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Business Detailed:
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Atascadero Creek is a small family owned winery in the Green Valley appellation of Sonoma County. It is owned and operated by winemaker Bob Appleby, with help from his wife Rosemary, a Sonoma county native. Bob moved to Sonoma county from the Los Angeles area in the early 1970's and received his degree in biology from Sonoma State College.
The winery had its beginnings in 1989, with the making of a single barrel of wine in a corner of his cabinet shop, where Bob has had his woodworking and furniture building business for the past 25 years. The results were gratifying, and Atascadero Creek was born. The amateur wines were well received, and by 1994 were regular entries in the Sonoma County Harvest Fair, where they accumulated 17 medals. When not busy making wine, other interests include building and playing acoustic guitars, restoring antique cars, and a passion for salmon fishing. Bob is also the consulting winemaker for two other Sonoma County Wineries. The winery is named for Atascadero Creek, which flows near their winery and residence property in Graton, and was bonded in 2001.
The winery specializes in small lots of vineyard designated red varietals, principally, Pinot Noir, Merlot, and Zinfandel. Our small lots of single vineyard grapes are de-stemmed without crushing. They are fermented in open-top fermenters, vigorously aerated during fermentation, and gently pressed in a hand-operated, wooden stave basket press. After aging from 12 to 24 months in French oak barrels, our wines are bottled and labeled by hand. All of our wines are unfiltered. Atascadero Creek has a small estate vineyard of Pinot Noir in the Green Valley appellation, and also makes Pinot Noir from other vineyards in the Sonoma Coast, Russian River Valley, and Chalk Hill appellations. Our Merlot comes from the Dry Creek Valley appellation, while our Zinfandels come from two separate dry farmed blocks in the Russian River Valley.
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