Saracina Vineyards

John Fetzer and Patty Rock
Owners

John Fetzer's career in the wine industry spans nearly a half century, from his early childhood working in the vineyards at the 1000-acre Fetzer home ranch in Redwood Valley, California, to his ascendancy to the position of CEO of Fetzer Vineyards in 1981 at the age 35. Under his leadership, Fetzer Vineyards' production grew by double digits each year, from 200,000 cases in 1981 to over 2.5 million cases in 1992.

After he sold Fetzer Vineyards to Brown-Forman in 1992, John focused on his vineyards and land-development projects and, in 2001, joined forces with his wife, Patty Rock, to make Saracina wines. Only half jokingly, John admits that, "you have to sell a big winery to build a small winery today."

Saracina is a 600-acre bio-diverse property encompassing three ranches located in Hopland, California. With 300 acres in vineyards, the property's openness and unspoiled yet well-tended beauty are unique in Mendocino County. The main ranch is home to Saracina Vineyards, a small-production, state-of-the-art winery open to wine club members and guests by appointment, and to the first wine caves in Mendocino County, carved out of solid rock over a two-year period.

Reminiscent of the rural character of Napa Valley 25 years ago, the ranches are populated with sheep and goats roaming the hillsides, groves of 100-year-old olive trees, pomegranate orchards, bamboo gardens, hiking trails, a wild azalea canyon, organic vegetable gardens, and four ponds that attract herons, Canadian geese and myriad animal life. The owners are committed to preservation of the land and the rivers, including the Russian River which runs through one of the ranches, rather than clear-cutting every available acre for vineyards.

Saracina was named after a centuries-old farmhouse and vineyards in Tuscany where Owners John Fetzer and Patty Rock spent their honeymoon in the late 1990s. Atrea wines are made at John Fetzer’s Saracina Vineyards by winemaker Alex MacGregor. Saracina wines are always “varietal” wines such as their extremely popular Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah. Atrea wines, whose name is a play on the word “atria” or chambers of heart (same pronunciation) and also the name of the ranch where the grapes are grown are interesting, even quirky blended wines such as I’ve included in this selection. The tag line for their Old Soul Red and Choir wine is “Atrea: Wines with soul from the heart of Mendocino.”