It’s cold, we’re buried in snow, restaurants are closed and we’re all hoping this is the last weekend of lockdown, so we’re lining up one more top tier feature for this Saturday’s Zoom tasting with another special guest, Brian from Marietta Cellars in Sonoma, California! Cold snowy weather is perfect for cooking up a warm, rich dinner of some wild game, mushrooms, root veg with the perfect bottle of red. And when faced with this weather/food situation my mind usually goes to one of my favourite wineries, Marietta Cellars. More details on the Zoom Tasting at the bottom, but first, here’s an updated post I wrote in 2020 that perfectly sums up why I think these guys are so great.

Marietta is the kind of operation that I’d want to have if I owned a winery. And northern California is the kind of place I’d love to live: the mountains, the hunting, the fly fishing, living off the land, and making great wine with so many interesting micro-climates.

The original cow barn turned winery in Geyserville.

Marietta Cellars is a bit of a unique operation, it’s not your conventional commercial California winery. It was started by Chris Bilbro in the late 1970’s when he quit his hospital administration job in Sonoma to rent an old cattle barn in Geyserville and turn it into a winery. He never went to wine making school, but he staged at a few wineries in Napa and Sonoma to begin learning the ropes. He also grew up around winemaking and homesteading with his Aunt Marietta who lived on a farm in northern California. She and her husband Armé lived off the land. Hunting the hills for wild game, fly fishing the Russian River and its tributaries, growing their own vegetables, making their own wine. Everything was made from scratch, everything was preserved, and they were pretty much self-sufficient. The Bilbro boys told me that their great Aunt Marietta never went to the store for anything except sugar and salt. And this is the context in which young Chris Bilbro started to build his life and winemaking philosophy.

The Geyserville home estate vineyard in Sonoma County.

So along with the rented cow barn in Geyserville, there was also rented vineyards and grapes purchased from farmers with who he build long term relationships and worked with for years. His entry level wine, Old Vine Red, was an old Italian style field blend. Basically, field blends are when you harvest a whole field of grapes at the same time and ferment them all together. All the different varietals at once. Some are a little under-ripe, some maybe a little over-ripe, some just perfect. But the idea is when co-fermented they become more than a sum of their parts and add a really interesting complexity to the wine. Historically it’s been more of an old world peasant wine kind of thing, but it made really good, interesting wine and it’s been making a comeback particularly among young funky natural wineries. Old Vine Red was an early tribute to this Old World style and became a huge cult favourite in the US. They didn’t make a lot of it but it sold out every year. I love this statement that used to be on their website years ago, I saved it because I thought it perfectly summed up the philosophy that got them to where they are today:

“Marietta Cellars doesn’t have a tasting room or a wine club. We don’t buy advertisements in wine magazines or enter wine competitions. We don’t make “trophy wines” nor do we charge “trophy wine” prices…Our wines don’t sell because of ratings, because of the view from our tasting room, or because of a fancy label. Our wines sell because we make consistently great wine and we ask a very fair price.

Unpretentious and extremely dedicated to quality. Although times have changed and they now have a wine club (like everyone), they haven’t just been followers of modern trends, marketing, or winemaking techniques. Always focused on hard work, handshake relationships, traditional wines and good value. Following this philosophy they eventually they built up enough of a business that they were able to buy the home estate and vineyards that they were renting from their neighbour Viola Angeli (whom their estate Zin is named after) and then later some larger epic vineyards in Southern Mendocino’s McDowell Valley and Yorkville Highlands. They are now 100% estate owned fruit and everything is grown and made organically. Here’s a good article from a few years back about the Bilbro men.

Chris’ days sounded like an absolutely dream, living his best life every day. Hunting, fishing, making sausage, growing grapes and making wine, living authentically, the way he learned from Marietta and Armé as a boy. And Chris’ 3 boys grew up living that dream life too, learning to hunt and fish along with his Chris’ winemaking philosophy. And myself having grown up working on our family farm in southwestern Ontario, then later getting into fly fishing, hunting, and the wine industry, everything about Marietta, their wines, philosophy, and culture speaks deeply to me. Unfortunately Chis passed away a couple years ago in his 70’s, but his son Scot has taken over as winemaker and carries on his tradition. The other two sons have also started their own wineries that we represent as well. Jake owns Limerick Lane Winery and his youngest son Sam started Idlewild Winery, which we also carry.

If I had to sum up the Marietta Wines I’d say that while they’re all big California wines, that are low on sugar and high on flavour. None of them are over-ripe or sweet. They have an elegant rusticity to them that reminds me of wines like Heitz or Ridge from the 80’s before the over-ripe and sweet trend took hold. I remember Jake Bilbro telling me years ago that “Zinfandel tastes very different harvested at 23 brix than 29 brix”, as has been the recent trend in California. And that early harvesting really shows in the Old Vine Red which is a dry Zin blend. They also say that they “make wine with wine.” No additives, no adding acid to balance on extra hot years. Instead Chris used Old World techniques in the art of blending: too hot and ripe one year? Add some Barbera or Negrette—high acid varietals. Too cool one year and not enough ripeness? Add more Zinfandel or Syrah—riper, juicier varietals for a fuller body. Making wine with wine instead of additives. This has been the philosophy of how Old Vine Red has always been made.

And all their wines age really nicely. While they are released at a time when they’re ready to drink and already really delicious, some aged Marietta bottles have been the show-stoppers at many wine tastings I’ve been to. I remember one time in 2014 or 2015 when a 1997 Marietta Cab Sauv unanimously impressed a room full of sommeliers as the best wine of the night…and the table was full of top cult cabs that were 4 or 5 times the price. Moral of the story is drink them now, or age them for bonus dividends! Read more about Marietta Cellars and their wines here. This week we’re featuring these wines from the Byward Wine Market for the Saturday Zoom tasting with Brian:

‘Old Vine Red’ Lot 72
Their most popular wine and the biggest value. It’s a Zinfandel-based non-vintage wine that started out as a field blend, and I think some of it still is, but the rest is blended to find that balance each year for consistency to their style. They don’t publish the blends, but historically it has been a Zinfandel-based blend with various varieties and barrel-aged varieties from previous years added in. Any typical vintage can see 60-70% Zinfandel, with Barbera, Carignan, Petit Sirah, Negrette, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc as supporting characters. And most importantly this wine is bone dry and only 13% alcohol. A true old-school representation of Zin: not at all sweet or jammy, but more savoury and foresty notes of brambles and woodsy underbrush along with the dark blackberry and licorice notes.

‘Armé’ 2018
Armé is a Bordeaux blend named for Marietta’s husband who grew up working and fishing throughout Sonoma’s Alexander Valley. He taught Chris to hunt and fly fish and this wine is a tribute to him with a fly hook on the label. This is a big Bordeaux Blend that has a long 20 month aging in neutral oak barrels, which gives it a refined sophistication, without being oaky. Think dark stone fruit, black olive, herbs, tobacco, and licorice. It’s 86% Cab Sauv, 8% Merlot, 4% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot. It’s not cheap, but it’s much cheaper than it could be. The Armé is $48 but could easily be $90 compared to the field. They could charge a lot more if they wanted to, but as per their above quoted philosophy, they love over-delivering on quality for price. If this was $80 or $90, it’d be just another really good, expensive Cab from California. At $48, this is pound-for-pound by far one of the best Cabs in California. It’s also a personal favourite of mine that I’ve been buying for years. The 2018 vintage is on the shelves but we still have a few bottles of the 2017 as well.

We also have a few bottles of the ‘Angeli’ Zinfandel 2018 as well as a few ‘Christo’ 2017. Feel free to scoop either of those for the Zoom tasting as well. When they’re gone they’re gone!

We currently have some inventory of all these bottles in the shop right now, but it’s getting low. We will be fully stocked again Friday Morning. So if you’re looking for an online order, we will fulfill and ship for Friday afternoon! Here’s a link to all of the Marietta wines at the shop. And just a reminder, the Virtual Tasting over Zoom is free to anyone who picks up any of the featured wines from the shop ahead of the tasting. We recommend picking up Old Vine Red as well as the Armé for a broader understanding of their style, but any 1 bottle will get you into the tasting. Just send us a quick email with which wine you picked up and we’ll add you to the Zoom link on Saturday afternoon!

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The Byward Wine Market is fully open for in person shopping, as well as online orders offering curbside pickup or local delivery within Ottawa. Reach out if you have any questions, and check out the archive of past FEATURES if you’re interested in other recommendations. Lastly, please feel free to forward this to anyone in Ontario who may be interested in home wine delivery and follow us on Instagram at @bywardwinemarket!