Hollywood to vine / A film star's daughter returns home to a Pinot paradise

Westside Road is one of the world's great wine routes, a narrow, two- lane, 10-mile stretch of asphalt that begins in Healdsburg and follows the Russian River as it flows southwest to the Pacific Ocean.

This piece of Sonoma County is bucolic and beautiful, with

horses and cattle grazing, redwood, oak and pine forests dotting the ridgetops and vineyards hugging the river and hillsides.

This is Pinot Noir country - cool and foggy in the mornings and evenings during the growing season and sunny and warm in the afternoons, just as the finicky Pinot Noir grape likes it. It's home to Williams & Selyem, Rochioli, Davis Bynum and Gary Farrell, wineries that helped put the Russian River Valley on the global wine map. It's also a return home for Kate MacMurray - a move from Hollywood to vine.

MacMurray, 46, a professional screenwriter, is daughter of the late actor Fred MacMurray and his actress wife, June Haver MacMurray. Kate grew up at her parents' home in Brentwood with her twin sister Laurie, yet much of their time was spent on the 1,750-acre Westside Road property, Twin Valley Ranch, that Fred MacMurray purchased in 1941. No mere weekend retreat, this was a working ranch, with horses, sheep and 400 head of Aberdeen Angus cattle. It was also a sanctuary, far removed from the klieg lights of Tinseltown.

The MacMurrays spent Easters, Thanksgivings, Christmases and summers at Twin Valley Ranch, and any other time that Fred wasn't required to be on a movie or TV set. If the MacMurrays weren't in Hollywood, they were in Healdsburg, worshiping at St. John's Catholic Church, socializing with neighbors, Fred sitting on a bench in the downtown plaza on Sundays, reading the newspaper and smoking the pipe that was the trademark of his Steve Douglas character on TV's "My Three Sons."

Now Kate MacMurray is back at Twin Valley Ranch, hired by E. & J. Gallo Co. to be the creative consultant for MacMurray Ranch, a line of superpremium wines made by Gallo from Twin Valley Vineyard and other sites in the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast. Her family sold the ranch to Gallo in 1996, following the death of her father in 1991 at age 83.

"After Dad died, the family decided that we wanted the property to remain in agriculture and that we didn't want it subdivided," MacMurray says. "We had offers to sell for a golf course and houses but we turned them down. Then (Gallo president) Bob and (son) Matt Gallo came to talk to us about their interest in buying the ranch, and that day we knew we had the right family.

"In 150 years, there have been three families on this property and the same fence. With the Gallo family here, the ranch will stay the same as where I grew up, and I'm so happy to be the link between the families."

STRIKING FIGURE

MacMurray is a striking figure: tall like her father and slender, with strawberry-red curls that cascade to her shoulders, intense green eyes and a preference for jeans, boots and linen jackets, with leather belts made by her father. She is both savvy and sincere; forget about her being just a marketing prop for Modesto-based Gallo. Granted, part of her role is to promote MacMurray Ranch wines, yet what drives MacMurray is her passion for Twin Valley Ranch and for sharing its history with others. Winemakers talk about capturing terroir, or a sense of place, in their bottles of wine; MacMurray has Twin Valley's terroir in her soul.

The late Julio Gallo, co-founder of the company with brother Ernest, was the vineyard guy, the one who understood grapes and growers, sites and soils. Ernest is the marketing genius. After Prohibition ended, Julio began searching for grapes in Russian River Valley, knowing that its cool, foggy climate and well-drained riverbed and clay soils were well suited to Burgundian grape varieties like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. It wasn't until 1993, the year of Julio's death, that the Gallo mothership launched its first high-quality, premium-tier wine brand, Gallo of Sonoma, and when it did, Julio's assessment of the Russian River Valley's distinctive terroir weighed heavily on the decision.

"The fog rolling in and out of the redwoods reminded Daddy of Scotland and Beaver Dam, Wis., where he was born," MacMurray says. "He was always picking up the soil in his hands, and the other day I saw Matt Gallo, Julio's grandson,

do that. Matt showed the same intimacy with the land that Dad did. I think the legacy Dad would be most proud of is this ranch. He'd be thrilled to see it today."

Twin Valley Ranch had its name long before the actor purchased it from the Porter family, who homesteaded there since 1846. That Fred MacMurray had twin daughters was coincidental, yet fitting. The house, horse barn and Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir vines are in the lower valley, where the actor grazed cattle on both sides of Westside Road. The upper valley is hilly and rugged; Matt Gallo, who oversees vineyard production for Gallo of Sonoma, decided to plant Syrah, Zinfandel and more Pinot Noir up top.

This year, Gallo will begin restoring the ranch house and barn. Kate MacMurray, who had been commuting from her Santa Monica home to Healdsburg since joining Gallo, recently moved into the "John Wayne house" on the property, the guest house where the actor and Fred MacMurray fishing buddy stayed on his numerous visits to Twin Valley Ranch. Henry Fonda was also a frequent guest, and Jimmy Stewart stayed at the ranch during the shooting of a "Lassie" movie.

"I was looking for a place to rent near Healdsburg, but then Gallo arranged for me to live on the ranch," Kate explains. "I called Mom, who still lives in our home in Brentwood, and said, 'Are you sitting down? I'm moving into the John Wayne house!' She was so pleased. I could almost hear her tears through the phone. She also got a big kick out of serving MacMurray Ranch Pinot Gris at a lunch she gave for Phyllis Diller's birthday."

ADOPTED AS INFANTS

Kate and Laurie were adopted as infants in 1956 by Fred and June, who married in 1954 after the death of MacMurray's first wife, Lillian. Eighteen years apart in age, Fred and June had worked together on a film called "Where Do We Go From Here?" in 1945, and became reacquainted in 1954 when Wayne brought them together at a costume party.

In a career that took him from stage musician to Broadway, then to films and television, Fred MacMurray's regular-guy good looks served him well as the easygoing romantic lead. He played opposite Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert, and he could also handle the unsavory character, such as murderous insurance salesman Walter Neff in "Double Indemnity" (1944) and a cowardly Naval officer in "The Caine Mutiny" (1954).

The actor was very much like the father he portrayed on television, MacMurray says: kind, loving and wise.

Fred and June brought their twin daughters to Twin Valley when the girls were 1 week old.

"Hollywood was home only because of Dad's work," MacMurray says. "Otherwise,

he would have been at the ranch permanently. He was a very private man and enjoyed nothing more than to spend time with his family and his fishing buddies."

The MacMurrays raised Aberdeen Angus beef cattle, milk-producing shorthorns,

sheep, draft horses, riding horses and chickens. They grew prunes, apples and alfalfa, with Fred doing most of the work. He branded cattle, cut access and fire roads, expanded the main house and designed and built the John Wayne house. Dressed in hat, coat and tie, he showed his cattle every year at the Sonoma County Fair.

Fred MacMurray loved wine, drinking mostly California bottles, but he never grew wine grapes.

"There was a time when his health was a little precarious and he abandoned the idea of planting wine grapes," MacMurray says. "He went on to live an additional 20 years and said, 'Damn, I should have planted those grapes.' "

And, oh, this father knew best in the kitchen. He took gourmet cooking classes, developed his own recipes and wasn't afraid to wear an apron.

"Food was a big part of our life on the ranch," MacMurray says. "Mom and Dad worked hard for us all to have dinner together every night. They each cooked, but they had different styles and they had heated debates. Stir or fold? Mom thin-sliced, Dad thick-sliced. Dad drank red wine, Mom drank white. Mom said she needed two stoves to prepare Thanksgiving dinner and Dad thought one was just fine. Finally he gave in and put in a second stove.

"He used to read cookbooks, flipping through to find recipes. He made his special pot roast, and sourdough pancakes on Sunday morning. We took the sourdough starter with us between Brentwood and the ranch so that we could keep it fed. We used our bay leaves in split-pea soup. We grew our own vegetables and fruit. Dad hunted ducks, dove and quail, and cooked the fish we caught in the streams."

SPECIAL MOMENTS

MacMurray glories in the tiny details and special moments on the ranch, when Hollywood was a world away. The family didn't even have a TV set in Healdsburg.

Pulling open the door to a dressing room closet in the ranch house, MacMurray says "It still smells of Daddy's fishing gear. We made him leave it all here before he could go any farther into the house."

Of her father's prized bull, Pyros, who loved to be talked to and scratched:

"One night Pyros was making a lot of noise and Dad said, 'Would someone please go kiss the bull and tell him good night so we can get some sleep?' When Pyros arrived after the long boat ride from Scotland, he took one look at all the cows in the pasture and fainted dead away.

"Dad had his Sleeping Lady; that's what he called the hilltops to the south of the ranch, which reminded him of a reclining woman. He played a boxer in the film 'Invitation to Happiness,' where he prayed to his Sleeping Lady before every fight. We spent so many wonderful hours on the front-porch swing, taking in the valley and admiring the Sleeping Lady."

At age 23, Kate MacMurray tried her hand at acting, winning the role of President Woodrow Wilson's daughter in the 1979 TV miniseries "Backstairs at the White House." In 1981 she played a gossip columnist in Blake Edwards' 1981 movie "S.O.B."

"But my head get kept getting in the way of my acting," says MacMurray, who found it difficult to put her personality aside for the camera. "Daddy said, 'If you want a career in film, if you want longevity, go behind the camera. And keep going to school.' That's what I did -- I took the 20-year plan," she says with a laugh.

MacMurray studied at the University of Southern California film school and worked in various production capacities for musical shows. Her screenplay "Cactus Moon," about characters in a rodeo and "how they are defined by the landscape," was a finalist at the 2001 Arizona Screenwriting Competition.

Despite her strong connection to Hollywood, it is the Russian River Valley that defines Kate MacMurray. "I always knew I'd get back to the ranch," she says, "but I didn't know how. I've always had a love affair with this place."

After purchasing Twin Valley Ranch in 1996, Gallo began planting grapes in 1997. Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah and Zinfandel vines are in the ground now, and late last year Gallo released its first two MacMurray Ranch wines, a 2001 Pinot Gris ($22) and 2000 Pinot Noir ($32), both from the Russian River Valley. New to the market is a third wine, a 2001 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir that is a tremendous value at $14. The wines are made at Gallo of Sonoma's Frei Ranch winery in the Dry Creek Valley, by Gallo senior winemaker Marcello Monticelli.

MacMurray got right into the swing of things in her role for the MacMurray Ranch brand, working the 2002 harvest, training in sales and marketing, traveling the country to promote and sell the wines and advising Gallo on restoration of the Twin Valley Ranch house and barn.

POTENTIAL FOR MORE GRAPEVINES

Of Twin Valley Ranch's 1,750 acres, 425 are planted to grapes and there is the potential for another 75 acres of vines, leaving 1,250 acres in their natural state. It's one of the two reasons the MacMurrays decided to sell to the Gallos. The other is Gallo's commitment to keeping the ranch a family business.

"(The relationship with Gallo) is a perfect marriage between two families who value agriculture and being stewards of the land," MacMurray says. "God is the only one who truly owns the land."

Gallo's development of Twin Valley Ranch into Twin Valley Vineyard has not been without controversy. Neighbors and environmentalists have complained about possible hillside erosion, the loss of wildlife habitat, water-use issues and the removal of trees to accommodate grapevines.

MacMurray says she is satisfied with the way Gallo has developed her father's ranch, pointing to such steps as sustainable farming practices and an elaborate drainage system that directs storm runoff to ponds that are used for irrigation. Grass seed has been planted in the vine rows for erosion control. Creekbeds have been revegetated with native plants. Bears and mountain lions roam the property, and deer munch on the newly planted vines.

"When Dad bought the ranch, it was all in prunes, which he pulled out to plant grazing pastures," MacMurray says. "Most of the property that has been planted to grapevines was pastureland, with very few trees. All the redwoods are still here. Dad always said that the land is best if it's producing, with balance and reasonableness, and that's what is happening here."

On Sundays, MacMurray once again attends St. John's Catholic Church in Healdsburg. As she sips a cup of coffee on the town plaza, she can still see her father there, newspaper and pipe in hand. Now that she has moved into the John Wayne house at Twin Valley Ranch, she marvels at the turn her life plot has taken.

"I'm back to my roots in a new and wonderful way," MacMurray says. "I can tell you that any little thing that is good about me came from this place."

MACMURRAY RANCH WINES

Gallo of Sonoma Chief Winemaker Marcello Monticelli produces three wines for the MacMurray Ranch label. Zinfandel and Syrah are on the way next year.

2001 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Gris Russian River Valley ($22) -- Bright and snappy, the wine has floral aromas that lead to flavors of red apple, citrus, mango, white peach and baking spice. Substantial in weight and complexity, a versatile wine for sipping as an aperitif or accompanying a range of dishes, including sauteed scallops, Dungeness crab, barbecued oysters, most chicken dishes and roast pork loin.

2000 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir Russian River Valley ($32) -- A very toasty nose is followed by rich, ripe black cherry, raspberry and cranberry fruit flavors, touched by hints of mushroom, clove and smoke. This youthful, forward wine is medium-bodied, richly textured and has crisp acidity -- a characteristic absent in many California red wines. Try it with Ahi tuna, salmon, roasted quail and lamb, and mushroom-based sauces.

2001 MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast ($14) -- A tremendous value in Pinot Noir with true varietal character. The grapes came from the broad Sonoma Coast region, and Monticelli's blending abilities are obvious in this cohesive mix of black cherry, strawberry, baking spice and licorice flavors, supported by medium tannins and crisp acidity. This youthful wine is a good match for salmon cooked any way, and grilled and roasted meats.

FRED MACMURRAY'S FLEMISH POT ROAST

Ingredients: 2 tablespoons salad oil

1 chuck roast (4 to 5 pounds)

2 tablespoons butter

4 yellow onions, sliced

2 tablespoons flour

1 (12-ounce) can of beer

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 bay leaf

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

INSTRUCTIONS: Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the meat and brown on both sides.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the onions and saute over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until pale golden.

Sprinkle the onions with flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the beer and bring to a boil, stirring. Pour over the meat, then add the brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic and salt. Cover and simmer for 2 hours, or until the meat is tender.

Lift meat onto a heated platter, sprinkle with parsley and keep warm.

Cook down the pan juices with onions until slightly thickened. Strain into a sauce boat. Spoon onions into a vegetable bowl. Carve the meat. Pass the gravy and onions at the table.

Serves 8

PER SERVING: 665 calories, 44 g protein, 12 g carbohydrate, 47 g fat (20 g saturated), 163 mg cholesterol, 563 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.