dairy and sold the milk to make feta cheese. We soon realized that the $23 a month we were getting for the milk was not going to be enough to live on. So my Mom went to UC Davis and got plans for a Grade A Dairy barn and we built a Grade A Dairy barn at the ranch by ourselves by hand. I did the concrete block walls and my mother did the electrical. So from 1957-62 we milked 115 goats seven days a week.

TR: 30 years ago, what inspired you to establish a 48-acre vineyard when your roots were in music and the broadcasting business?

BC: Well I got into music after we left Forestville and moved back to San Francisco. I was glad that was over. I went to college and got a degree in radio and television and started working at Channel 20 as an engineer. I opened a rehearsal hall because all the bands in the ‘60s needed somewhere to rehearse. I rented this old warehouse down South of Market which is now the site of the Moscone Center. So Santana, Grateful Dead, It’s A Beautiful Day and others like Joplin, Airplane and Dead were all coming up to rehearse and basically that’s how I got into the music business. My brother worked in a recording business in San Mateo where we went to college and I would go down and watch him record these bands. One day in 1969 I had the day off since I worked nights at the radio station and rode my Harley down to see my brother and this guy John Hartman and Tom Johnston came in and said they had a band from San Jose called Pud. My brother had them come back the next day, they sounded good and we cut a demo tape and had them change their name. They came up with The Doobie Brothers. We sent the tape to Warner’s in LA and long story short, they liked it. So the Doobies needed a manager and I signed on, quit the TV job and in 1970 went on the road and cut the first album. I told Tommy Johnston, our lead singer, to turn on the radio and he needs to write a hit record. Three weeks later he called with a song that sounded great. He called it “Listen to the Music.” I said keep writing them...and he did. We put out our second album in 1972 and went double platinum. Sold 2.4 million. That’s when we took off and I didn’t have to collect guns and knives any more at the concert door in Santa Cruz. Away we went. I started a pension plan in ‘72. It was unheard of but I was afraid we were all going to end up broke in five years. We got off food stamps and brown rice! I decided to buy a ranch where my Dad had raised us and in July 1974 bought Olive Hill Ranch here in Sonoma Valley.

TR: So you went from the world of shoes to goats, to Channel 20 to music to vineyards?

BC: Right. Then on to estate olive oil and now vinegar...we have the whole spectrum here, there’s no limits, Tom.

TR: What attracted you to this particular ranch in the Valley of the Moon?

BC: It was originally a dairy farm, which was familiar to me and I felt at home. The tasting room is the old milk barn. The setting was beautiful. But since I wanted to plant vines, I asked, Where’s the frost protection? No irrigation. I looked for the water source. It was a bid situation and I only had two days. I went down and looked at the well and there was another well with water bubbling out of it and I never looked at it or touched it but it was pumping about 25 gallons per minute into a pond. Later I discovered it was a 75-80 degree geothermal aquifer that warms the soil. It runs south to Sonoma Mission Inn through Aqua Caliente, Fetter’s Hot Spring and Boyes Hot Spring. The warm water helps make cabernet a great varietal. If you notice around me, all my neighbors grow old vine zinfandel. You need a hot climate. Sonoma is actually too cool except here where our air temp is ten degrees warmer. To the west, the three thousand foot Sonoma Mountain blocks the cold air and fog.

TR: Did your wife really threaten to have all the olive trees removed?

BC: Actually she said to pick up the blanket of black olives that the four kids were tracking in or replace the carpet every year in our house. So I picked up the olives and sent them to Nick Sciabica in Modesto where they’ve been pressing California olive oil since 1934. I had no idea what kind of olive trees I had in 1990 until I called UC Davis. Today there are probably 40 producers of gourmet olive oil and only a handful that grow and bottle. I still have eight acres of French olives (Picholiens) here. Most olive trees here are Spanish or Italian. A wagon load of Picholiens cuttings were planted up the valley in the late 1800’s. It was not typical for this area and they turned out to be a real treat! We are pressing and bottling our estate olive oil now. Right after the grape harvest it is time for olive harvest. Our trees are over 100 years old, which is young. In the Middle and Far East some are hundreds of years old. Our Picholiens won a double gold at the Harvest Fair for the second year in a row. It’s very full flavored, intense but very light on the palate. Now we offer three distinct virgin olive oils. It’s convenient having the Olive Press a mile down the road.

TR: Speaking of red wine, olive oil and music...we seem to be surrounded by gold and platinum in this room?

BC: What can I say Tom, gold is good! Platinum is better, in the record business anyway. We received a gold medal (94 pts.) for our 2001 Olive Hill Cabernet Sauvignon. Generally, over the twenty years that I’ve been making Cabernet, we have been rated in the nineties. Recently we received Best of Class for the 2002 Sonoma Valley Merlot in San Diego Wine Competition and Long Beach Grand Cru Wine Competition as well as a Gold Medal Winner at the San Francisco Wine Competition.

Note: For 19 years Bruce Cohn has sponsored a benefit concert and golf tournament to support many of the local children’s charity’s including the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home, Sonoma Co. Mentoring Alliance, and many other related organizations.

Bruce Cohn and the Doobie Brothers