Featured Winery
Morgan Twain-Peterson
Winemaker
Bedrock Wine Company
Joel Peterson
Winemaker
Ravenswood Winery
Morgan Twain-Peterson was born at home in Sonoma, Ca. On January 6th, 1981 to Joel Peterson and Kate Twain. Raised at his father’s Ravenswood Winery, Morgan was exposed to wine and wine tasting at an early age. In David Darlington’s “Angel’s Visits,” it is noted that “Morgan, at the age of five, could distinguish between Merlot and Zinfandel.” Morgan began making small lots of Pinot Noir at 5 from fruit given to him by the Sangiacomo family. Motivated by the best wines of Domaine Dujac, he began experimenting with whole cluster fermentation, different types of French oak, and various ripeness points. Vino Bambino Pinot Noir, as the wine came to be known, was made from 1986 to 2001 and has been featured on the wine lists of Craft, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Hill (which featured the original 1986), Delmonico’s, Aureole, and Mesa Grill. While doing undergraduate work at Vassar (whose founder was a brewer of all things), and graduate work at Columbia University, Morgan worked as a wine buyer and salesperson for Arlington Wines and Liquors in Poughkeepsie, and Chelsea Wine Vault and Pet Wines in Manhattan. Morgan returned home to Sonoma in 2005 to work harvest at Ravenswood. From there he spent time as a visiting winemaker at Hardy’s Tintara in McLaren Vale (where he also spent a few highly educational days with Drew and Rae Noon at Noon Winery), and in the fall of 2006 was a visiting winemaker at Chateau Lynch-Bages in Pauillac. When not working for Bedrock Wine Company, Morgan is a manager of his family’s Bedrock Vineyards in Sonoma Valley, and is a member of Sunbreak Vineyard Services L.L.C, a vineyard management company run by Diane Kenworthy and Robert Burney. He has also passed the prestigious Master of Wine exam and upon successful completion of the dissertation will become one of the less than thirty American M.W.’s. When not doing wine-related things Morgan enjoys his garden of heirloom vegetables, playing piano, hiking, and cooking up good grub.
Following an apprenticeship with Joseph Swan—one of California’s outstanding craftsman of Zinfandel—Peterson founded Ravenswood in 1976 with $4,000, no vineyards and no winery. His vision from the start was to craft high-quality, complex and spirited Zinfandels that would express the unique character of their specific vineyards. A key to his success was seeking out vineyards chosen for their location, age, yield and unique flavor characteristics. By forging collaborative relationships early on with the grower-owners of these exceptional sites (some more than 100 years old), Joel was able to build a distinctive portfolio of single vineyard-designated Ravenswood Zinfandels that together illustrated how well the grape reflects its precise locale. Since many of these vineyards are also among the oldest in California, Peterson’s wines helped to preserve them. More than 30 years following his first harvest, Peterson continues his Zinfandel quest. He is currently spearheading a project with fellow Zinfandel winemakers and ZAP called the Zinfandel Heritage Blends Project. The program aims to reestablish California’s most unique and original wine, the Mixed Black Field Blend. Primarily a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Cariganne and Alicante Bousche (among many others), Joel believes strongly that the Mixed Black Field Blend was the most interesting and important wine that California made before Prohibition. As Joel says, it was truly the “once and future wine of California.”
