Ricci Vineyards
Get the Dirt from Tyler Kohfeld
“We are farmers first and foremost, but having something tangible that can be shared with others and to be able to say “this is us and this is what we do” is a really cool feeling. ”
What was your first vintage year? 2018 was the first year we started making wine on our own. We’ve been growers in Sonoma since 1982.
How many cases do you make per vintage? Right around 450.
Do you have a Tasting Room? We do not have a tasting room presently, but we’re working on it!
If not you, who is your winemaker?
Michael Lancaster made our rosé and Pinot Noir; Michael Cruse made our first vintage of St. Laurent.
What wine made you want to become a winemaker/start your own winery?
Our owner, Dale Ricci, always had ambitions to create his own label but with the demands of running the vineyard he didn’t have the time or resources to do so. For me, being Dale’s step-son and also working in the industry at a different winery, I felt I had the ability to showcase our family’s legacy in a bottled form. We are farmers first and foremost, but having something tangible that can be shared with others and to be able to say “this is us and this is what we do” is a really cool feeling.
What varietals do you work with? Which varietal/wine is your favorite to make? Why?
Since I am not making the wine myself I can’t really speak to which varietal is my favorite to work with. However, I will say that I think our most unique wine has to be our St. Laurent. St. Laurent is a pretty obscure varietal domestically but it grows well in colder climates, like we have in Carneros, and is very popular in wine regions like the Czech Republic and Austria. In fact, when we introduced St. Laurent to our vineyard back in 2000, we were the first growers to feature the varietal on a commercial basis in the United States.
From a wine and tasting perspective, St. Laurent has this polarizing effect in that people don't know what to make of it right away or absolutely fall in love with it. Personally, I think it has this real gamey, savory element to it that is super unique and can probably best be described as a deranged, funky Pinot Noir-Syrah hybrid. The more I drink it, the more amazed I am on how complex a wine it is.
What vineyards do you source from? Why? If Estate, why do you choose your location?
We source all of our fruit from our own vineyard in Carneros. Dale Ricci, our owner, picked this region to start his vineyard operation mostly because he realized the untapped potential that Carneros had from a grape-growing perspective. Back in 1982, when the vineyard was first planted, there weren’t a whole lot of other existing vineyards in the region and even financial lenders wouldn’t give Dale a loan to start growing grapes because they didn’t see it as a viable use of the land.
I feel like our presence in Carneros is like a badge of defiance and determination that we wear with pride.
What type of oak treatment do you use? Why?
Our rosé receives no oak, but our Pinot Noir and St. Laurent were aged in neutral French oak for about 12 months. Stylistically I don’t love when oak elements overwhelm a wine, so we wanted our oak treatment to be subtle and nuanced.
For our next vintage of St. Laurent, 2019, we plan to introduce a barrel of Hungarian oak into our program. The oak forest where the barrel is made is right on the border of Hungary and Austria, and being that St. Laurent is known as an Austrian varietal, this presents a new element in the storytelling of our wine. We’re pretty excited about it and can’t wait to see how it affects the overall results.
What do you love about your winemaking region? What makes it different special?
In my opinion, Carneros is somewhat of an anomaly. It is still somewhat unknown and overlooked by the overall wine-drinking community, but it also produces absolutely fantastic fruit and amazing wines. The larger parts of Sonoma and Napa have been subdued by commercialization, but Carneros has maintained this unique niche of untamed ruggedness. You get this feeling that very little has been tarnished by corporate takeover and that the individuals growing grapes and making wine here are doing so because they want to share their livelihood and what the land has to offer, not because they want to sell $150 bottles of “designer” wine.
What’s the story behind your winery name / label?
There’s no real story on the winery name as it’s just the last name of our family, but the actual labels on the bottles are (we think) intriguing. The labels of each varietal we make incorporate an unassuming feature of our property and gives us a way to tell our brand story in an unconventional way.
For example, our rosé bottles have an image of an old water pump tower that was used to fill a trough for grazing cattle. The water pump has been out of commission for a long time, but the image is a homage to when the property was used by our family as a dairy.
What's the one thing you wish someone had told you about the wine business before you started your own winery?
I guess the one thing, which I had heard about going into this venture, was that the easy part of this whole process is making the wine; the hard part is actually finding an audience that wants to buy your product. Having a wine that tastes amazing doesn’t set you apart; it is more how you can convey your story and the effectiveness of how people connect with that story that truly leads to success.
Most importantly, what's so great about being small? What can you do as a small winemaker, that wouldn't be possible for larger wineries?
Small producers have a real advantage of being able to control all aspects of their operation. To a large extent, we can make wine that personally appeals to us and not have to cater to the trends of the bigger wine-drinking community at-large. I also think that large wineries don’t want to take risks in experimenting with unusual or relatively unknown varietals. With small wineries, that is what really sets us apart; you can find really cool wines that the big, faceless producers are afraid to make.
How do you view the future in the wine industry for small-lot winemakers?
It is becoming increasingly more obvious that the dynamics of the wine industry are drastically changing. With younger drinkers having more options in terms of beer, spirits AND wine, the overall piece of the pie that wine producers have to share is shrinking. Baby Boomers are slowing their consumption/purchasing, so I think more of a focus has to be on the younger generations for wine sales.
For Millennials and other similarly-aged consumers, I believe they want to have more vested connections with the brands they engage with. Approachability and storytelling are huge components when it comes to really identifying with these groups. The smaller producers have a tremendous advantage of being able to "get down in the dirt" and establish strong bonds with these consumers and emphasize that it isn't just 'our' wine they are drinking; in a sense, it can be their wine too. This is what the small producers are going to have to do more if they want to find success for the future.
If you could choose another wine region to work in what would it be? Why?
Wow. That's really tough. Since Carneros is primarily known for Pinot Noir, I would maybe say Oregon or Washington because they are renowned for Pinot Noir as well, but the style is so different. Pinot Noir is one of my favorite wines, so it would be really cool to have experience working in a familiar, but very contrasting, environment.
New Zealand would also be insanely awesome. I've never been and it would be an amazing experience just to be there.