For the better part of my life, I’ve been a beer guy, but beer and I had an unamicable breakup at one point on the grounds that it no longer agreed with me. In my search for a replacement, I landed on a beverage that I had already been growing to love, red wine.
After my breakup with beer, for years, had you asked me which wine was my favorite, I couldn’t tell you. It depends on the occasion, I might have said. But then one night at a local restaurant with friends, I ordered a wine off the menu with a name that was familiar to me, but I wasn’t sure if the name “Fess Parker” on the label was the Fess Parker. Just for the fun of it, I gave it a try.
Now, if you were to ask me if I have a favorite wine, I have an answer. Fess Parker Pinot Noir. But don’t ask me to explain how or why. I can’t tell you if it tastes fruity enough, nutty enough, or smoky enough. All I know is that for me it’s the best wine I've ever tasted.
Keep in mind, my depth of knowledge on wines derives solely from how it tastes to me. I don’t do wine-tasting tourism or book learning. I can’t distinguish the influences in the flavoring of the wine when I drink it. I just know what I like, which is in part due to help from an app on my phone called Vivino. What it taught me about my tastes is that I really have a thing for California wines, and the types I like best are Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and, to a lesser degree, Merlot. I found that I do not like Malbec and Shiraz for some reason. But any day of the week, a good California red blend suits me just fine.
So, when I tasted that Fess Parker wine, after I later entered my rating in Vivino, I decided to do a little “Googling” to find that, yes indeed, it was the Fess Parker behind that wine. Once I read his winemaking story, I was even more glad I found his creation. Not only did the wine taste good to me, but it brought back some childhood memories. It was nostalgic.
Fess Parker was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1924. He was raised in San Angelo and then served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War. He later said that at the time, he wanted to be a pilot, but the Navy rejected him because he was too tall at 6 feet 6 inches.
After the war, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history and law.
He got the acting bug in the 1950s, and he made his film debut in Untamed Frontier in 1952. He had other film roles in Springfield Rifle and Them!. That last movie is the one that caught Walt Disney’s attention. He signed Parker as the lead in the Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier miniseries for TV, which ran from 1954 to 1955. Crockett was one of the heroes of the Alamo.
The show was a hit, and it sparked a coonskin cap craze among Parker’s millions of fans, who were mostly Baby Boomer boys, who made him a big Hollywood star.
Parker continued to work in Hollywood, but he wouldn’t catch his star again until 1964 when he was tapped to play another larger-than-life American figure named Daniel Boone. That TV series lasted six years, and Parker solidified as a bankable star on the small screen. That’s the Fess Parker I remember.
Throughout his acting career, Parker showed an interest in several business ventures so that he would be less reliant on the tastes and whims of the TV or movie-going audience. And so, just a few years after that show ended, Parker decided at the young age of 49 and still at the peak of his fame to retire from acting.
He tried his hand at real estate development and did well with that, eventually building a resort hotel in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1986.
In 1987, he bought a ranch of 714 acres in size, and that is where he threw himself into the establishment and operation of Fess Parker Family Winery and Vineyards. While other actors of his era were watching their stars fade with no backup plan, Parker was pursuing his rising star in the winemaking industry.
Keep in mind, being famous going into the business is not enough to make it in winemaking. The wine has to be good. Consumers need to want to buy it and drink it, regardless of whose name is on the label.
Parker’s vineyards and winemaking operations were and are still located in Los Olivos, Calif. That’s the Central Coast in Southern California. Three grapes that do well in that region are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah (Shiraz).
And so, as Parker devoted the rest of his life to producing the best wines possible, he became a star once again on a new stage in the discriminating world of winemaking.
Parker died at the age of 85 in 2010, having lived a full life as both a successful actor in Hollywood and as an award-winning winemaker who has left a legacy in both arenas.
