TASTEMAKERS
Family-Run Wineries People Keep Naming
From Spill
22 wineries
We said we wanted family-run wineries properly represented and asked for favourites. The replies went global inside an hour.
That surprised us slightly. The assumption behind the question was California. What came back included Gaillac, Veneto, Mendoza, Marlborough and the Rhone.
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California
Donelan, Read Holland, Patz and Hall, Rexford, Schermeister, Roche, Lang and Reed, Larson, Rodney Strong, Paradise Ridge, Cline and Muscardini. Some are three people and a barrel room. Some have been running long enough to have a second generation making the calls. Brashley up in Anderson Valley rounds it out.
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Further afield
Bergström farms in the Dundee Hills. Domaine du Moulin de Foulot works in Burgundy. Zenato is Veneto, Ernesto Catena is Mendoza, Allan Scott is Marlborough, Chateau de Saint Cosme is in the southern Rhone. Wargin Wines nominated itself, which we allowed, because a winemaker who reads the room and speaks up has already told you something about how they run the place.
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Why family-run keeps mattering
It is not a quality guarantee and we would not pretend otherwise. Large houses make brilliant wine and small ones make ordinary wine. What a family operation reliably changes is the odds that the person pouring has a stake in whether you enjoy it.
That is the part people were nominating. Not the farming model, the feeling of being somewhere that belongs to somebody.
Hours, tasting notes and current details for every one of these are on Spill.
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