David Coffaro Winery

Tried this unassuming little winery after hitting a very fancy one down the street. I could not have been happier with the service or the product. As a result, I joined Dave’s Wine Club and have semi-​annual shipments to my home in Atlanta. In between, they have sales and I always get great deals on other wines. When I email Dave or Pat to ask about certain sales or specials, they always reply promptly and honestly. After a few friends tasted their wine at dinner parties, they became members of Dave’s Wine Club and one said to me, «After you drink Caffaro wine, it’s hard to drink anything else.»
My sentiments exactly! Love, love. LOVE! #Cheers

Ask any of my friends and they’ll all tell you that I don’t drink. But it doesn’t stop me from heading out to beautiful wine country– whether it be Napa, Healdsburg or in this case Geyserville. We came here specifically for their wine release party since my wino friends ordered a special batch of Dave’s Cuvee Blend during their Barrel tasting event they hold each year.
The event was free for anyone who had ordered a crate. Once we pulled up, I could smell the delicious barbecue that was being provided and once inside, it most definitely felt like a party. I wasn’t expecting to do any wine tasting at all since I don’t drink, but surprisingly enough, my friends convinced me to try some of their Block 4 wine. It’s a red wine blend and for a novice like me, I liked it. Don’t expect me to describe the actual fruits/​scents that you could pick up when sniffing– But, I will tell you that I usually *hate* any type of red wine. Upon first sip, I usually just want to gag. It was different this time. I sipped and it just felt really smooth going down. No gross aftertaste and while I still couldn’t see myself drinking an entire glass, I could see how someone could love this stuff.
We had the pleasure of meeting Joshua Price who was one of the pourer’s at the event and he happily obliged when our party kept coming back for more tastings. We had to make sure that we picked the right wine to purchase right? We ended up buying another crate of the Block 4 wine because it was just that good.
As for the barbecue, it was one delicious meal of lightly glazed chicken along with a quinoa salad that was super tasty as well. No pictures of the meals because I was too busy being in the moment and forgetting about being the good Unilocaler I am.
It’s all about the Block 4 wine here folks! Ask for Joshua Price and enjoy.

This is just about the least pretentious winery on earth and I tip my hat to their quirk. So many places are afraid to have an authentic POV. Sometimes you end up tasting (insert your favorite winery tasting room) and you end up in a place with the same décor and personality as the last place. Everywhere are pictures of grape leaves at harvest, warm yellow Under the Tuscan Sun décor, logo-​ed polo shirts and caps, special membership backrooms and levels. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
Here, at David Coffaro, even if you never meet the winemaker, you have a sense of who you are dealing with. You’ll find pictures of Oakland Raider memorabilia, 70s rock posters, über friendly winery cats, and affordable and tasty red wine and wine futures.
This unabashed sense of self shows up everywhere, making this a fun place to taste. I applaud their their willingness to let it all hang out, and not seek to be like everyone else, but instead to be quirky, tasty, and democratic. The wine tasting room reminds me of a place a garage band might practice for gigs. Very good reds by the way, if you are keeping score.

Josh the asst winemaker was knowledgeable and professional. Easily our favorite winery in Sonoma

Another delayed review from barrel tasting a couple months ago but i’m still enjoying their wines and bought futures I cant wait to pick up. I love these smaller mom-​pop operations that make each wine lovingly… I would definitely recommend this as a stop in this area. Enjoy!

This place is what Sonoma is to me… family owned, real people, wine that represents the varietal… not showy but about wine. The wines are non-​filtered, not formula, just honest. There are an amazing number of varietals produced… I don’t know how well they keep because I always drink them within a year or two, but they have become my Saturday night, special wines… love the screw cap… no bad bottles. The place is plain but the staff is not. If you get a chance to meet David or Pat, you will have a special experience. I always take my visitors here to balance out the experience.
A Sonoma County Gem!

Totally random place, but I love it. Actually got the meet David Coffaro himself. I called before heading over because I knew i would miss their closing time by a few minutes, and the guy on the phone said it was fine. Turns out it was David Coffaro that answered the call. Nice old man with cool stories. It was just him, no staff because he let them take the Memorial Day weekend off. Tasting room wasn’t anything special, just looked like a warehouse with sports memorabilia. Wines are decently priced here as well, ended up buying a bottle of the Block 4. Tasting was free and the wine was discounted, because he’s the owner. What’s not to love about this place?

We found David Coffaro Winery while exploring the Wine Country and «playing it by ear», as we typically do. We were so pleasantly surprised by this place! Catalina our pourer was extremely knowledgeable, friendly and accommodating. We loved the wines, and they do have some unusual blends and varietals. David has managed to produce some really incredible wines, in an unassuming and unpretentious manner. So many tasting rooms have moved to the «we make wine, so we deserve to charge $ 20 tasting fees that are not refunded with a purchase» model, which is really a unnecessary, especially when they want a premium price for mediocre wines. David has kept his bottle prices reasonable, and his futures prices can’t be beat! This place is definitely worth a visit if you like small, family run wineries who are not full of themselves, but still know how to make fantastic wines!

BEST wine we tried in Sonoma — and loved the super casual atmosphere in the tasting room itself. Loved it here…

Summary: Boutique wines to be sure. Very limited releases, friendly staff, a casual vibe, and pretty reasonable prices. We didn’t particularly like the wines, ourselves, but we appreciated the experience and the quality put forth into the wine production. Some pretty good blends in particular.

This was our second stop on our wine tour. This winery is very unpretentious and a good stop for any Raiders fan as obviously the owners are fans themselves with the variety of memorabilia and newpaper clippings they have displayed on the walls. The wines here are bold and strong, perhaps a little too strong for me. Both my husband and I found them to be overpowering. Others on our tour group were very happy with the wines and one couple signed up for thier wine club. To each their own, I guess.
We did end up purchasing one bottle of the Carignane as it is not a varietal that we are very familiar with and was one that we liked the best. We felt it would be a good conversation starter wine with other friends who know wine. We will wait and pull it out and see how many of our friends are familiar with it.
The Winery is very casual and laid back. They had a sign on the wall that said «We don’t need no stinkin’ corks» in reference to the fact that many of their wines are of the screw top variety. They also have a video game system set up in the back and it is said that they will play when things are slow. Definitely a low-​key atmosphere.

Fantastic wine. Friendly folks at the winery. It’s low-​key, just the way I like it. The wine is pretty solid. I love that they’re all twist-​off caps for easy drinking! They also have great food during the barrel tasting and release parties.

This is a great down-​to-​earth, family owned winery that really does things right. When we came we were the only ones in the tasting room and noticed they had a huge pull down projector and were watching the football game! Like your usual homey Sonoma vineyard, David Coffaro Winery has the cute token cat sitting outside to greet you.
The wines here were very good and both of us really enjoyed them. They charge a $ 5 tasting fee, which is definitely worth it to try some of their nice blends as well as the Zin, Cab, and Petite Sirah. We actually really enjoyed all of the wines that we tried and considering purchasing two bottles. However, the two days had already led to nearly two cases of wine and we truly just didn’t need anymore as our collection is already HUGE. As in we don’t have enough room on our wine rack HUGE :)
I would definitely come back here again for another tasting and to pick up a few bottles of wine the next time I am in Sonoma.

I love Dry Creek valley, lived in Santa Rosa for years and had enjoyed years of case purchases from David Coffaro. The low rating is for David Coffaro’s peronal response and poor customer service after a health problem with his wine on one occasion.
After buying a case, we enjoyed the first two bottles but upon opening the third bottle for a great dinner I poured my gf the first glass and a huge horse fly came out. I wrote a letter to David and included the fly by snail mail. He responded by writing on my letter and mailing it back to me; it was shocking, rude, and accusatory. He wouldn’t accept it could happen and had no care to resolve our dilemma over a completely undrinkable wine.
I was put back.
Usually winemakers are VERY concerned with the drinking experience. Not here.
I enjoyed buying cases of David Coffaro for many years, attended the big screen parties (lots of flies) but can not recommend them anymore as David’s sad response when health problems arise.
When I speak with friends of wineries in Dry Creek this memory usually comes up.

This place is so cool! We visited during Passport Weekend and probably wore out our welcome! ;) Actually, I dont think that’s possible here. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly! Dave makes excellent wines and we ended up buying quite a few bottles and joining the wine club. We spoke to the famous Matt for a while as we tasted samples from barrels. Talk about a knowledgeable guy! He left no question unanswered! We then made our way over to the bar and spoke with Cindi who was so helpful and sweet! Overall we had a super fun experience and a memorable, enjoyable tasting! We will be back as soon as possible!

David Coffaro is the bad boy, rockin’ roller of wine making. He is the vanguard of a new breed of wine makers who are shaking-​up the old order. I first found Coffaro a few years back at an earlier Wine Road Barrel Tasting, and I have been coming back again and again and again.
At this year’s barrel tasting, I tried:
2010 Zinfandel
2010 My Zin
2011 Estate Cuvee
2011 Carignan
2011 Petit Sirah
2011 RaiZin
They’re all really good. And they’re all really different so there’s bound to be something that suits your palate. My palate unfortunately is too broad so I get stuck with a case every time I stop by! What I love about David’s wines are the beautiful blends or cuvees as I like to call them and the unusual single variety vintages like Carignan and Grenache. While I do so l dearly love Napa and Sonoma Valley wine makers, they do seem to have fallen into a rut of only producing extremely popular single varietals like Cabernet, Pinot or Zinfandel. David Coffaro is breaking all these rules with some amazing blends like the MyZin, Estate Cuvee and Terre Mélange. And then he goes the extra mile to do single varietals that no one else thinks of like Carginan. So you have here one of the most creative and amazing portfolios of wine and you’re thinking its gotta cost and arm and leg. Well, not even. You can thank David for his «Crazy Coffaro Futures Program». If you are a wine club member, you can buy futures for these wines for less than $ 20/​bottle. Yes, that’s right. Less than $ 20 bucks per bottle. It doesn’t make sense. He is probably going to go out of business, so get up there and buy as much as you can before he does!
You really get a sense of David’s creativity from his tasting room as well. It’s just a plain old warehouse but he plays all his favorite rock concerts on a giant wall sized screen. It’s like being at a fun party.
My fellow Unilocaler Malcolm K said this about David Coffaro Winery, «God bless David Coffaro for making extraordinarily fine wine affordable and accessible on a daily basis».

Excellent winery with a great personality. The barrel tasting experience is great. The lobster bisque was very good. The wine selection made it all worth the trip and the picnic area really took things to a new place. It is a great combination of great wine combinations, good attitude and a touch of europe chick charm.
Unlike other wineries they have great concerts playing on their big screen but they are done right and give the barrel experience some dynamic feel but not make it cheap or uncomfortable.

What lies beneath…
What lies beneath the aluminum awning is a white door (see photo), what lies beyond the white door is a huge collection of Raiders paraphrenalia covering every square inch of the walls, what lies behind the rustic tasting area is a great line-​up of Barbera, Sangiovese, Peloursin, Mourvedre, Carignane and of course, Zin, Cab and Petite Sirah.
What lies beneath the screw top of 2009 Petite Sirah is really yummy 100% Petite Sirah. It now lies in my storage facility, but not for long.

This winery was a lovely gem we stumbled upon on a recommendation from Bill from Frick Winery (see my other review on that…).
It was very unlike many wineries i’ve visited – it was harvest time so the bins of grapes were in the tasting room area so that was cool to see the process – It was fun mainly because I am used to seeing the finished product, not the in between stages. Also there is a huge screen in that at the time was showing a college football game, also not very winery-​esque but so very cool. I also appreciated the sports memorabilia in the tasting area.
The people were super nice and knowledgable and we got to try a variety of wines, many of which I enjoyed. Since I was trying to pace my purchasing I didn’t buy anything here, but could easily come back to this winery and visit again.
All and all, good times had by all.

If you are up in the Dry Creek area and love rich, red blends at excellent values then this is the place to stop. If you don’t mind paying money for something you won’t see for another few months or even a year, then you definitely have to stop to check out their futures. The place– in addition to their wine– has character!
We were their the barrel tasting weekend (possibly the most annoying time in Healdsburg if you don’t have a limo rented and are on a mission to taste (and forget) as many wines as possible) — and it was a surprising gem. We were able to taste 10 of their 2008s straight from the barrel and buy at $ 17 a bottle (1 case minimum) instead of paying $ 28 once its bottled. The Estate Cuvee, Terre Mélange, Escuro and Block 4 were all fantastic wines– also notable is the Carignan (100%!!!- where else will you find that??)
The staff made the tasting all the more enjoyable– Dave Coffaro (aka «The Master Blender») has a passion for little known (to these parts anyhow) varietals (Tannat, Lagrein, Algiaico) and knows how to bring out the best in them. The younger generation is represented by Matt (brewmaster on the side) who will cheerfully entertain you as you taste.
They only lost a star due to their avid fan Raiders shrine… :)