San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Surprising link between ‘Joy of Cooking’ and Napa’s famed Rombauer Vineyards
The cookbook has played an integral role in the winery’s impressive growth
Before Napa Valley’s Rombauer Vineyards became one of the country’s most successful wineries, it got a leg up from another national treasure: “Joy of Cooking,” widely considered the most popular cookbook in American history.
Irma Rombauer, a widow who self-published the first edition of “Joy of Cooking” in 1931, was the great-aunt of Rombauer Vineyards co-founder Koerner Rombauer. Family members don’t believe he ever met Irma, but in the early days of Rombauer, which started in 1980, Koerner would bring the book to events when he was out promoting the wines.
“People would say, ‘Rombauer, where have I seen that name before?’ (The book) had a lot more credibility than we did, so it was really nice within our family history to have this to talk about,” said KR Rombauer, who took over the winery after his father’s death. “If you were going off to school or getting married, it was the standard — sort of the kitchen bible.”
Koerner Rombauer recognized that the cookbook was a natural pairing with wine, and he got help over the years from his cousin Ethan Becker, Irma Rombauer’s grandson. On their first-ever meeting in the late 1980s, the once-distant cousins hosted a wine dinner together in Becker’s hometown of Cincinnati. “I chose a menu from the book and talked about the food, and he talked about the wine,” said Becker. “That started it off.”
Becker, who was responsible for several later editions of “Joy,” made frequent trips to visit his cousin in Napa Valley and sign copies of the cookbook at winery events. Less than a decade into the winery’s tenure, Koerner Rombauer took the connection one step further, permanently fusing the two family businesses together by settling on the winery’s official tagline: “The Joy of Wine.”
Now, Rombauer Vineyards stands on its own. It, too, is a household name as one of California’s most recognized wine brands. While “Joy” introduced millions of Americans to an approachable style of home cooking, Rombauer’s rich, buttery style of Chardonnay revolutionized the country’s illustrious Chardonnay movement in the 1980s. “Joy” is one of the bestselling American cookbooks of all time with more than 20 million copies sold; Rombauer now produces more than 4 million bottles of wine a year.
The cookbook remains a central figure at Rombauer. “The Joy of Wine” is plastered all over the winery’s website, marketing materials and tasting room swag. It’s even printed along the side of its corks. Tasting room hosts wax poetic about the family tie to visitors, who can purchase the cookbook from the winery gift shop.
“They sell a lot of books through the winery,” said John Becker, Irma Rombauer’s greatgrandson, who oversaw the
updates for the ninth and most recent edition of the cookbook. Published in 2019 and weighing nearly 5 pounds, it includes more than 4,000 recipes — 600 of which were new additions. “There’s obviously a synergy involved between what we do and what they do.”
In the past, the winery worked with John Becker and
his wife, Megan Scott, to choose recipe pairings for the wines, posted on the Rombauer website and social media channels. Rombauer was ahead of the QR code marketing trend that exploded out of the pandemic and linked some recipes via codes printed on the labels.
This kind of progressive thinking has helped seal both
entities’ staying power. Rombauer continues to grow: The third generation has joined the family business, which has a second winery in the Sierra Foothills in addition to 13 estate vineyard sites across Northern California totaling 900 acres of vines. As grape prices rise and vineyards frequently change hands, these assets will help sustain Rombauer’s production in the future.
Meanwhile, Irma’s immediate family members — first her daughter Marion, then Ethan Becker and now John Becker — have worked tirelessly to keep her legacy alive, dedicating years to each update. Ahead of
the latest edition, the family even created an app for the book, enabling readers to access recipes from their phones or tablets.
But the longtime partnership between these two heavyweights has made an undeniable impact, too. “If (Koerner Rombauer) was making garbage wine, I’d probably have had some fits,” said Ethan Becker. “But to associate yourself with somebody that’s doing that good of a job, that never hurts anybody.”