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Milla Handley held the most interesting vertical wine tasting I have ever attended; a tasting I still think about all the time.
Handley, whose family announced this week that she died on July 25 from Covid-19, touched many of us in her 35-year-career in the wine industry. She was a pioneer as a female winery owner and winemaker. She was one of the first to recognize the potential for Pinot Noir in Anderson Valley. She also was a longtime advocate for Alsatian white varieties in the area.
She was a quiet-but-resolute voice for balanced wines during the era when it seemed that everything in California was about bigger and better. In an often-guarded industry, she was disarmingly candid; she would tell you, while you were tasting a wine, that the harvest didn't happen on the day she wanted it to because she couldn't get a crew, or that she liked this vintage well enough, but it would have been better if not for that unexpected hot spell.
When I think of Milla Handley, I always think first of the 20-year vertical tasting in San Francisco she held of her flagship estate Pinot Noir. With the wines all lined up in front of us, we could see them getting gradually darker, and taste them getting gradually richer, as the 20th Century segued into the 21st. There were some one-year aberrations, but the darker-richer-higher alcohol pattern was clear, and unlike with other wineries, she had been in charge all along.
"We haven't done anything differently," Handley said. "That's what nature has given us."
It was the most convincing demonstration of the impact of climate change I have ever seen (or tasted). But that wasn't the point: Handley also wanted to show how well her Pinot Noirs aged, and in fact, the older wines were magnificent. As for the more recent ones, they weren't the '99 vintage, but they were still balanced, delicious, and great representations of Anderson Valley Pinot.
A woman of conviction
"What a strong person Milla was," Handley Cellars winemaker Randy Schock told Wine-Searcher. "Milla was really strong in her convictions about winemaking."
Handley hired Schock in 2004, along with another young winemaker.
"At that time Pinot Noir was really trendy and hot," Schock said. "A lot of oak, a lot of overripe fruit. We were excited about what we could do with that. We pushed Milla for that, for all these things. She smiled at us in our youth. She said, I'm comfortable with what we're doing and I'm going to stick to it. She wasn't one to follow. Before it became popular, it was lower alcohol, less oak. Good acidity. Not flabby wines."
Born in 1951 in San Francisco, Handley was one of the first female graduates in fermentation science from UC Davis. She worked at Chateau St Jean in Sonoma County before being hired in 1978 as assistant winemaker to Jed Steele at Edmeades in Mendocino County.
The wine scene in Mendocino at the time was tiny, and most growers concentrated on growing grapes for sparkling wine. The Champagne house Roederer created a splash in 1982 by opening a US outpost in Anderson Valley. Less noticed at the time, Handley also decided to found her own winery, making 250 cases of Chardonnay with her family name on it. She thus became one of just six wineries in the area.
In 1986, she began planting her own estate vineyard. She planted Pinot Noir, but she also was always interested in Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer.
"In 2010, we had some new vineyards. I wanted to plant Dijon clones of Pinot Noir," Schock said. "She opted to plant Chardonnay. She looked around the valley and said: 'There isn't enough Chardonnay.' I think we're really known for beautiful, fruity, alternative white varietals. Also cool-climate Chardonnay, more of a restrained, traditional style. There was the whole anything-but-Chardonnay movement. Then people come and taste our Chardonnay and there's this granny smith apple, fruity, not oaky at all. She loved seeing people surprised by Chardonnay and Gewürztraminer. Look what's hip and cool now. She was really on it. She's OG."
Schock said that not only did Handley insist on planting white varieties when Pinot Noir paid more; she also kept planting older clones of Pinot Noir when the industry had rushed toward newer Dijon clones.
A style of her own
"She was looking for a style, where you kept coming back, looking for different layers," Schock said. "Those layers weren't going to happen with just a single set of clones. These are all so critical to our winemaking. Not that Dijon doesn't have its place. People were saying, you can't make great Pinot Noir with these older clones, the Martini clone, the Roederer sparkling clone. I think she proved them wrong. I'll taste these older wines 15 years later. She didn't filter them. She didn't pick them overripe, so they had acidity. They're lovely."
This isn't the only way Handley Cellars farms differently from others.
"People are all worried about viruses on grapevines. I have viruses on all my vines," Schock says. "They help me make a lower-alcohol wine. They reduce the vigor. I fear that when we have all these superclones, we're creating more problems."
Schock said that, while Handley may have been happiest with a glass of sparkling wine in her hand, working in the vineyard was a close second.
"This is contrary for an owner," Schock said. "If I was busy doing the production management, and I said: 'I need this from Redwood Valley,' Milla would be over there at 5am and back before I even got started. We have our RSM vineyard, one of the most remote vineyards in Anderson Valley. It took us six hours to get around and irrigate this vineyard. She was going up there every night with a gas can full of water from her car."
From the 1990s Handley developed a reputation in the San Francisco Bay Area as one of the best stops on the budding Anderson Valley wine trail. Handley's father Raymond collected folk art as part of his travels promoting clean water for African villages. The Handley Cellars tasting room was full of interesting tribal art, and offered friendly tastes of quality wines without a fee. It wasn't unusual to see Milla herself take a turn behind the tasting bar.
"She loved being a hostess, setting the tables for guests," Schock said. "I can remember in the ranch house, when a guest would show up and we weren't ready, she would go over with the staff and change linens. It's not what you expect from a winery owner."
Handley is survived by two daughters, including Lulu McLellan, who takes over as owner of the winery. The family hopes to hold a memorial service at a later date, and asks that instead of flowers, to please consider donating to the Anderson Valley Senior Center.
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