Robert Biale Vineyards

Dino Amantite and his mother Norma Pagani Amantite are the devoted caretakers of this iconic and hallowed ground in Sonoma at Dunbar Road and Highway 12 that has been in their family for over a century. Planted originally in the 1880s then added to in the 1920s by Felice Pagani, most of the original vines still produce beautiful fruit. Much of it is field-blended: Zinfandel, Alicante, Lenoir, Petite Sirah, Grand Noir and numerous others -like a big old vine salad of many heritage varieties if you will.

This historic little vineyard of head-trained vines at the edge of town in Calistoga was planted by immigrant Argentina Falleri in 1924. The vineyard was maintained by Argentina’s daughter Olivia and today is cared for by Argentina’s granddaughter, Sonya Spencer. Biale has been producing wine from this vineyard since 1993, which all started when Bob drove by the vineyard and had the hawk eye for old, head trained vineyards. It just so turned out that these grapes were available and so the longstanding relationship began.

We are tremendously honored to be releasing this Zinfandel from the historic Limerick Lane Vineyard, located near Healdsburg at the northeast corner of the cool Russian River AVA. This vineyard was first planted in 1910. Today, the estate vineyard comprised of historic vines as well as newer plantings is owned by longtime grape grower and Biale fan Jake Bilbro. Jake is producing wines under the updated Limerick Lane label and is sharing small amounts of his prized fruit with only top producers.

The historic Silverado Trail runs north/south on the Eastern edge of the entire length of the Napa Valley. The southern section of “The Trail” lies close to the city of Napa and is quickly gaining recognition for producing many elegant, polished, and finely balanced wines from many varieties – red and whites – that speak to the region’s cool and hilly conditions. Zinfandel grows particularly well in the area producing wines with dark fruit and lush texture. The northern Napa Valley section of “The Trail” leads you to Calistoga, which is the furthest inland from the San Pablo Bay, creating hot summer days and the daily fog recedes earlier in the day. In the most southern sections of the Silverado Trail, now known as the Oak Knoll District, Carneros, and Coombsville, they are closer to the bay, where the climate is much cooler, breezier, and makes for a longer growing season. It has cooler nights and a longer incursion of the summer’s foggy marine layer. It was here in Oak Knoll in 1850 that Captain Joseph Osborne first planted Zinfandel in Napa Valley at his Oak Knoll Ranch, which by the way, was awarded Best Farm in California it its day. Aldo’s Vineyard, planted in 1937, and the historic R.W. Moore Vineyard, planted by Pleasant Stevens in 1905, still produce two of California’s most recognized and sought-after Zinfandels.

Next to Petite Sirah, Barbera may be the most underappreciated grape in California. In Napa Valley, where the “savage grape” Cabernet Sauvignon is king, Barbera is practically non-existent. Maybe that’s why we love the rare Gaudi Carli vineyard so much – we have a big soft spot for stray dogs. This one happens to have a huge heart plus pedigree. Barbera is one of the classic varieties of northern Italy and produces some of our favorite wines to serve with meals. At Gaudi Carli in Calistoga, we are dealing with a little patch of the only old vine Barbera we know of in Napa Valley and it is loaded with character. Who we have to thank for sticking with this 80 year-old vineyard is the Torrigino family, who together over decades, have kept the scant last acre of Gaudi Carli’s original vineyards going. Just amazing it’s still there…

In 1993, two years after we started the winery, Aldo converted a small vineyard block behind his house to Sangiovese and named it after his mother. It turned out to be so good that we broke from our Zinfandel course and added it to the Biale repertoire. An immigrant from northern Italy, Nonna, met her life partner Pietro Biale, also of northern Italy, while working in San Francisco. Together they saved and bought a small farm in Napa and raised walnuts, prunes, chickens, eggs, and of course Zinfandel grapes. When Pietro died in 1942, it was Cristina who took over the farming and kept the ranch going. What we’ve learned about Sangiovese is that it is prolific and needs to be kept in check. With that accomplished through some intensive farming, the wine takes on depth and complexity and vivid flavors. We’ve also found our Sangiovese to be cellar worthy – they age surprisingly well.

There’s nothing quite like it. Huge, twisting, gnarled, mountain-rooted Zinfandel vines with a view of Sonoma Valley, San Francisco, and the Bay Area - thriving plants that are still producing thrilling wines since their origins in the 1880s. Even the most jaded wine veterans are struck with awe upon seeing the great Monte Rosso Vineyard. Louis M. Martini purchased this lofty site on the Sonoma side of the Mayacamas shortly after Prohibition. Labeled originally as “California Mountain” Zinfandel, it became the source for many compelling, ageworthy, and underrated bottlings under Martini’s namesake label. The Martini Winery has shared some of the prized fruit over the decades with several Zinfandel winemakers, and the Monte Rosso Vineyard® has gone on to achieve legend status on the Martini label and on other labels, including Biale. At an average of about 1500’ elevation, with its reddish volcanic soils filled with rock and iron, Monte Rosso speaks clearly and firmly as to its sense of place. Sometimes wine newbies wonder what all the fuss is about in red wines, but this is one of those examples of fine red so filled with tantalizing character that you can’t help but sit back, sip slowly, and ponder the power of the site. Try visualizing those pioneering laborers digging into a remote Californian mountainside simply in order to grow delicious wine. To Biale, Monte Rosso is a national treasure and we are proud to be one of the fortunate winemakers to craft a classic from this rare repository of some of America’s most historic grapevines. Long live Monte Rosso®!

Aldo’s father Pietro Biale, an immigrant from a village near Genoa, began farming Zinfandel on Mt. Veeder at the Gier Ranch during prohibition, then several years later on their own property in Napa in 1937. Sadly, Pietro died not long thereafter in an accident while working at a rock quarry – leaving young Aldo and his mother, Cristina, to run the ranch. For decades, Aldo, Cristina and the Biale family kept their Zinfandel tradition going by preserving and nurturing these nearly 80 year old vines in what is now Napa Valley’s Oak Knoll District. These are the oldest vines in Oak Knoll and are close by to where Captain Osborne was the first to plant Zinfandel in Napa Valley in 1860. Throughout the season, cane by cane, shoot by shoot, leaf by leaf and bunch by bunch, each vine is tended by hand to ensure grapes of integrity, evenness of color, full ripeness and pure Zinfandel flavors. As was the practice in the old days, a sprinkling other varieties are found throughout the vineyard: Petite Sirah, Abouriou, Carignane, Grand noir, Tempranillo, Refosco, Gamay, and even Golden Chasselas.

It’s a gratifying feeling knowing we helped to save a piece of Napa Valley vineyard history. Franz Kraft was a prominent winemaker in the earliest days of St. Helena in the period around 1860. His vineyards and winery were on the west side of town on Madrona Avenue. The iconic old native stone winery is now a cellar for the acclaimed Spottswoode Winery and most of the original old vineyards have been replaced – except for an old patch to the north of the winery that is part of the family estate of Bill and Margie Hart. Instead of tearing out the original Zinfandel and Petite Sirah vines that were planted in the 1890s, Bill and Margie decided to go with the recommendation of vineyard guru Bill Pease who saw potential in the craggy, twisted plants. Bob Biale was brought in to assist and a project ensued to revitalize this rare swath of winemaking history. Bill and Margie agreed to sell all the fruit to Biale with the hope of one day being able to vinify and vineyard-designate this historic wine. Starting in 2002, drainage, irrigation, soil amendments, pruning, and inter-planting were utilized to bring the vineyard back to productive health, and in 2006 the wine had progressed to the point of being worthy as a new special bottling among the series of Biale Zinfandels. A number of Petite Sirah vines were also part of the vineyard and wine from those grapes has the potential to become a Biale bottling as well.

This is something of a golden era for Zinfandel. Old vines and historic sites that were long overlooked and nearly forgotten over decades are enjoying new notoriety among sommeliers and wine-lovers as our peer group of devout Zinfandel winemakers work to take Zinfandel to new heights. We know that Zinfandel, when treated expertly on proven historic sites, produces red wines that hold their own among the world’s more famous European varieties. (We do know now that Zinfandel is an ancient grape whose origin was along the Adriatic coast and goes back centuries in Central Europe.) And let’s say it: Zinfandel simply provides more smiles per bottle than any other red wine. Period. One of the oldest and grandest Zinfandel vineyards of them all is situated in the heart of Sonoma Valley. It traces back to the Civil War era, was replanted in the 1880’s under the ownership of Senator George Hearst, and came under its new ownership in the 2000’s. Father and son, Joel and Morgan Peterson, took over what had been known as the Madrone Ranch, renamed it Bedrock, and began the long process of carefully restoring it to its former health and glory. Several top Zinfandel winemakers were invited to share fruit from the various blocks on this sizeable ranch that includes not only old Zinfandel vines, but Carignane, Alicante, Petite Sirah, Mataro and various other forgotten varieties that the old winemakers loved to plant together in a field blending system called “mixed blacks.” Our Bedrock Zinfandel comes from a select block of non-irrigated 1880’s vines that still kick out some delicious grapes.

Sourced from the same family vineyard that Aldo, Nonna, Bob Biale and the Biale family have farmed their whole lives, with additional grapes from our neighboring winery vineyard in the Oak Knoll District, Black Chicken stands as the ultimate expression of Zinfandel from the cool southern Napa Valley, and perhaps the most famous icon of Napa Valley Zinfandel in general.

Historic Hagen Road runs east-west across Napa Valley’s Coombsville Appellation. Close to San Francisco Bay, this newly recognized rural district near the city of Napa is quickly gaining recognition for producing many elegant, polished, and finely balanced wines from many varieties – red and whites – that speak to the region’s cool and hilly conditions in southern Napa Valley. The Moore Vineyard lies smack dab in the district’s middle on Hagen Road adjacent to Sarcos Creek with a looming Mt. George to the east. This is where the family of a seafarer by the name of Pleasant Ashley Stevens planted vines in 1905. Most of those vines still exist today thanks to the dedicated farming and wisdom of Bill Moore, a retired orthodontist, who purchased the property as his first home in the 1980s. This is the oldest vineyard in Coombsville and amazingly enough – the region’s only Zinfandel. This vineyard is especially important to the wine industry now as its genetic heritage is being carefully preserved and propagated through the U.C. Davis Heritage Vineyard project. In other words, the genetic material from these historic vines is being saved for future generations of winemakers. In the meantime, we get to enjoy the immense pleasures that this Zinfandel brings.

This delicious Zinfandel is a tribute to the wine pioneers of Napa Valley who were the first to plant Zinfandel. Across the board they selected vineyard sites that modern soil-savvy winemakers would consider ideal. We now appreciate that the original winemakers knew what they were doing by planting vines on the more elevated, rocky, gravelly, and sloped terrain that is so prized today by those who are pursuing greatness in wine. In this case, Founding Farmers is sourced mainly from grapes grown at Varozza Vineyard, and Old Kraft Vineyard – two of the oldest estates in St. Helena.

Just east of the historic Silverado Trail near the town of Napa, lies an old Zinfandel vineyard that is one of our favorite historic family stories in Napa Valley. Dorothy Rossi and her son, Tony Rossi, take care of an old-vine vineyard that was planted by Dorothy’s father, Theodosio Grande, in 1920–the same year that Dorothy was born! This family tradition is a classic example of what gave birth to the international stature that today’s Napa Valley now enjoys. At the turn of the 20th Century, immigrants settled in California’s rural valleys to farm fruits and vegetables, livestock, poultry, raise their own food, and grow wine grapes, mostly Zinfandel, (and Petite Sirah) to sell to winemakers and to make their own wine. Zinfandel was the consensus favorite among wine growers in early California: a hearty producer and highly flavorful grape that was perfectly suited to the healthy soils and sunny climate of California.

The historic Silverado Trail runs north/south on the Eastern edge of the entire length of the Napa Valley. The southern section of “The Trail” lies close to the city of Napa and is quickly gaining recognition for producing many elegant, polished, and finely balanced wines from many varieties – red and whites – that speak to the region’s cool and hilly conditions. Zinfandel grows particularly well in the area producing wines with dark fruit and lush texture. The northern Napa Valley section of “The Trail” leads you to Calistoga, which is the furthest inland from the San Pablo Bay, creating hot summer days and the daily fog recedes earlier in the day. In the most southern sections of the Silverado Trail, now known as the Oak Knoll District, Carneros, and Coombsville, they are closer to the bay, where the climate is much cooler, breezier, and makes for a longer growing season. It has cooler nights and a longer incursion of the summer’s foggy marine layer. It was here in Oak Knoll in 1850 that Captain Joseph Osborne first planted Zinfandel in Napa Valley at his Oak Knoll Ranch, which by the way, was awarded Best Farm in California it its day. Aldo’s Vineyard, planted in 1937, and the historic R.W. Moore Vineyard, planted by Pleasant Stevens in 1905, still produce two of California’s most recognized and sought-after Zinfandels.

This vineyard is one of Biale’s little gems - a beautiful Zinfandel from a small inconspicuous site just outside the town of Sonoma, off Napa Road. Technically this vineyard lies just within the northern boundary of the Carneros Appellation which makes it very rare indeed – one of only a few Zinfandels and certainly the oldest existing vineyard within this AVA (American Viticultural Appellation). Carneros (meaning “rams” in Spanish), lying close to San Pablo Bay, has a particularly cool, breezy and foggy maritime climate with soils that were formed millennia ago when it once was submerged by an inland sea. Occasionally fossilized sea shells can be found among the rocks and soils of Carneros vineyards. Easy access for barges and boats and excellent agricultural conditions made Carneros a prime source for all types of produce and meats that were supplied to early San Francisco – grapes being among the most in demand. The Valsecchi Vineyard is named for John Valsecchi, who after a life of dairy work, retired to farm the old Zinfandel vineyard near Sonoma he had purchased that was planted around 1900. Under the prideful and loving care of Valsecchi’s grandson, Ron Mick, the vineyard has survived with its ton or two of grapes going to Biale since 1995. Hidden behind a farmhouse, you would never notice this patch of twisting and weathered old vines. Now - Valsecchi in the glass -you would sit up and take notice!