Peterson Winery belongs to Fred Peterson, who came to wine the long way (South San Francisco, the U.S. Navy, years as a part-time fireman) and spent a long stretch working for Paul Draper at Ridge before striking out on his own. In 1980 he cleared and planted the Bradford Mountain Estate Vineyard on the western edge of Dry Creek Valley, at more than twelve hundred feet, and began making wine under his own name later that decade. He is candid enough to accept being called ‘the poor man’s Ridge,’ and means it as company he is glad to keep. The wines are unfined, unfiltered, and made in small lots.
Bradford Mountain Estate Zinfandel: the flagship, grown at altitude on the vineyard Fred planted in 1980.
Zero Manipulation Red: a Carignane–Grenache–Syrah blend named for the house philosophy.
3V White Blend: an estate field blend of Vermentino, Vernaccia, and Verdelho.
Mendo Blendo: an easygoing Redwood Valley red that shifts with the vintage.
Small lots, unfined and unfiltered, from fourteen varieties on the Bradford Mountain estate.
The family calls its method Zero Manipulation: low-tech, high-touch, no fining or filtering, no tweaking one vintage to taste like the last. Fred’s son Jamie, who learned in the cellar as a teenager and made wine in Australia and New Zealand before coming home, took over as winemaker in 2006 and is now working on his third decade of harvests. The estate grows fourteen varieties at altitude, and the range runs wide: four Zinfandels, a field-blend white of Vermentino, Vernaccia, and Verdelho, odd small-lot reds. The tasting room is a working building at the Timber Crest complex, open by appointment and to weekend walk-ins.
