Mabel (Dal Porto) Johnson
Rue Ziegler, cultural anthropologist and RDS member, conducted Mabel (Dal Porto) Johnson's, interview on August 5th, 2004. The excerpts below cover the period from 1900 to the 1960’s.
Mabel was born in 1924 to Sattimo and Madeline Dal Porto in St. Helena. Mabel’s father, Sattimo Dal Porto, came to the Napa Valley in the early 1900’s as a child with his family. Mabel’s grandfather, having owned a vineyard in Italy, settled his family in St. Helena to continue growing grapes. Mabel’s mother Madeline, then Madeline Ferrari, moved to Santa Rosa from Switzerland with her family when she was a child. After Sattimo’s father passed away when he was 16 he began working with his brothers to help support his mother, Amabile Dal Porto, and siblings. Madeline met Sattimo when her family worked picking grapes during the summers in St. Helena in 1918. In 1929 Sattimo bought a 52-acre ranch on Mee Lane from Roy Mercier with the help of his brother in law, Joseph Baldocchi.
In 1934 Sattimo, along with 6 other growers including Charlie Forni, started the Napa Valley Cooperative Winery. In the beginning the cooperative crushed the grapes it bought from local growers and sold the finished wine in bulk to Gallo. Sattimo sold his grapes to the Cooperative until it was sold. Sattimo also ran a small nursery for several years, supplying grapevine cuttings as well as some tomato plants for other local farmers. Sattimo was the first to plant Chardonnay grapes in the Napa Valley, as well as being the first to use irrigation for frost protection throughout his ranch.
Starting the Napa Valley Cooperative Winery