I caught Guy Davis, owner and winemaker of Sonoma County’s Davis Family Vineyards, mid-harvest – running on adrenaline and about four hours of sleep, having spent the night before picking Pinot by headlamp ahead of a rainstorm.
I asked him what separates a good wine from a great one. He didn’t hesitate.
Guy Davis
“I wouldn’t put a cork in anything I wasn’t super elated about,” he told me. “Everything matters, no matter how small. The difference isn’t one or two techniques – it’s the accumulation of doing everything right, from organic biodynamic farming and grazing sheep to fertilize the vineyard, to the way we manage oxygen so we don’t need sulfites or additives. We’ve been making natural wine long before that term existed.”
It’s the answer you’d expect from a man who spent five harvests in France and made wine in New Zealand and Argentina – 30-some years chasing what he calls the “bullseye,” that elusive point where alcohol, acidity, tannin, aromas and flavors all line up.
When they do, Davis says, “that’s when you really smile big.”
That obsession with the small stuff is exactly what makes the lesser-known bottles at his Highlands tasting room, High Country Wine & Provisions on Highway 64 West, worth tracking down. This year’s small-lot arrivals – Durif, Mondeuse and Dolcetto – are available exclusively through Davis Family’s tasting rooms and wine club.
The Durif comes from century-old Sonoma County vines and is the grape historically bottled in California as Petite Sirah. Davis gives it extra hang time and carefully manages its formidable tannins; the result is unexpectedly rich and silky. Just 152 cases were made. The Mondeuse, a Savoie mountain grape, is built as a chillable red – 137 cases, bright red fruit over a darker undertone, meant to be served cool and allowed to warm in the glass. Davis swears it goes with everything on the Highlands Smokehouse menu next door (available to order from your table at High Country).
Guy and Cooper Davis
And the Dolcetto, sourced from a Russian River Valley vineyard Davis has known for decades, finally gets its own bottle after years as a supporting player in his Superiore blend. Bone dry and decidedly Old World in character, it layers red and blue fruit with blackberry, plum, violets and earthy spice, finishing softly on delicate tannins. There’s no new oak to get in the way.
High Country makes exploring them part of the fun. Daily flights place Davis wines beside their Old World counterparts – his Dolcetto alongside one from Piedmont, for instance, or Soul Patch Pinot Noir in a lineup that includes Burgundy.
The bigger news is downstairs where Davis is opening a speakeasy-style lounge this October with pool table, velvet couches, fire pits, access to the outdoor courtyard and premium wines by the glass. He sees it filling a Highlands niche: a relaxed place to settle in after an early dinner. Davis plans to be there himself most evenings.
Still, for Davis, all of this – the tasting rooms, the wine club, the hospitality – is really in service of the wine.
“I love this part so much,” he says of harvest and winemaking. “I do everything else to get to do this piece right now, to do the actual making of the wines.”
Harvest has taken on another dimension, too. Each vintage brings deeper mentoring of his son, Cooper. As Cooper’s skills have strengthened, father and son have increasingly been able to work in tandem, side by side – ensuring, as Davis puts it, “a healthy winery in 10 years, when my only job will likely be to enjoy High Country Provisions, making new friends and telling good stories.”
Getting there, of course, still means surrendering to the vintage.
“You sort of hand yourself to Mother Nature, and she’s gonna be the dance partner,” Davis says. “She hands you something completely different every single vintage. That’s part of the fun.”
And perhaps that explains the Durif, the Mondeuse, the Dolcetto – and whatever else is new he’s coaxing into the bottle but isn’t yet willing to tell me about.
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