Here’s the SCGGA SV AVA 2007 Map, Sonoma view:
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and finally, the SCGGA SV AVA 2007 Map legends:
I may be able to get access to the Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley maps (1998 and 2007) and if so I’ll upload them similarly.
Clyde FTW!
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Doesn’t show Frederick’s or Puccini. Was Fredericks once called Margit’s?
I don’t think it’s the one labeled Margit’s. The HVS page for Fredericks (Weiss) location is “Nelligan Road up Nuns Canyon”, which would put it on the north side of Calabazas Creek. Margit’s is on the south side. Also Everyvine shows Margit’s as the Sillitto vineyard with 9+ acres of cab. accessed from Trinity Rd. The Turley page for Fredericks says it’s “Just a mile and a half from the Napa border” which would put it way up on Nelligan or upper Nelligan Rd.
The Bedrock website says Puccini is “perched at 750’ above Shultz Road”. There’s one tiny vineyard candidate west of Shultz Rd (which runs west of Lawndale Rd, south of Kenwood) on google maps. There’s lots of obvious fire damage around it from the 2017 Nuns fire. It does appear to have a rock wall around it also, which matches Morgan’s description.
I’ve been there, the map just doesn’t list any vineyards up that way except for Margit’s, that’s why I asked.
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Excellent job uploading the map images, Clyde!!!
I will have to spend some time nerding out over them.
BTW, I received an offer for the Croix Estate Spring 2021 Release. Here’s what it says about the former “Rue Vineyard” and neighboring sites on Wood Rd in the Russian River Valley:
2019 “1904” Old-Vine Zinfandel, Croix Estate Vineyard, RRV:
"Our Croix Estate Vineyard Zinfandel is a heritage vineyard site. Planted in 1904, the original vineyard comprised of 39 acres planted in sections to Zinfandel, Carignan, Alicante Bouchet, Petite Sirah, and Mataro.
“Original owners Dina Arata, Ruth Carli, and Lilli Marsh farmed the vineyards up until 1946 when the vineyard was sold to Cattabriga Gaetano who renamed the contiguous property, Cattabriga Gaetano Estate.
"In 1973 the land was parceled and sold into three sections: Robert Rue Vineyard, Belloni Vineyard, and Chelli vineyard, all bearing the new owners’ names respectively. In 2016, Kirk Venge purchased the 10-acre Robert Rue Vineyard section, which consisted of 90% Zinfandel and 10% Alicante Bouchet…”.
Croix Estate website:
https://www.croixestate.com
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Beautiful weekend so we drove around Sonoma Valley and spotted some vineyards.
Here’s a shot of Puccini vineyard (Bedrock) in the distance (near the ridgetop) from Shultz Rd looking SW. The fir trees immediately west of it were incinerated in the 2017 Nuns fire, but the vineyard appears to be making a good comeback.
Here’s the Rossi vineyard nearby to the east on Lawndale Rd.
The recent Carlisle 2016 Rossi zin we had may have been the best zin so far this year, as in “why the heck are we bothering with anything other than Carlisle?”.
Here’s the Montecillo vineyard at the top of (one lane road) Upper Nelligan Lane, east of Kenwood, at about 1900’. The road is sketchy, but the views are really stunning from up there.
St. Francis makes a Montecillo zin that I’m hoping to try soon.
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Here’s the final installment on my SCGGA AVA maps: Dry Creek Valley, 1998 and 2007. No Alexander Valley maps, they’re lost to time.
As usual, sorry about the rotations when you click on them. Right click and save them then load them into any photo viewer to inspect.
SCGGA DCV AVA map 1998, full index view:
SCGGA DCV AVA map 1998, full view:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 1998, Healdsburg:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 1998, Legend 1:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 1998, Legend 2:
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SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007, Full index view:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007, Full view:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007 Healdsburg:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007 Rockpile:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007 Legend 1:
SCGGA DCV AVA Map 2007 Legend 2:
It’s an interesting exercise to try to sort out the Teldeschi vineyards. I believe “Teldeschi” vineyards are Ray Teldeschi (Carlisle) and “C. Teldeschi” is Catarina and John Teldeschi (Bedrock, Once & Future). The story of the Teldeschis is here:
https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2714691#p2714691
Ray’s two “Teldeschi” vineyards are 1) west of Preston winery and 2) just south of Forchini winery (but there’s a “C Teldeschi” vineyard between it and Forchini). This is probably the original OV vineyard that was split in 2 in the 1950s after Mike (Ray’s dad) and Frank (John’s dad) had their disagreement.
The HVS website says Teldeschi vineyard is spread across 3 ranches on the eastern bench. Bedrock’s web site has a long piece on the Teldeschis (Catarina and John). Catarina owns 5 separate vineyards totaling 70 acres. From the 1998 map there appears to be 5 “C. Teldeschi” vineyards:
- Just north of David Coffaro winery
- Just south of Forchini winery
- adjacent to the F Teldeschi winery (just north of the Dry Creek general store)
- in between the Amann vineyard (see HVS, St. Francis) and the Mauritson winery on Dry Creek Rd
- south of Armida winery east of Westside Rd.
I suspect #5 is planted to Chardonnay and is not an OV vineyard of course. The northernmost vineyard (#1) would appear to belong to John’s older sister, Nancy. From the Bedrock website it sounds like it is a modern vineyard planted to zin and ps by John. Vineyards #2-4 are of course on the eastern bench and are OV.
Also interesting is the (HVS) Puccioni vineyard out off of Mill Creek Rd. Have to wonder how it fared after the Walbridge fire last summer. I always wondered where it was, but it’s pretty obvious on Puccioni Rd, and it’s shown on everyvine.
HVS’s Gold Mine Ranch (Carlisle at one time) is shown as the Mettler vineyard on Brack Rd west of West Dry Creek Rd.
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The HVS page for the Belloni vineyard has this story…
“Belloni Vineyard, located in the Russian River Valley along Wood Road in the outskirts of Santa Rosa, was planted in the early part of the 20th Century. Catabriga, who owned the original vineyard, split it up and passed along each separate parcel (Chelli, Belloni and Rue) to his daughters. Ricardo Belloni, who grew up near Parma, Italy, purchased the vineyard from Eugene and Inez Muzio in 1971. Ricardo passed away in 1997 and his widow Natalia now manages the 7.5-acre vineyard, with the assistance of her children and grandchildren.”
Reading these 2 (kinda dissimilar) accounts, it seems like the Arata vineyard was once actually part of (or the same as) the adjacent Chelli vineyard and was much larger. Hartford bottles them separately as their Dina’s and Highwire bottlings. Their website says “Dina’s Vineyard was planted by the Arata family more than 100 years ago. Today only about five acres of gnarled, dry-farmed vines remain at the Arata home.” and “Over 100 years old, the Highwire Vineyard takes its name from the vineyard’s trellising systems: half of the parcel is head-trained and half is trained on a high wire trellis strung between each vine”. It goes on to say that Hartford purchased the Highwire vineyard from the Chellis (who implemented the highwire trellising and who still live on the property) in 2018. Their website video for Dina’s shows the remnant block next to the old Arata home next to Fulton Rd as well as remnant blocks adjacent to the Chelli vineyard to the west, on Wood Rd.
I still need to contact Hartford to see if they can clear this up.
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Excellent photos of some of Sonoma’s best off-the-main-road vineyards!
I often wonder how much of the “Val Rossi Ranch’s” old vines remain in the ground, as extensive replanting had to be carried out a while back. I believe the old Alicante Bouschet vines were ripped out, and replaced with Zin and Grenache. I am not certain, as my memory is unreliable.
Mike’s notes on the Rossi vineyard:
“after the death of Val Rossi in 1999, the vineyard fell into disrepair and many of the old vines were lost, including large tracts of Alicante Bouschet and Grand Noir. New owners have completed a massive renovation of the vineyard, preserving not just the remaining old vines but all the original structures as well.”
https://www.carlislewinery.com/rossi
It’s a beautiful drive, literally through the ranch right next to the barns and past the old farming implements.
Chris Loxton has some notes also:
https://www.loxtonwines.com/About-Us/Vineyards/Rossi-Ranch
If you look carefully at that picture of the Rossi vineyard that I posted above you can see that it has signage indicating it is a heritage block of Rossi zin on St. George planted in 1910.
Today, there are about 41 acres planted at Rossi Ranch. When I started working with the ranch in 1993, there were about 30 acres, all old vines (although there were plenty of misses). Today, about 9 acres of those 30 acres remain but the blocks making up these 9 acres have replants in them ranging from 50 to 75 percent. After Val’s death, a lot of the old vines were lost. The person leasing and farming the ranch at the time said the vines were dying because they missed Val. Utter nonsense. Driving a flatbed truck over the vines at harvest and negligent farming is what led to their demise. But Phil Coturri has made Rossi a premiere vineyard again and farms it with an old-vine attitude.
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Thanks for chiming in, Mike! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
The Carlisle “Rossi Ranch” Grenache always is a hit with family. I am about to go visit my brother & sister-in-law near Bentonville, Arkansas, now that we’re all vaccinated. My brother sent me a text message last night requesting some Carlisle Zin (too late). They particularly love your “Papera Vineyard” Zinfandel.
I have enjoyed Winery Sixteen 600’s red wines from the “Steel Plow Vineyard”, but have not had their “Rossi Ranch” red. I just read that Phil Coturri planted some Marsanne, Roussane, and Grenache Blanc at the old Val Rossi property in 2012, and now produce an “Val Rossi Hommage” white blend.
I wrote: “The recent Carlisle 2016 Rossi zin we had may have been the best zin so far this year”, but I meant 2015. ![[blush.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/6/69fdd33e0271fef98daa1424c2be1bf616ee7243.gif "blush"){kind=small}
Way too soon for 2016.
I was reading the June, 2021, issue of Wine & Spirits magazine, and was hoping you might be able to locate a vineyard for me.
The top-rated Zin from the Russian River Valley was the 2018 Buena Vista Viticultural Society “Antal’s Selection” Zinfandel. It was produced from “Baldocci Vineyard” fruit.
In an older post on the “Wood Road RRV Zin Vineyards?” thread, Buena Vista/DeLoach winemaker Brian Maloney stated the following:
“…The Antal’s is from Baldocchi in RRV just north of River Road to the west of Fulton.”
I performed Google searches using various spellings of this site (“Baldacci”, “Baldacchi”, and “Baldocci”).
· “Baldacci” - revealed that the +100-year-old vineyard was once a Tom Feeney property; a source of grapes for Starry Night - the same Wine Spies details mentioned on my earlier post about “Montafi”.
· “Baldacchi” - showed results for prior vintages of Buena Vista’s “Antal’s Selection” Zinfandel.
· “Baldocci” - featured as a vineyard-designated Zinfandel from Ledson; also the source of a UC Davis-approved Zinfandel Clone submitted by Robert Dempel. This info was reported in The Anderson Valley Advertiser as “Baldocci”, and in Wine Industry Advisor as “Baldocchi”!!!
Wine Industry Advisor
“Martinez Orchards Selected to Propagate, Sell Baldocchi Zinfandel Clone 29 Grapevines”
April 22, 2021
“…The history of the Baldocchi clone goes back some 65 years when Dempel became friends with Dewey and Irene Baldocchi. Baldocchi had a field of Zinfandel that dated back to Dewey’s parents planted in the late 1800s in Fulton, Sonoma County. Dempel remembered this and in the 1980s took samples from five vines to FPS at Davis and entered them into the certification program. After regular testing Dempel was able to obtain a small amount of the precious budwood again in 2020.”
The 1998 SCGGA Map includes two small vineyards within close proximity to one another around the spot identified above by Mr Maloney. One site is labelled on the newer (2007) map as “Tom Feeney Ranch”, the other as “Feeney’s Laughton Lane(?)”. Which do you think is the site of this mysterious old-vine Zinfandel planting?
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My guess is the Baldocci vineyard is the Feeney vineyard closest to River Rd, the one labeled on the 2007 SCGGA map as Tom Feeney Ranch. I say that because I remember in a post a month or so ago (in this thread?) Brian T. saying he drove by it as it was being ripped out and that Ledson was associated with it.
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Is this the post you are talking about?
Link
So the old-vine source of another critically acclaimed Russian River Zinfandel has been uprooted? If so, that’s pretty disappointing, if not surprising.
I found out that Dewey Baldocchi, whose vine material was submitted by Mr Dempel as prospective Clone Zin 29, participated in the Wine Library Association of Sonoma County’s Oral History Series:
Internet Archive
“Dewey Baldocchi”
Interviewed by Joseph Vercelli’ with G.M. “Puch” Puchilowsky
March 1982, Transcription 1994
Sonoma County Wine Library
Interview in “stream” format: Link
Unfortunately, the interview is focused primarily on the business side of early- to mid-20th Century Sonoma County wine production and grape-growing, a common theme in many of these older interviews (due to Prohibition’s impact on growers and producers).