{"id":2148,"date":"2022-07-26T21:24:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T21:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2148"},"modified":"2022-07-26T21:24:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T21:24:41","slug":"a-rafanelli-winery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2148","title":{"rendered":"A. Rafanelli Winery"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have tasted a Rafanelli wine and if you did, it was probably in California and it was probably a Zinfandel, the wine they\u2019ve been best known for for decades.\u00a0 If you tell someone about what you tasted, they\u2019ll either give you a dull look indicating that they\u2019ve never heard of it or you\u2019ll get a knowing nod that says that you\u2019re now an initiate in a special club of Rafanelli admirers.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not a winery that\u2019s off the beaten path, since it sits on a hill along the well-travelled West Dry Creek Road.\u00a0 And while you can go there for a tasting, you will need an appointment, which is not that easily come by.\u00a0 (You even need an appointment to buy<\/em> wine.)\u00a0 When you go, you won\u2019t find yourself in a handsome tasting room with servers waiting on you.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be in the barrel room with a worker who will be back growing grapes or making wine as soon as you leave.\u00a0 Rafanelli is a throwback to an earlier era of wine tasting, one that is rapidly fading away as wine tasting has become a popular attraction for tourists.<\/p>\n

Sometime in the early 1900\u2019s, Alberto Rafanelli came over from Italy with his wife Letizia and planted vines.\u00a0 It\u2019s not clear whether those were Zinfandel grapes; in those days immigrant farmers planted whatever they could and mixed vines together in the fields.\u00a0 By mid-century, their son Americo had moved the winery to its current location and had focused on Zinfandel.\u00a0 From then to now, a Rafanelli Zin is a powerful, deep, fruit forward wine.\u00a0 Was Dry Creek Valley famous for Zinfandel before the Rafanelli\u2019s started cultivating it or did they cultivate it because the grape does well in Dry Creek.\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 And really, who cares except for the family itself.<\/p>\n

As a visitor, what you should care about is what they serve you.\u00a0 Some things you know in advance: It will be red wine.\u00a0 You\u2019ll certainly get to taste the Zinfandel.\u00a0 You\u2019ll get a feel for winemaking more than salesmanship.\u00a0 You will probably be given a little of their other wines, variously going from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon to a 60-40 Cabernet Sauvignon\/Merlot blend.\u00a0 Their top-rated wine, the Terrace Select, does not show up often in tastings (at least to our experience).<\/p>\n

You will be in a working winery when you visit, no palaces here.\u00a0 There is a loveliness about the location, though, sitting on a hill, surrounded by flowers.\u00a0 We have a particular fondness for springtime, when the hill is alive with daffodils.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s another factor that makes a visit to Rafanelli attractive.\u00a0 The management, winemaking and vineyard cultivation are in the hands Alberto\u2019s great-grandchildren.\u00a0 In this highly commercial age, it is rare to discover a family-owned winery, much less one that is carried on to the fourth generation.\u00a0 Though we don\u2019t know this as a fact, we believe that this tradition gives Rafanelli the freedom to make wines as they like them and not as some marketing department tells them to do.\u00a0 We\u2019re sure that the family hopes you like what they do, but they\u2019re going to continue to do it their way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have tasted a Rafanelli wine and if you did, it was probably in California and it was probably a Zinfandel, the wine they\u2019ve been best known for for decades.\u00a0 If you tell someone about what you tasted, they\u2019ll either give you a dull look indicating that they\u2019ve never heard of it or you\u2019ll … Continue reading A. Rafanelli Winery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}