{"id":64,"date":"2015-03-21T20:30:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-21T20:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=64"},"modified":"2015-12-23T21:16:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T21:16:35","slug":"visiting-david-coffaro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=64","title":{"rendered":"Visiting David Coffaro"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early in the year 2000, Steve found a wallet in a New York taxi. Checking the contents, he found that the owner lived in Windsor, CA. He called, left a message on the answering machine and shortly after received a call from the rightful owner. When that fellow came to pick up his wallet, he offered Steve a reward, which was refused. Then, a few weeks later, a box with three bottles arrived in Steve\u2019s office, a gift from the wallet-owner. One of these was from David Coffaro Estate Vineyard in Dry Creek (http:\/\/www.coffaro.com<\/span><\/a>); in an accompanying note, the man described David Coffaro as a \u201cmad genius\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to mid-September of that year. Steve and Lucie took their first trip to Wine Country together and stopped at a rather ordinary-looking house at the intersection of Dry Creek Road and Yoakim Bridge Road. A bearded guy in sandals, shorts and a sleeveless tee shirt asked what we wanted. We said we were there for a tasting and he said that the tasting room was closed for the harvest. Steve pleaded a bit and said that Lucie had come all the way from Qu\u00e9bec and that we\u2019d heard that Mr. Coffaro was a \u201cmad genius\u201d. The man replied, \u201cI don\u2019t know about genius, but I\u2019m sure I\u2019m mad. So come on, I\u2019ll open a bottle and have the rest for dinner.\u201d That, of course, was David Coffaro. If you ever want to experience the \u201cmadness\u201d of a unique winemaker, this is the winery for you.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been back many times. We\u2019ve even joined the Coffaro wine club. And every time we see David, he\u2019s wearing that same outfit. (To be fair, one time in December he abandoned the sandals for sneakers.) The winery is little more than an oversized garage with a lot of barrels in it. The tasting area is a small bar in one corner, festooned with memorabilia of Mohammed Ali and the Oakland Raiders. The back of the winery\/garage has a sofa and a huge screen. It seems that David and his wife, Pat, like to show movies now and again for the neighbors. Not your typical tasting room but, hey, it\u2019s decorated in Mad Genius Deco.<\/p>\n

And then there are the wines. Everybody has a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Zinfandel; so does Coffaro. Believe us, nobody else is making blends that include grapes such as Aglianico, Souzao, Lagrein, Alvarelhao, Peloursin, Carignan, Barbera and Tannat. No one else is even growing most of those grapes, so a visit at Coffaro gives you the opportunity to taste some wines not available anywhere else. And as long as the bottles are in stock, you\u2019ll have the chance to taste an amazing variety of wines, from the usual things to the truly unique.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll generally have a chance to chat with David himself, or if not, with his assistant winemaker. Once, again during the crush, we visited and there were some vats of freshly squeezed juice bubbling away at the door. David handed us a stick and said, \u201cThat vat is fermenting too quickly. Go break the cap.\u201d So we became \u201cassistant winemakers<\/em>\u201d for the day. He also handed us each a plastic glass and invited us to taste the juice.<\/p>\n

If things aren\u2019t too busy \u2013 and sometimes even if they are \u2013 David will say, \u201cHow about a barrel tasting?\u201d He\u2019ll walk you over to some barrels, grab a wine thief and pour a little of this or that in your glass. After you\u2019ve tasted it, he\u2019ll add a little of that or this and ask you how you like it. Now you\u2019ve joined his research department.<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing you may notice is that all Coffaro wines have screw caps. David Coffaro is an evangelist for screw caps and was one of the first in California to use them. He has been a strong voice promoting the replacement of corks for screw caps. He strongly believes that wine can age as well with a screw cap as with a cork, without the risk of spoilage. (Steve shares that opinion but Lucie prefers the corks even if we unfortunately sometimes get some corked wines.)<\/p>\n

David is also the \u201cweather man\u201d of Dry Creek. He installed a weather data station in his vineyards. The data is uploaded to his website every 15 minutes and is available through his website.<\/p>\n

All of Coffaro\u2019s wines are huge, powerful and rather high in alcohol. Most are estate grown, right in the backyard. There are better wines to be tasted, but there are few tastings that are as unique or more fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early in the year 2000, Steve found a wallet in a New York taxi. Checking the contents, he found that the owner lived in Windsor, CA. He called, left a message on the answering machine and shortly after received a call from the rightful owner. When that fellow came to pick up his wallet, he … Continue reading Visiting David Coffaro<\/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\/64"}],"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=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}