“You see the top of that tree?” he asks. “I hope my osprey finds it.”

For the past 10 years, the majestic bird has returned to the Redwood Valley north of Ukiah and chosen Barra’s 175-acre vineyard to feather a nest and raise its young. Last year it chose a spot atop a former wind machine tower high above the old vineyard. Barra and the osprey mother watched helplessly one day as the chicks fell out of the precarious perch.

At 84 years old, the inventive Barra has spent a lifetime doing what he can to help Mother Nature along, so over the summer he hired a crew to hoist a large wire platform to the top of the redwood tree.

“I hope she finds it this year,” he said again. “It’s a hell-of-a-lot better place for a nest than that tower.” 

Barra knows a thing or two about where to build a nest and how to properly feather it. He’s lived in this picturesque Mendocino County valley all of his life, the third generation of a family that planted its roots here at the turn of the previous century. And during those eight decades Barra has made quite a mark on the community and, in particular, the region’s wine industry.  

Barra’s grandfather Guiseppe Rovera immigrated from Italy to San Francisco in 1900 when Barra’s mother Marie was 3 years old. The family moved to the Redwood Valley in 1906 after the devastating San Francisco earthquake. The product of several Italian farming generations, Rovera found the fertile Mendocino County valley very similar to his native Piedmont region of northern Italy. He bought some land for $5 per acre and did what so many Italian immigrants did back then … he planted a vineyard. A few years later Barra’s father, Antonio Barra, who coincidentally was also from Rovera’s native village, came to the valley and was introduced to Marie Rovera. The two were married and, following in Rovera’s boot tracks, began growing grapes for wine and everything else his family needed on a small farm near the Redwood Valley town of Capella. The Barra family grew, too, with three sons, Charlie included, all born in the mid-1920s.

“I was born just down the road a half mile,” Barra recalled while sitting in the impressive Barra of Mendocino tasting room and headquarters. “It was pretty tough. Some days I wonder how my parents did with three boys in the house. I’ve got a hunch that during Prohibition they made a little money in the alcohol business.” 

Like many early immigrants to the Redwood Valley, Barra’s parents and grandparents eked out a living growing their own food and livestock plus grapevines to yield enough “vin ordinaire” table wine for the year. The families would also work on larger farms or vineyards to bring in extra cash.

“We (Barra and his brothers) all started working the vineyards at 10 years old,” Barra said. “Dad paid us 15 cents an hour and the growers paid Dad 30 cents an hour. Everybody did the same in those days. In fact school wouldn’t start until November so the kids could work the harvest.” 

Barra said that as a child he never had any doubts about what he would do for the rest of his life. In fact, he couldn’t wait to get out on his own. 

“If you grew up in an industry and you’re there every day helping and doing what needs to be done you feel very comfortable with what you’re doing … it’s just like getting up in the morning and putting your shoes on,” Barra said. 

One day Barra put his shoes on and, at 17, set out to negotiate his next step down his path into the wine business. World War II had just ended and grape prices were high, “about $100 a ton, which was very good in those days.”

“During my next to last year in high school one of my neighbors who I used to help a lot asked me if I wanted to lease his vineyard,” he said. “I told my dad about it and he said that if I start farming I wouldn’t be able to get my diploma, and that wouldn’t be very good. So I thought about it a little and figured that if I could go to classes for half a day in the morning I could work the vineyard from noon until dark.”

The ambitious high school student knew a reduced schedule would be a hard sell to high school administrators. He had a plan, though.

“I was president of the student body and captain of the basketball team … so I figured I had a little capital,” Barra smiled. “So I went to see the principal and told him I was quitting high school.”

The stunned principal asked why and young Barra laid out his plans to farm. 

“He laughed, which sort of insulted me,” Barra said, “so I asked him how much money he made and he told me $3,300 a year. I told him if I had any luck at all I would make three times that the first year.”

The frustrated principal decided to pass the problem to the vice principal, who met with Barra the next morning. 

“He asked what I thought about going to school half a day.  So I said ‘Well, let me think about that a little,’” Barra laughed. “So I leased the vineyard and during my senior year made $10,000. When I went back and told the principal he thought it was great! They were proud of me … and really took care of me to help make it work.”

Barra continued to work his leased vineyard after high school and also contracted his services with other farmers growing hops, pears and grapes. During a two-year stint in the U.S. Army, which he served mostly at the Presidio in San Francisco, Barra bought his first vineyard in 1954. Within the next few years he would begin transforming the 175-acres of vin ordinaire-type vines into something new. 

“We were selling the grapes to Italian Swiss Colony,” Barra said, “and one day I went into the market and saw that this type of wine was selling for 59 cents a bottle. Then I noticed that Krug, Martini, Christian Brothers and Wente wines were selling for $1.05 a bottle. So I went down and talked with them (Wente and Krug), did a little reading and decided I wanted to be in the higher end wine business.”

Like Robert Mondavi and others in the Napa Valley at the time, Barra was sensing the vast potential for the California wine industry and he wanted to be ready for it. He began pulling out the carignan and other vin ordinaire vines and replacing them with varietals that he knew would grow well in the Redwood Valley climate. Soon he attracted some important attention from down south. 

“Bob Mondavi (with Krug at the time) and the Wentes all came up here and said they liked what I was doing,” Barra said. “They knew we had the soil and the climate to grow good varietals. They didn’t need any grapes at the time but they said they knew where I was at.”

He continued to sell his new varietals to Italian Swiss Colony, which used them for lower-end wines. Eventually demand for fine varietal wines started picking up, and Barra was ready. Wente visited again and this time agreed to pay Barra twice the price he was getting from Italian Swiss Colony. 

 “I was the first one to plant varietals up here,” he said. “There was no market for varietals at the time but I took a gamble because I could see that was where the industry was headed.”

Barra’s hunch was correct. His vineyards and business grew with the upsurge in the wine market. He soon was delivering his grapes to Krug, Martini and Christian Brothers wineries and in 1974 planted an additional 300 acres of vineyard in Potter Valley and Ukiah Valley. Today Barra’s operation farms more than 250 acres, most if it planted with pinot noir, chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and other organically grown varietals.

That leap of faith was one of several “firsts” Charlie Barra has been responsible for. It’s difficult to walk more than a few hundred feet around his vineyard or winery without stumbling upon a Barra innovation.

In 1960, Barra was the first California grape grower to experiment with sprinkler frost protection. He decided to try it after reading about how Israeli farmers used the technique to protect vegetable from frost. 

“We sprinkled a few vines one night when it got down into the 20s,” Barra smiled. “In the morning these old Italian growers came by and saw the icicles on the vines and said ‘Barra you must believe in miracles’. The ice melted and the vines were fine. So I started selling my wind machines as fast as I could and by the early ’60s I converted everything to sprinklers... the first in California to do it.”

In 1963, Barra founded the California North Coast Grape Growers Association, representing growers in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake, Marin and Solano counties. Under Barra’s direction, the association spearheaded formation of America’s first wine appellation, the California North Coast AVA. The group also lobbied for and won change in the varietal content in designated varietal wines – from 51 percent to 75 percent.   

“Wines were being sold as cabernet that only had 51 percent cabernet juice,” Barra said, fired up as ever. “We said those wines should be 100 percent cabernet juice. Well we couldn’t get 100 percent so we settled on 75. Better than nothin’.”

Involvement in wine industry politics spilled over into local government as Barra served various terms on the Mendocino County Planning Commission and the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. While attending a meeting, Barra met another civic-minded resident of Redwood Valley, Martha Harmon, who became his wife in 1980. The second marriage for both, Martha brought with her experience as an administrative assistant for a superior court judge. The two have worked as a team ever since.  

“Charlie is a big idea guy,” Harmon said, “but you always need someone behind you to take care of the details. I have always been pretty good about filling in the details.” 

Taking care of the details would become increasingly important during the next few years. In the mid-1980s, the Barras decided to go organic, a three-year conversion that earned the operation official organic certification in 1989. Barra was encouraged to switch to organic by nearby Frey Vineyards, which in the early 1980s had become America’s first organic winery. 

“That was before it was the cool thing to do,” Barra said, adding that his operation has been “organic for 50 years but we didn’t know it for the first 30. We just didn’t buy chemicals … we didn’t have any money to do that when we started out.”

“We bit our fingernails for the first three years,” Harmon added. “We watched the leafhoppers come in the first year and skeletonize the leaves. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to produce enough sugar to ripen the grapes. However, the soils were so healthy that our crop came through. Within three years our vineyards were in balance and the beneficial (insects) came in and took care of the bad bugs.” 

For the Barras, the switch to organic has been good for business as well as the beautiful valley where they live. 

“If you’ve got good quality at good prices and it’s organically grown,” Barra said, “as far as the people who are looking for that, you have a leg up on the competition. And it just makes good sense to not destroy the environment.” 

The Barras agree that organic and biodynamic agriculture and wine production are the wave of the future.

“Here in Redwood Valley at least 35 percent of (agricultural) acreage is grown organically… 25 percent in all of Mendocino County,” Harmon said. “That really makes this area unique. I think we are ahead of the curve on that one.”

“Once you learn how to (produce organically),” Barra added, “it’s just as easy as not doing it. You’ve got to have the right equipment and know what you’re doing … but all of this is doable now because the industry is gearing up for it due to increasing consumer demand (for organic).”

After growing grapes for half a century, in 1996 Barra showed no signs of slowing down.  He bought a 50 percent interest in Redwood Valley Cellars, a 2.7 million-gallon winery and crush facility just down the road from his original 175-acre vineyard. The following year he began producing premium organically grown wines under the “Barra of Mendocino” label. In 2003, the Barras added a second label — Girasole Vineyards — and in 2007 purchased the remaining 50 percent interest in the winery. 

Now approaching his 64th harvest, not counting those he participated in before he struck out on his own, Barra seems as enthused as ever about the process, the politics and the true magic of grape growing and winemaking. As he walks among the 50-year-old organically grown vines, Barra points out the cover crop of fava beans growing in the rows. 

“The secret is to plow these under just before they blossom,” he instructed. “They’re full of nitrogen until then and we want to get that into the soil for the vines.”

But the vines are not his only concern. He talks fondly of the wildlife on the ranch and how it has rebounded since most of his neighbors have followed his lead in going organic.  But how does this affect a business that is inevitably linked to yield and fruit quality?

“You plant an extra row for the birds and the bugs,” he responded. “You can always figure out a solution.”

“At the Ukiah ranch,” he continued, “we have about 150 turkeys that come down from the hill and raise hell with the crop. I could shoot them but instead I buy five sacks of cracked corn and sprinkle it down the road from there. They stay there for a week or 10 days … just long enough to get the grapes picked.”

At first, this gentle concern for wild turkeys, osprey and other wildlife lucky enough to live in proximity to a Barra vineyard seems at odds with the hard-driving grape grower who has spent a lifetime getting the most out of the land. To Barra, though, this balanced approach to the environment and business is natural and necessary. When asked about the various challenges facing agriculture today, many of them environmental conflicts, he draws on decades of experience from both the vineyard and the political arenas. 

“First, forget about focusing on the benefits to agriculture,” Barra said. “Focus on the benefits to the entire society. Then everything will work itself out.”

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