Last week we attended the grand opening of the Peña Ridge Winery’s tasting room in Geyserville. Peña Ridge is a small 600-to-1000 case production winery owned by the Piccetti Family. The family owns vineyards on Bradford Mountain in the Dry Creek Valley and for years have been farming and selling their grapes to local wineries. A few years back the family decided it was time to get into the wine business and use their finest grapes to make Peña Ridge wines. John Piccetti, along with consultant winemaker Kerry Damskey, have teamed up to make some amazingly good wines. The wine is custom crushed at Everett Ridge winery. 
The next big step was to showcase their wines by partnering with three other wineries and Kerry Damskey to open the Terroirs Artisan Wines tasting room in Geyserville. The tasting room is exquisite but at the same time very cozy, with comfortable chairs set by a fireplace. There is also an outdoor area in the back of the tasting room where visitors can sit and have a picnic lunch.
At the grand opening there was a delicious array of salami and cheese and other goodies. John Piccetti’s day job is working for Columbus Salami Company. He is also a co-author of the book “Salumi: Savory Recipes and Serving Ideas for Salame, Proscuitto, and More.” But the main attractions of the day were the Peña Ridge wines. 2008 Sauvignon Blanc is the only non-estate wine and the only white wine produced. It is a beautiful wine crisp and refreshing. All the red wines are robust and very well structured and flavorful. Our favorite wine of the day was the 2004 Zinfandel. The Sauvignon Blanc sells for $18 and the reds range in price from $36 to $48.
The Artisan Tasting Room is open daily Sunday to Wednesday, 11:30 to 5:30 pm; and Thursday to Saturday, 11:30 to 6 pm.
Joe, It was good to see you at Nicole and John’s opening.
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Thanks so much!
Molly
Is there a link between Pena Ridge and Pena Vineyard? There Zinfandels made from Pena Vineyard which are interesting??