Steve Pepe '68 : After the Law, the Land
Although he had a long and highly successful career as a California labor lawyer, Steve Pepe admits that if he had to do it all over again, he probably would have been a farmer. He is indulging that passion now, and combining it with another, wine, as founder of Clos Pepe Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills of Northern Santa Barbara County.
Pepe was a child growing up in Patterson, New Jersey, when he tasted his first glass of wine. In fact, he helped his grandparents create it.
“In the Northeast it was fairly common for families to make their own wine. It was a practice that started with Prohibition,” he explains. “The grapes would arrive from California; we’d load up our cars, take them home and make a barrel of wine. In the spring, we would go from house to house, cellar to cellar, and taste the wine.”
Pepe worked in restaurants throughout high school, then became the first member of his family to attend college when he entered Montclair State University, where he studied history and business. A favorite professor there suggested that he study law.
“I didn’t know any lawyers, but many of the most admired figures in history were lawyers, so I gravitated toward the study of law,” he says.
Pepe remembers well the close relationships that formed among his Duke Law classmates; all 100 students shared the same course schedule throughout the year.
“Duke was just beginning its transformation from an excellent regional school into an elite national law school,” he says. “Everybody knew each other very well.”
Pepe estimates that 60 to 70 percent of his classmates pursued careers on the East Coast following graduation, with only a handful traveling west. He was one of them, joining O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, where he stayed for 35 years.
“At that time, O’Melveny offered one second-year student the opportunity to spend the summer with the firm,” he says. “[Current Duke Law Professor] John Wiestart declined an offer from O’Melveny in Los Angeles and I took his spot.”
Pepe developed a significant regional labor law practice that went national as changes in technology, travel, and communications influenced an increase in interaction among lawyers state-to-state. His career culminated with his election as president of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers for 2002.
His transition from labor lawyer to farmer and vinter arose from his firm’s mandatory retirement rule and the passion for travel, food, and wine he shares with his wife, Catherine, also an O’Melveny partner. “We wanted a post-law lifestyle that would allow us to pursue those passions, and remain close to family, our number one priority,” says Pepe.
Set in the heart of the Santa Rita Hills of Santa Barbara County, the Clos Pepe vineyard and winery includes 27 acres planted in vines, with 24 acres in Pino Noir and four in Chardonnay. It produces 800 cases of Estate Pino Noir each year, and about 150 cases of Chablis-style Chardonnay.
“The practice of law and the farming of grapes are both the same and very different,” Pepe observes. “Each requires meticulous attention to detail, but particularly at a large firm practice, there is not the kind of independence that you experience as a farmer. At a firm you are part of a team, a small cog in a big wheel. Farming is much more reliant on individual skill, patience, and taking what Mother Nature gives you to rise and fall on your own abilities.”
Clos Pepe’s wines win accolades, drawing raves from the Los Angeles Times in a February 15 feature article, and an outstanding 92 points awarded to the 2003 Estate Pinot Noir by Wine Spectator. The vineyard also sells its grapes to other wineries and produces an olive oil that was awarded the gold medal at the Los Angeles County Fair.
Clos Pepe is truly a family business, with Catherine’s son from a previous marriage, Wes Hagen, in the role of vineyard manager and winemaker and his wife, Chanda, as assistant winemaker. Wes’s brother, Rob lives nearby with his wife, Stacy, who is the winery’s chief financial officer. Their two children, frequent visitors to the vineyard, are being introduced to wine making and tasting in much the same way as their grandfather was years before in New Jersey.
“I hope that [our grandchildren] will develop a passion for wine out of the experience of family, as I did,” says Pepe. “But whether it’s family, law, farming, travel–whatever your passion, pursue it with everything you have. And don’t wait. That’s what’s most important.”