Peter Molnar is the Lake County Winegrape Commission's new chairman. Courtesy photo.

KELSEYVILLE – Peter Molnar, partner and general manager for Obsidian Ridge Vineyards, is now chairman of the Lake County Winegrape Commission.

Elected by unanimous vote of the commission directors during a meeting in April, Molnar steps into his new role at the start of his third year on the Commission Board of Directors.

Also elected to the board were John Roumiguiere, Roumiguiere Vineyards; Buz Dereniuk, Catspaw Vineyards, who was appointed secretary/treasurer; Randy Krag, Beckstoffer Vineyards, re-appointed as research/education chair; John Adriance, Snows Lake Vineyards, re-appointed as marketing chair; Brent Holdenried, Wildhurst Vineyards; and Jeff Lyon, owner of Robin Hill Vineyards.

Established in 1991 by the winegrape growers of Lake County, the Lake County Winegrape Commission is a local marketing order. Its primary function is to provide marketing, education, and research programs to Lake County winegrape growers.

“Our main goal for this next year is to continue to communicate to wineries, to consumers, to (Lake) County, and to our neighbors that the Lake County wine industry has gone through a major evolution and is poised to make its mark as one of the premier regions in California,” Molnar stated by phone recently while he visited wineries in the Walla Walla, Wash., area.

The new chair said he wants to help the Commission deliver a message that Lake County is prepared to be a full partner in the North Coast wine region, which includes Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Marin and Solano counties.

“With the planting of existing and new vintages in Lake County, the quality is coming out in our grapes and in the bottle,” Molnar said. “With our grapes being planted properly, the advantages are coming out.”

Key factors found in Lake County – altitude, clarity of air, ideal climate – will help the commission “prove we have high quality grapes,” says Molnar.

He hopes to spread the word within the county and to the surrounding areas. He confidently added that good wine quality will impact activity in tourism, agriculture including other crops, and other economic factors. The result can be a “robust rural economy,” said Molnar.

Lake County is on track to have more sustainable farming records than any other wine region in California, according to Molnar. Organic methods being used by county winegrape growers fit with “the way people want farming to be done in the future,” he added.

“Lake County may be on the cutting edge,” Molnar said, noting the county’s gains in organic and sustainable production as major feats for such a relatively small region.

He credited the commission’s research and educational work, as well as networking efforts, in helping create camaraderie among winegrape growers.

Molnar studied rural economics at Cornell University and worked in Europe for four years, almost immediately becoming involved in the wine industry. He helped privatize the Hungarian wine industry on behalf of USAID and the World Bank in the early 1990s.

While in Hungary, he built a winery, started a wine trading company, and revamped Kádár Hungary, he said.

Since moving back to the United States in 1994, he has been farming 200 acres in Napa and Lake County, replanting Poseidon’s Vineyard in Napa Carneros and developing Obsidian Ridge Vineyards.

Molnar brings experience from his family business to his position with Obsidian Ridge and to his role on the Commission. His father started farming vineyards in Napa in the 1960s, and his family continues to produce wine grapes from 100 acres in the Napa Carneros Region.

For further information about the Lake County Winegrape Commission and its programs, call the commission office at 707-995-3421 or visit its Web site, www.lakecountywinegrape.org .