With her pressed blue jeans, boots and done-up hair, it'd be easy to peg Patti Fetzer as the tough yet reticent heroine of a country song. And maybe if the second-generation grape grower were from the Tennessee Mountains instead of Mendocino's Redwood Valley, she would be. Because origins aside, Patti Fetzer has always had the classic American soul of a doer, a survivor, a woman determined to make it on her own.

"She's a get-her-done kind of person," said older brother Jim Fetzer, "a very astute business person, focused, artistic and fun."

Patti grew up the fifth of 11 Fetzer children born to Kathleen and Barney Fetzer, an accountant and housewife who came to Ukiah to work in the lumber industry and restore an old, 800-acre Redwood Valley ranch with grape vines and room enough for the kids to run around. In time, their efforts would evolve into Fetzer Vineyards, among California's pioneering family wine empires, its first commercial release coming in 1968.

"She's a really good people person," added younger sister Mary Fetzer. "People love her. She's always happy, ready to go and likes to have a good time. Party Pat."

But behind the good times and easygoing nature, Patti Fetzer, 56, has had her share of heartache " the early death of her father, the exceedingly tragic, untimely death in 2005 of her first husband and partner in Patianna Organic Vineyards, followed by the fatal rafting accident a year later that took her brother Bobby.

"What she's gone through is pretty difficult. It's been a huge, emotional ride for her," said Mary. "She had to pick up the pieces and move ahead."

The Fetzer brood is used to moving on when the unexpected occurs. When patriarch Barney Fetzer died of a heart attack in 1981, the kids took over, growing the business from 200,000 cases a year to 2.2 million by 1992, the year Brown-Forman bought the name and its brands " Fetzer, Bel Arbors and Bonterra " the latter among the first large-scale wines made from organically grown grapes.

With brilliant foresight and a marked pronouncement of its ties to the land, the family did keep after the sale acres and acres of vineyards they had bought over the years throughout Mendocino County. They split the pieces among themselves, and in 1997 Patti laid claim to 126 acres in the Sanel Valley near Hopland, a pristine former pear ranch bordering a mile or so of the Russian River, already planted in spots to her beloved sauvignon blanc.

"A lot of it was the sauvignon blanc," Patti said of why she chose this property over others. "This ranch really fit the bill for me."

The Russian River's proximity makes for gravelly soils underneath those vines, an ideal set-up for sauvignon blanc and sauvignon musque, which she has also planted here, with a touch of chardonnay, too. Mike Lee of Kenwood Vineyards was the first to take notice of the grapes, certified organic since 1993, and bought them for his own wines. He was followed by Groth, St. Supery, Benziger, Wattle Creek, Sterling, Clos du Bois and Bonterra.

Patti always wanted her own brand. In 2003, she launched Patianna Organic Vineyards, 3,000 cases of crisp, nuanced sauvignon blanc grown on her own land.

Husband and business partner K.C. Burke wouldn't get to enjoy its growing success. He and friends Tom Hobart and Karl Esposti were among the victims of a single-engine plane crash in April 2005. That left Patti, barely 50 years old, to continue on.

"Nothing's easy. If there was an easy way we'd all be doing it," she said. "But (farming) becomes a lifestyle. It's just in our blood."

Since Burke's death, Lee, retired from Kenwood and a close friend of the couple, has stepped in full-time to help Patti make the Patianna wines.

Having grown up on the bustling Fetzer Home Ranch, Patti remembers working every day alongside her parents and siblings, learning every aspect of farming and the wine business.

"Myself and Mary, we got thrown in there with the guys (older brothers John, Joe and Jim)," she recalled. "It was great. We'd drive the tractors, load semis. They'd pull into the dock and Mary and I'd go out there and the truckers would look at you ... 'You guys going to do it?' Yeah."

During harvest they'd pick and as they got older run presses, do payroll " a little bit of everything. It was also growing up that Patti and her siblings learned firsthand to embrace organic farming, a philosophy, along with biodynamics, they almost all still adhere to in their various wine enterprises.

"Our family started that organic movement after Dad passed away. We definitely were the leaders," Patti recalled. "When we first bought the Home Ranch, you'd go down to the river and see salamanders and birds. Well here come the pesticides and herbicides, all of a sudden all that stuff is gone. We said, 'We've got to make a change here.'"

In keeping with that, Patti's property has been farmed organically since 1988; it was certified as such in 1993. In 2000 it also earned Demeter biodynamic certification.

The family remains tight-knit and close by. The Home Ranch, where they all grew up and where, until recently, matriarch Kathleen Fetzer, who is in her late 80s, lived, remains in Redwood Valley, the last physical remnant of their collective childhood. Along Old River Road near Hopland, a stone's throw from and contiguous to Patti's place is younger sister Diana Fetzer Dolan's ranch. Mary is only some five miles away, where she grows grapes under the name Haiku Vineyards. Brothers John (Saracina Winery), Danny (Jeriko Estate) and Joe (a grower) have adjoining ranches in Hopland along Highway 101.

North in Redwood Valley is brother Bobby's place, Masut Vineyards, which his wife and sons continue to farm. Sister Teresa is also in Redwood Valley, where she produces about 500 cases of Oster, an organic cabernet. Brother Jim has left Mendocino County, setting out on his own in neighboring Lake County to develop Ceago Vinegarden, a biodynamic winery and eco-resort on the shores of Clear Lake.

Patti is married now to Gregg Hileman, a former chef alongside John Ash at Fetzer's pioneering Valley Oak Food and Wine Center. She turned over the management of Patianna's national sales to him in 2006. They are building a home together in view of the vineyard and planning to make upwards of 15,000 cases of Patianna sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and syrah.

In the end, Patti is realizing all of her dreams, putting her energy and preference for staying busy to what feels like preordained use.

"I guess it's all more than I expected," she reflects when asked if her journey with Patianna has been all she thought it might be. "This brings it all back home. This is where we started. Farming is the way we began."