They call him a renegade. In 1981, he left a University of Michigan professorship in Ann Arbor to work a $6-per-hour job as a cellar rat at Edna Valley Vineyards in San Luis Obispo.
Today, Claiborne “Clay” Thompson—nicknamed the Godfather of Gewurztraminer by his employees—and his wife, Fredericka Churchill Thompson, are a permanent piece of the fabric of California’s wine history.
The couple will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of their SLO winery Claiborne & Churchill throughout the year, with highlights including a winemaker dinner with Brian Collins, chef and owner of Ember Restaurant in Arroyo Grande, on June 17, as well as live music on Fridays through September, switching to Sundays in October.
The landmark tiny winery is the oldest in Edna Valley under the same ownership—excluding Saucelito Canyon, whose off-site vineyard is located in Arroyo Grande. It also managed to carve out a niche market for obscure wines “that nobody wanted to buy” when the brand launched in 1983, according to the Thompsons, who reside next to their vineyard in the heart of the SLO Coast American Viticultural Area.
In the spring of 1981, Clay, a Norse language professor who dabbles in five languages—three fluently—and fiancée Fredericka, a German language professor at Michigan, took a spin along California’s coastline following a work trip.
“We stopped to visit a few wineries, most of them only recently established and part of the rapid growth of the industry in the early ’80s,” Clay said. “I soon discovered that the wine business was populated by a lot of people who came from outside, with no agricultural or scientific background, and they loved what they were doing.”
One of the wineries the couple visited was Edna Valley Vineyard, a collaboration between Dick Graff of Chalone Vineyard in Soledad and Jack Niven of Paragon Vineyard in San Luis Obispo.
“There, we were welcomed by winemaker Gary Mosby and assistant winemaker Bruno D’Alfonso, both in their 20s and the sole employees of this recently built winery,” he said. “Bruno took us down in the cellar and gave us a barrel tasting of chardonnay from new and old French oak. This eye-opening experience proved to be the ultimate catalyst, the ‘aha’ moment. I got bit by the wine bug.
“To make a long story short, I talked my way into a job at Edna Valley Vineyard as a crush worker and cellar rat.”
Fredericka and Clay returned to Ann Arbor, where they got married, and a week later they arrived in San Luis Obispo.
“A psychologist friend once told me that three of the biggest risk factors for stress are: 1. changing jobs or careers, 2. moving to a new home, and 3. getting married. When I mentioned that I had done all three in the same week, he said, ‘Wow, you’re off the charts!'”
In the summer of 1983, the Thompsons took a trip to Europe and spent two weeks in the French-German province of Alsace, “hiking along the Route des Vins, visiting the wine villages and chatting with the vintners,” Clay said.
“I had been working at Edna Valley Vineyard for two years, learning all aspects of [the] wine business, and, like many other cellar rats, I was toying with the idea of making a little wine of my own,” he said. “But what I really wanted was to make … different, special wines, niche wines. Through our experience in [Europe], we had developed a love of the dry, fruity, and well-structured rieslings and gewurztraminers of Alsace.”
The couple made another leap of faith, borrowing money from relatives and receiving permission from Clay’s mentor, Graff of Chalone, to start their new venture in a small corner of the cellar at Edna Valley Vineyard.
“We bought 30 used barrels and 8 1/2 tons of grapes and produced 563 cases of barrel-fermented dry wines: 224 cases of dry gewurztraminer, 128 cases of dry riesling, and 211 cases of a blend of the two, which we called Edelzwicker, after the Alsatian name,” he said.
The couple joked that they had fulfilled their dream to not only make wines nobody drinks, but also to make wines nobody can pronounce.
Fast forward several years to 1990, when they purchased a 6-acre parcel in Edna Valley with frontage on Highway 227. “A decade later, when the boom in wine tourism occurred, this location would serve us well,” Clay said.
“Our winery [completed in 1996] has the distinction of being the first commercial straw bale building in California. It has held up beautifully for more than 25 years,” he said. “And despite our fears, no bugs, no mice, no critters of any sort, no mold, no rot, and so far, the Big Bad Wolf has not come a-calling!”
The winery was constructed with the assistance of many friends and colleagues, including a young Mike Sinor—future owner of Sinor-LaVallee in Avila Beach.
“My very first day in my life on a wine bottling line was at Chamisal winery—Clay was consulting—and we bottled Claiborne & Churchill wines,” Sinor reflected. “From house sitting to helping build that straw bale building, I loved my time with them.
“Clay and Fredericka really helped put Edna on the map and, without question, are the pioneers in dry Alsatian wines for the SLO Coast. Heck, those wines are rare now, imagine back in the mid ’80s!”
Clay has trained many industry professionals, including Zack Geers, who replaced Coby Parker-Garcia in 2019 as head winemaker. Geers sources from the estate’s 2-acre riesling plot and other local vineyards to produce about 5,000 cases annually.
In addition to dry white Alsatian wines, varieties include pinot noir, syrah, and grenache.
“My long-term goals are to continue to grow the Claiborne & Churchill brand while introducing new wines such as pinot noir blanc, pet-nat, carbonic pinot noir, and more to come,” Geers said. “I love working for a small winery. Everything that happens here goes through my hands because it’s small enough for me to be involved at every level.”
So far, Clay and Fredericka have enjoyed their wine journey. At times it’s been “very, very hard,” he confessed. “But I have always said that even when it was bad, it was good.
“We also know that a lot of our success is due to the help of many friends and colleagues in the wine business, and to the dedicated support of our former and present employees.”
He has few regrets, but one may have been not expressing his full gratitude to Graff, who died in a plane crash the day after a visit with him in 1998.
While attending a luncheon at Edna Valley Vineyards, Clay asked Graff: “Can I kidnap you and show you around my new vineyard?”
Graff obliged, and Clay gave him the grand tour.
“Had I had my wits about me, I would have said, ‘Dick, I owe this all to you.’ And I didn’t. I’ve regretted that ever since.”
Fredericka added: “[Graff] seemed to enjoy it. I think he was probably proud that somehow this crazy person he hired just to work in the cellar turned out to be a real winemaker.”
Clay and Fredericka have stepped away from many of their former duties, allowing their daughter Elizabeth, director of sales and marketing, as well as Geers and several other trusted employees to work their magic.
But they remain a constant presence at the tasting room.
“A day without wine is like a day without sunshine,” Clay said. Δ
Flavor Writer Cherish Whyte says cheers to an amazing legacy. Reach her at cwhyte@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Winning Images 2023.