Our plan for our second day in the Dry Creek area was to visit the tasting rooms at the northern end of Dry Creek Valley.  These are mostly clustered along Dry Creek Road about 15 to 20 minutes north of Healdsburg.  One of the reasons that we were interested in headquartering our visit in this area was because you literally can’t turn around without encountering an interesting, Zinfandel-producing winery.  This certainly proved to be true on this day.  Rather than trying to write all of the wineries up into an enormous post, we’ve broken each winery into its own post.  You can click on the image of the winery below to read more about each one!

Pedroncelli

Sbragia


Dutcher Crossing Winery

David Coffaro

Bella Vineyards

Preston

Zichichi

Papapietro Perry

Kokomo Winery

F. Teldeschi Winery

With that, we called it a day as we had reservations for Cena Luna.  You can learn a lot listening to the locals.

Our last stop of the day was certainly one of the most interesting.  The Teldeschi’s are an old grape growing family with a long history in the area.  Frank is the fourth generation of the family and the one who started the winery.  He has some unique ideas about producing wines. 

The tasting room is more of an office with a counter in a small building.  A random collection of small bottles sits on a shelf along the back wall.  Part of the philosophy is to never let the wine sit with air above it, so as wine is poured for tasting, the remaining wine is poured into a smaller bottle, a process that is repeated with each tasting.  I don’t know whether this works or not, but the wine was good.  Many of the wines are blends showing the skill of the winemaker.

Wines sampled:
2001 Reserve Zinfandel
2000 Dry Creek Reserve Cinque Terra, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Carignane, Petite Sirah
1999 Terra Nova, Carignane, Valdique, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah
1999 Dry Creek Valley Petite Sirah
2002 Zinfandel Port

This winery was founded by two transplanted midwesterners.  We were greeted at the door by Riley, the winery dog, who while at first showed great interest in us, eventually decided that we were boring.  He showed his boredom by heading to his dog bed behind the counter, falling asleep quickly.

Wines sampled:
2006 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel
2006 Green Pastures Vineyard Syrah
2006 Dry Creek Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
2006 Cuvee Bela, Sonoma County, 50% Cabernet Franc, 40% Petite Sirah, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon

Papapietro Perry is located in what can only be described as an industrial park for wineries.  Six small wineries have their production facilities clustered together.  With land at a premium in Dry Creek Valley, this makes sense, and doesn’t detract from the wine.  Each winery has it’s own small tasting room. 
As it was getting late in the day and we’d had quite a bit of wine, we only had time to stop at two of them.  The first was Papapietro Perry which was founded by two friends who started out making wine in their garage.  They primarily produce Pinot Noir and Zinfandel with grapes sourced from a number of growers in the Russian River, Dry Creek, and Anderson Valleys.

 Wines sampled:
2006 Pinot Noir, Elsbree Vineyard, Russian River Valley
2007 Pinot Noir, Leras Family Vineyard, Russian River Valley
2006 Zinfandel, Russian River Valley
2005 Zinfandel, Elsbree Vineyard, Russian River Valley

In 2000 Steve Zichichi, a doctor from New Orleans and his wife purchased the vineyard and built the winery.  The vineyard is planted in Zinfandel and Petite Sirah with the vines between 40 and 80 years old.  In addition to the wines produced from the vineyard they also make a Cabernet Sauvignon from grapes grown in Napa Valley.  One of the interesting aspects of the tasting was that after we had sampled the wines from the bottle we were also given a barrel tasting of the same wines.

Wines sampled:
2008 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
2008 Zichichi Estate Petite Sirah
2008 Zichichi Estate Old Vine Zinfandel

The Prestons are proponents of organic farming and are as involved in the making of olive oil and vinegar as they are their wines.  The wines themselves are mostly Rhone varieties and Zinfandel.  The tasting room is in an old farm house at the end of a long winding driveway.  The wines were very good.

Wines sampled:
2007 Barbera
2007 Zinfandel
2006 L. Preston Red, 55% Syrah, 20% Carignane, 20% Mourvedre, 5% Cinsault
2006 Syrah-Sirah, 90% Syrah, 10% Petite Sirah
2006 Petite Sirah

Bella Vineyards is on West Dry Creek Road which is a narrow road running parallel to Dry Creek Road.  One of their claims to fame is a cave tunneled under one of their vineyards that is used for barrel aging wine.  It also contains the tasting room which lets you get into the spirit of things.  They are primarily producers of Zinfandel with some Syrah and Petite Sirah.

They have a very nice picnic area just outside the entrance to the cave.  We had a nice lunch of salami, cheese, and bread with a bottle of the Bella 2006 Dry Creek Zinfandel which they kindly opened for us and lent glasses for.

Wines sampled:
2008 Rose
2006 Sonoma County Syrah
2006 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel
2006 Belle Canyon Zinfandel
2007 Two Patch Zinfandel
2008 Late Harvest Zinfandel – a nice desert wine

At first glance the winery looks like a collection of not terribly impressive farm buildings.  Then you notice the solar cell array on the way to the tasting room.  The tasting room itself is more of an alcove in a building used to house barrels of aging wine.  The counter is a handful of used barrels in front of a backdrop of Oakland Raiders gear.  Various bits of stuff like tools and folding chairs line the walls.  But looks can be deceiving.

David Coffaro has a unique perspective on winemaking that has earned the respect of his peers.  He definitely does things his way.  Like the use of screw cap bottles.  Or blending grapes you’ve hardly ever heard of.  Or selling most of his wine as futures.  Or making a wine from the bottom of every barrel.  Or making wines that are affordable.

The first wine we sampled was Fresco, a light, refreshing blend of 22% Alvarelhao, 21% Tempranillo, 21% Tinto Cao, 20% Pelousin, and 16% Carmine.  It was on sale for $99 a case.  We bought one to ship back.  The other wines were just as good.  The conversation drifted to Aaron Rogers and where we were going to have dinner.  Steve showed us a menu for Cena Luna and offered to call for us.  We had more wine ending with the ZP2C which is a blend made from the remains of every barrel of wine produced and including all 21 varieties of grapes grown.  It was great.  I joined the wine club.  When we dined at Cena Luna that night we had a bottle of David Coffaro Sangiovese.  Enough said.

Wines sampled:
2006 Fresco
2006 Terre Melange, 36% Carignan, 27% Peloursin, 27% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre
2006 Petite Sirah
2006 Escuro, 36% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Tannat, 20% Petite Sirah, 20% Petit Verdot
2006 “My Zin”, 77% Zinfandel, 13% Petite Sirah, 10% Cabernet
2006 ZP2C, blend of 21 varieties

Dutcher Crossing is located right on Dry Creek Road.  The tasting room is in a modern wooden building that blends nicely into the surrounding vineyards.  There are some very nice picnic grounds.  They specialize in small-lot quality wines from select vineyards.  We particularly liked their Chardonnay and Maple Vineyard Zinfandel, though all the wines were good.  The person conducting the tasting was also free with recommendations of restaurants and other wineries to visit. 

Wines sampled:
2007 Sauvignon Blanc
2007 Costello Vineyard Chardonnay
2007 Proprietor’s Reserve Zinfandel
2007 Maple Vineyard Zinfandel
2006 Proprietor’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
2006 Cabernet/Syrah Port

Sbragia is a family owned winery founded by a long time winemaker at Beringers.  It is located at the far northern end of Dry Creek Valley.  The tasting room is located in a modern building that has stunning views of the valley.  There is a nice deck area where you can picnic while taking in the sites.  Like many of the wineries, there was a vineyard dog that greeted us. 

Wines sampled:
2006 Italo’s Zinfandel
2006 Gino’s Zinfandel
2006 La Promessa Zinfandel