Friends of the Earth Organic Wine Guide
(excerpt from Organic Wine Guide by Monty Walden)

Coturri Winery is another organic Californian domaine with roots in the 1960s. In 1963 it became the property of Harry Coturri, a businessman from San Francisco. Coturri had made the family wine with his father and began making wine from fruit grown in surrounding vineyards with the help of his two sons. They now run the business - Phil as vineyard manager and Tony as winemaker. Coturri's own vineyards include Glover Vineyards, Judges Vineyards and Views Land Vineyards. All are farmed organically but not all are registered with CCOF. This is a question of politics rather than of practice (i.e., because CCOF's main role now is inspection rather than, as it used to be, a mechanism for information exchange between growers at local level).

The wines, mainly red, are made in a wooden farm shed with little insulation, For reds the grapes are picked and sorted by hand before crushing into small one ton (or smaller) fermentation vats made of the local redwood oak. The juice ferments on the grape skins with natural yeast. The skins are pressed in a basket press. The wines are bottled without fining agents, filtration or the addition of sulphur dioxide preservative (sulphites). The results are wines so rich in pure tasting fruit that they are unique in the context of this book. The secret of such natural wine, says Tony Coturri, is to keep the scale small and to use good grapes (here that means grapes with good physiology - a ripe colour and firmness to the skins). It means also maturing the wine in barrels which are kept clean and topped up, and relying on the ripe tannins and the alcohol present in the wine to act as a natural preservative. The Coturris advise those who buy their wines on how best to store them with regard to temperature and humidity levels by precise instructions on the label.

Comparable wines from Europe include Chateau Meylet in St Emilion Bordeaux, Domaine Saint-Apollinaire in the Rhône and Domaine Eugène Meyer in Alsace.

• Alberello Sonoma Red, Sonoma Valley AVA: dry red, sourced from a vineyard planted in south-east Sonoma Valley in the 1930s using a head pruned (i.e., low pruned, or albarello in Italian) system. The varieties were mixed at planting to leave approximately 40 per cent Zinfandel, 40 per cent Petite Syrah and 20 per cent Alicante, Carignane, Early Burgundy and Barbera. The wine contained nearly 16 per cent alcohol in 1997 (550 cases produced).
• Assemblage Millénaire: dry red Bordeaux-style blend in 1996 of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
• Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma Valley: dry red, in 1996 a 100 per cent varietal wine sourced from Judges Vineyards, Views Land Vineyards and Glover Vineyards (120 cases).
• Cabernet Sauvignon, Jessandra Vittoria, Sonoma Valley AVA: dry red. Produced 660 cases in 1996. See below for details of the vineyard.
• Charclonnay, Views Land Vineyards: dry white, in 1996 fermented in 60 gallon French oak barrels, bottled unfined, (36 cases).
• Jessandra Vittoria, Santa Vittoria: dry red sourced from a vineyard established in 1979 by Robert Kamen on rocky, volcanic soil at 1500 feet, within walking distance of the Monte Rosa Vineyards of Louis Martini. In 1996 comprised a blend of 90 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon and 10 per cent Sangiovese, bottled unfined and unfiltered in April 1998 (1,000 cases). In July 1996 a third of the vines were hit by a fire which raged across the Mayacaymus, necessitating replanting after harvest (these damaged vines were used for a bottling below).
• Jessandra Vittoria, 'Port': fortified red, made in 1996 from vines which were damaged by fire, see above (148 cases, 375ml).
• Merlot, Maclise Vineyards, Sonoma Valley: dry red, first made in 1996, sourced from 3.2 hectares planted in 1993 by Gay Maclise (72 cases)
• Pinot Noir, Jewell Vineyards, Sonoma Mountain: dry red, sourced from 6.5 hectares of Pinot Noir, planted in the early 1960s on a nonvigorous rootstock (St George), dry farmed and managed organically by Bob Cannard and owned by Barry and Kate Roach. The 1997 vintage produced 220 cases.
• Pinot Noir, Sessions Cuvée: dry red, in 1997 sourced from California Vineyard Hanzel from three blocks numbered 54, 57 and 76 (the numbers refer to the year of planting); named in honour of Bob Sessions, a friend of the Coturris and a renowned winemaker at Hanzel (300 cases).
• Zinfandel, Chauvet Vineyards, Sonoma Valley AVA: dry red, sourced from a vineyard owned since 1972 by Robert and Blythe Carver, and located two miles south of Glen Ellen on Sonoma Highway 12. It consists of four hectares in equal sections: East Block which was planted in 1936 by the Canuccio family (apparently by Using a quarter stick of dynamite in each vine hole), and West Block, planted in 1976 by the Carver family. In 1997 the harvest was early, hot, and fast as the sugars raced up. The acids remained high enough however to give the wine its freshness, bringing alive its sensational thick, pure damson fruit. 1,000 cases made. The label reads: 'Our grandfather "Nono" would call this wine one that goes to your head and not your stomach.' It's true even though the alcohol content is over 16 per cent.
• Zinfandel, Chauvet Vineyards East Block: dry red, made in 1997 as a separate bottling from the above (48 cases).
• Zinfandel, Chauvet Vineyards West Block: dry red, made in 1997 as a separate bottling from the above (72 cases).
• Zinfandel: also made with the following designations - Estate Vineyards, Freiberg Vineyards, P Coturri Family Vineyards, Sonoma Mountain and Views Land Vineyard