Monday we drove east over the mountains from Anderson Valley to Ukiah and a little further east to the little town of Talmage for a meeting with John Chiarito, owner/winemaker of Chiarito Vineyard and Winery. John is a real renaissance man. He built the house, which eventually became the winery, with his own hands, including some very innovative design ideas using concrete. The property was an abandoned walnut grove, which John cleared himself and planted about 3 acres of vines, including Zinfandel and Petite Sirah, and two southern italian varietals: Negroamaro from Puglia, and Nero D’Avola from Sicily. Chiarito is currently the only California winery producing these two varietals commercially. John showed us around the estate and talked about converting the basement of the house into his wine production facility, building a two sided outdoor italian style brick oven, and converting his shop into his case goods warehouse. Did I mention that he also makes his own proschiutto? There were two legs hanging up in the cellar, almost ready to go. Of course, John makes the wine as well. The wines were all very well made, with depth and complexity. We tasted two Zinfandels, a Negroamaro, a Nero D’Avola and a Petite Sirah. You can find WiseGuy’s tasting notes on these wines by clicking here. I asked John how he set his price for the Italian varietals since he’s the only California producer. He explained that the Nero D’Avola was put in a blind tasting of 11 Nero D’Avola bottlings, ten from Italy and his own wine. Eight of the eleven tasters (area winemakers) selected John’s wine as their first choice (John chose his own wine as his second place) so he set the price accordingly. Oh yeah, he makes a great loaf of ciabatta as well as growing olives, figs and walnuts. John was a gracious host - true to Italian style! John - Ringraziamenti e successo continuato a voi!

Next on the agenda was a visit with Casey Hartlip, owner/winemaker of Eaglepoint Ranch up on the mountain above Talmage. WiseGuy used to purchase Eaglepoint Ranch Pinot Noir - the one with the single California Poppy on the label - that was sold out of the Scharffenberger tasting room in Philo. Casey took us up to a Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard up on top with a beautiful view of the Ukiah valley where his crew was pruning. Going into his 31st harvest this year, Casey explained that much experimentation has gone on at the ranch over the past 30 vintages - relocating or changing varietals, changing pruning techniques, using natural predators for pest control, and so forth. Casey uses cane pruning on the Cabernet vineyard shown here. The technique selects the best canes to remain on the vine instead of pruning all the way down to the vine itself, which seems to work well in this particular situation. Eaglepoint has many microclimates due to the many different elevations, exposures and soil types contained within, and each microclimate merits its own unique method of viticulture. Casey has spent years bringing the vineyards up to their current state, and this care and attention to detail shows in the wines that he makes. WiseGuy’s write ups on the Eaglepoint Ranch wines can be found here. Casey also is one of the founders of the Coro Mendocino program. Coro Mendocino is the first wine of its type in America - a wine that has to meet specific production standards and has to pass a peer evaluation tasting prior to its acceptance as a Coro wine. To say that Casey is dedicated to this project would be a ridiculous understatement. For evidence of his dedication, click here. His version of Coro leans toward a rhone style. WiseGuy has had the opportunity to taste the Coro offerings from four different producers, and so far the Eaglepoint is the favorite.

We wrapped up our visits for the day at Saracina Ranch, located just north of Hopland on the west side of the 101. Owner John Fetzer and winemaker Alex MacGregor gave us the grand tour. Saracina is the first winery in Mendocino county to dig an aging cave, which was quite a project - digging through ridiculously hard Franciscan shale took much longer than hoped - but the results are fantastic. We sampled some of the new wines from barrels including the ’08 Sauvignon Blanc from the Lolonis Vineyard and the ’07 Sawyer Vineyard