Ren Harris didn’t set out to reshape Napa Valley. He just wanted better grape prices.
So one evening in 1975, he called a few neighbors to his house in Oakville — names that today read like a who’s who of modern Napa wine history: John Trefethen, Virgil Galleron, Justin Meyer and Andy Beckstoffer. Harris, a former San Francisco contractor who had recently ripped out 30 acres of prune trees and planted grapes, got straight to the point.
“Ren said, ‘Hey, we’re going to get together and create a club,’” Beckstoffer recalled.
What began as that casual meeting — just a handful of growers around a dining table in Oakville — would become the Napa Valley Grapegrowers, now marking its 50th anniversary. Over the decades, the group helped shape some of the most defining elements of Napa Valley’s wine identity: standardized grape pricing, modern labeling laws, farmworker protections and the push to safeguard agricultural land. The organization’s work didn’t always draw headlines, but it helped lay the framework for Napa’s transformation from a quiet farming region into one of the world’s most influential wine landscapes.
But to understand how the organization gained influence — and why growers felt they needed it — it helps to remember what Napa Valley looked like then.
At the time of that first meeting, the future of Napa Valley wine was far from certain — and Harris was still relatively new to grape growing, having moved from San Francisco a few years earlier after marrying Marilyn Pelissa, whose family had farmed in Napa Valley since the 1890s.
Beckstoffer himself had only recently arrived from Virginia, armed with an MBA from Dartmouth and working for Heublein — the American food and beverage company experimenting with wine. When the corporation pivoted away, he took a risk and purchased 1,200 acres of vineyard land. The gamble nearly didn’t work; Beckstoffer later recalled how hard those first years were.
Today, he farms roughly 4,000 acres across Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties, and both Wine Spectator and The Wall Street Journal have called him “the most powerful grape-grower.”
When pundits cite the events that helped power Napa Valley to preeminence in the global wine scene, they typically point to the 1968 creation of the Ag Preserve, which declared agriculture the dominant land use in the valley, or the 1976 Judgment of Paris, when Napa wines shocked the world by besting storied French labels in a blind tasting. The rising influence of Napa Valley Vintners strengthened the region’s reputation.
But the group Harris convened around that kitchen table played a quieter, critical role — shaping how Napa would grow, how grapes would be valued and who would have a say in the future of the industry.
“Part of the reason the whole valley has been prosperous, with high prices for grapes, high prices for wine, going all the way to world-class workers in the vineyards, is the Grapegrowers,” Beckstoffer said at a 50th anniversary celebration earlier this year.
Looking for respect
Back then, growers were seeking something simple: respect — and pricing that matched the growing prestige of Napa Valley wines.
“At the time, Napa County grape growers were second-class citizens in terms of farming,” Harris said, “Napa County grape growers got less than Sonoma County grapegrowers, but Napa wineries got more.”
That shift began with the Agricultural Preserve. Harris’s father-in-law, Andy Pelissa, was the only farmer on the county Planning Commission when a proposal came forward in 1968 to stop farmland from being subdivided into estates. The measure passed by a single vote, establishing what became the first agricultural preserve in the United States.
“The Ag Preserve saved Napa Valley. But for that, no Paris tasting, no Grapegrowers,” Harris added.
Preservation meant farming had to succeed and growers had to be taken seriously.
“It was a different age,” Beckstoffer said. He remembers attending a meeting with Napa Valley Vintners where winery owners sat at the table and growers lined chairs against the walls.
They wanted a seat at the table.
“We wanted to increase the political, social and economic status of growers because we were nowhere,” he said.
Contracts were inconsistent. There was no transparency in pricing. Payment might not arrive until after harvest.
“In capitalist America, if an investor isn’t making any money with a project, he is going to move out,” Beckstoffer said. “You couldn’t make any money growing grapes.”
Creating structure
At that first gathering in Oakville, Harris proposed forming a grape-focused committee within the Napa Valley Farm Bureau, which he led as board president.
First on the agenda: establishing a marketing order requiring grape prices to be set before sale.
“That wasn’t too popular an idea, maybe,” Harris said, “but California Farm Bureau was behind it.”
The Farm Bureau sent him and Beckstoffer to Sacramento. Harris remembers the meeting clearly.
“We sat on either side of the table — it was like ping-pong.”
They successfully argued winery owners shouldn’t vote on pricing rules that affected their purchasing costs. Legislation ultimately passed in the state legislature, and within one year Napa County grapegrowers were getting more than Sonoma County.
“Within a few years we were getting double,” Harris said.
The policy also led to an annual crop report — a public accounting of tonnage, vineyard source, buyer and price.
“It became the annual much-anticipated Crush Report everyone waits for,” Beckstoffer said
Bringing order to labeling chaos
Another challenge was the lack of consistent wine labeling requirements.
In 1975, “wine labeling laws were all over the map,” Harris said. “A label that said ‘Cabernet’ might have some Cabernet in it, but who knew how much?”
Relying on alliances through the American Farm Bureau, Beckstoffer flew to Washington, D.C. in 1977 to advocate for change. He got a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Rex Davis.
“We went in, sat down for a couple of hours,” he recalled.
He walked out with labeling standards that reshaped American wine: 95% Napa County fruit if labeled Napa; 75% minimum varietal content; 100% if labeled estate grown.
“The wineries weren’t happy,” he said, “but they didn’t have the clout.”
The farmworker issue
The Agricultural Preserve also highlighted the need for a stable, long-term vineyard workforce.
In the 1970s, “farm labor was all transient and mostly illegal,” Harris said. On his first planting day, he realized how essential skilled workers were — and learned Spanish.
Some saw vineyard workers as adversaries.
“A lot of people considered them the enemy,” Beckstoffer said. “But we said, ‘No, we’re a team.’”
Harris proposed a farmworker health insurance program, a precursor to the Ag Health Benefits Alliance, now serving more than 1,500 agricultural employees.
During that era, tensions with César Chávez and the United Farm Workers were high, and Harris debated Chávez on national television after his boycott of Napa vineyards.
“I don’t lose arguments,” Harris said, “but I don’t think the debate changed any minds. (César) and I wanted the same thing for farmworkers, namely that they grow and prosper.”
The Grapegrowers today
The committee Harris envisioned eventually became an independent nonprofit with more than 600 members, offering research, education and advocacy for growers. Today, the organization supports training and industry development — including the annual Rootstock conference — as the wine landscape continues to evolve.
In 2011, the Grapegrowers formed the Farmworker Foundation, offering programs ranging from literacy classes to leadership development and cultural events such as the pruning contest and the Cultivar Spanish-language conference.
“It gives everyone an opportunity to learn,” said Oscar Renteria, named the 2025 Grower of the Year.
Looking ahead
“When I landed here in 2011, I felt like I had a community,” said Caleb Mosley, who became executive director in 2024. He sees another pivotal moment ahead — one defined by oversupply, changing consumer habits and uncertainty.
“We’ve had ups and downs but never anything like this,” Mosley said. Going forward, he wants the organization “to be as useful as pruning shears.”
Part of that future is the Napa Valley Center for Grape Growing and Farmworker Education — a 2.2-acre learning site planned against the Mayacamas Mountains. The center will host a demonstration vineyard, training programs, community events and workforce support. It is expected to break ground in 2026 — with Harris and Beckstoffer among the first donors.
When Harris was named Grower of the Year in 2021, vintner John Trefethen called him “one of the most consequential leaders of what happened in the early years of the Napa Valley.”
But Harris, sitting at his desk at Paradigm Winery in Oakville, shrugged.
“It’s been a fun way to make a comfortable living.”
Later, Beckstoffer was asked whether he or Harris — sitting at that first kitchen table in 1975 — had any idea what Napa Valley would become.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Oh, hell no.”