FUNNY BROTHERS: Serious Wine
Remick Ridge Vineyards: a Smothers Brothers Production

By Lisa Snider, findingojai@aol.com

After 50 years in show business, Tommy Smothers still can’t resist cracking a political joke. When I asked him about his golf game, he quickly told me he is a two handicap. Impressive.
But then he stopped himself, chuckled and said, “No wait, those are Republican numbers, I’m an 18!”

Smothers is most famous for his antics with his brother, Dick, and their 1960s Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. In addition to swinging a golf club and touring with Dick, Smothers also enjoys tending to his vineyard and his award-winning winery, Remick Ridge, in Kenwood, where he has been making wine for 30 years.

Dick first purchased property in the 70s, and their Smothers Brothers Wine had its first release in 1977. When Dick moved to the East Coast ten years later, Tommy took over the operation. Originally named Smothers Brothers Winery, the brothers soon realized that if anyone was going to take their product seriously, they would have to change the name. He chuckles again and cracks, “Can you imagine Milton Berle fine wine?” So they named it after their grandfather, and Remick Ridge Vineyards was born.

Now, Smothers’ vineyard is producing more than 500 cases annually of award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Overseen by winemaker Richard Arrowood, all of the wines are 100 percent varietal, unfined and unfiltered which, Smothers says, “gives a little more body to the wine; it’s more chewy.”

Smothers also underwent a four-year process to have his grapes become certified organic. “It’s really more natural winemaking,” he explains. He plans to take it a step further and go biodynamic, a much more intense holistic process, because, he says, “We want to be good to the land.” With his home sitting right in the middle of the vineyard, he says he can see firsthand the natural benefits of organic gardening: “There are more butterflies around!” He has also found that, despite the fact that it’s a more expensive way to garden, the secondary benefit is that it’s become a great sales tool.

Cultivating a hillside vineyard of all red wine grapes has given Smothers a favorite pastime. “I’ve become a red wine drinker. I was a slow converter to the reds. White wine is easy to drink fast, but red wine takes your attention right away. It’s more complicated.”

Smothers has come to enjoy the community and camaraderie of making wine in Sonoma County. “Everybody’s very sharing.” Except, he adds, when it comes to sales. He recounts a story in which he hauled eight cases of his wine to the local market, placed it in a very prominent place, then found just a few days later that it had been replaced with a competitor’s wine. When he asked the retailer where his wine was, he remembers being told, “It’s over there, by the toilet paper!” After assessing the situation, Smothers had fun with his competitor and switched it right back.

When Smothers isn’t moving wine around, he is very busy with his brother keeping pace with the 70-plus shows they do all around the country each year performing their famous music and comedy routines. “We’ll keep performing until our fans can’t get their walkers up the stairs!”

A big fan of Santa Barbara, he says, “Oh, god, it’s great, it’s amazing!” Smothers describes himself as “an observer of life,” and adds, “Making wine is a lot like show business; both are subjective.” He finds both to be “very closely related, fun and enjoyable.”

Lisa Snider is a local freelance writer. For more, visit www.findingojai.com.