Larry Turley is a man with a mission. He started off in the 1970s as the co-founder of Frog`s Leap Winery, making Cabernets and Chardonnays. But over time he came to understand his interests lay elsewhere. By the early 1990s, when Cabernet was king in California, Larry had realised that one of the state`s great viticultural treasures was in danger of being lost; old vine Zinfandel plantings, often predating prohibiton, sometimes on original, ungrafted rootstock.
The Americas
The Americas
It was, of course the Americas that were the original New World, that now seems to be exclusively a wine construct. It's a large area of huge diversity with one common factor - workers from the majority Spanish and Portuguese part of the continent are the essential ingredient that allows the wine industry to develop and flourish. From British Columbia to Argentine Patagonia, vines are only tended because of a highly skilled Mexican and south American workforce.
- VarnerNo fuss, no drama might be the motto of twins Bob and Jim Varner and their eponymous winery tucked away in the Portola Valley. They’ve been planting vines there since the early eighties and receiving critical acclaim for just as long. Their techniques are simple, plant the best clones you can get, dry farm unfertilised impoverished soils and use no chemicals – they have insect controls rather than insecticide and hoe by hand instead of chemically cleansing their vineyards with soil deadening chemical blitzkriegs.
