Peterson

Fred Peterson is one of the wine world’s great characters: open, engaging, experienced and full of entertaining stories about his life in wine.

A viticulturist and winemaker since the 1970s, Fred founded Peterson Winery in 1987 in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley, following earlier work at many other wineries across the world, including five years as consultant vineyard manager at Ridge. From the outset, Fred has championed a vineyard-first philosophy, with an emphasis on sustainable farming and what the family describes as “zero manipulation” winemaking. He works with a wide range of grape varieties, but the wines that have come to define the estate are the Zinfandels from the family’s Bradford Mountain vineyard, a sub-site within Dry Creek Valley, planted in the 1980s at elevations above 350 metres. This is where he also built the family home, from scratch. Alongside these are distinctive Petite Sirahs, a variety Fred has long believed deserves greater attention in California. Today, Fred works alongside his son Jamie, they make around 30 different cuvees, from 20 or so different grape varieties, continuing to produce wines that reflect site, vintage and a lifetime of practical knowledge.