A Night Out with Wine Spectator

Only Carlisle (a small Santa Rosa winery) is really getting the big scores from Parker for Dry Creek Valley wines. So, Dry Creek wineries could make more wines like Mike's to (perhaps) get bigger Parker scores.

Unfortunately, most Dry Creek wineries make every varietal that a passing consumer might like to buy. How many of these wines are excellent? Very few. I'm not saying they're bad, but very few of the best wineries in the world make wines from more than three varietals. Dry Creek needs to focus on just a few varietals and make the best possible wines from these two or three varietals, rather than trying to sell chard or chenin to every car passing by.

Frankly, I don't think it would be dull if the quality of the wines went up a big notch in Dry Creek.

The whole subject is an interesting one. And, in many respects, I completely agree with you Jack. If we were starting the winery today, we'd definitely only make a few wines. But that isn't feasible for a winery like Dry Creek Vineyard with a 36 year history. While we've eliminated a bunch of wines in recent years, we've also chosen to stick with others but only if we could ratchet up the quality dramatically. That has been our sole goal; make the most exciting wines we can no matter what. And, only make what we're passionate about. For ex. with Chardonnay, we cut the production by 50% and moved all our vineyards to Russian River Valley. That combined with awesome winemaking talent, the right barrels, etc. is turning heads again for our Chardonnay. (And, you'd be hard pressed to find a better one at $20 too! Just my humble opinion.) But I know what you mean, since the varietal doesn't excel here, the fact that we're making it from our vineyards in RRV, does nothing to help the DC Valley. Same is true for our Chenin, but damn, that wine is delicious and it would be a crying shame to stop producing it just because the grapes aren't grown here. I think it also comes down to passion. We make what we're passionate about. And, I think that's how it is for most winemakers. So as long as passion is what fuels us, we'll continue to see a variety of wines coming out of this area.

I think the thumb was from a timber harvester song by James Stevens 1951:
"I see that you're a logger,
And not a common bum,
For no one but a logger
Stirs coffee with his thumb."

full lyrics, chords, key of C.

Price point is key for the DCV label's concept, traditionally, and similarly so for many of the longtime growers in Dry Creek Valley. For zin, I would contemplate some sourcing from vineyards with elevation, though soils become an issue; maybe Laughlin series would have enough perc. For me one of the pointscore hurdles with zin relates to the attributes of fruit from oldvines grown at altitude. For the AVA, I thought DCV's early design of its products was apt.

As for the thumb, better than the boot volatiles, if I had to select a standard of excellence.