Truly “Farm-to-Table”

As soon as I parked at Porter Creek during a recent visit, my dogs leapt out of the car.
Was it the sweeping landscape that beckoned them?

Or did they get a whiff of the alpacas on the property?

That's how it always is at Porter Creek - bucolic, pristine and almost too perfect to believe. It's why Porter Creek pops up in the Travel section of magazines like Vogue every now and again.

All this is due to Alex Davis's commitment to being a true vigneron like you'd find in Burgundy. He lives on the estate where he manages every detail, producing as true-to-place wines as I have ever tasted.

Porter Creek is in the "Middle Reach" section of Russian River Valley near the Russian River. It was founded in the late 70s and, with Rochioli and others, helped establish the Russian River AVA in 1983. Porter Creek still has some of the oldest Pinot Noir vines in Sonoma (planted in 1974).

Much has changed in the Russian River since then, but Porter Creek remains steadfastly independent. This allows Alex to be unwavering in his quest for elegant Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, a vision he formed in the early 1990s after apprenticing with Christophe Roumier in Burgundy.

For starters, all of Porter Creek's vineyards are on hillsides. Having the option to set such a high bar is increasingly rare (and probably out of the question for wineries with outside investors).

Alex also has extraordinary standards for farming, choosing purity despite the cost. He converted to organic in the late 1990s and biodynamic in the early 2000s.

Yes, the animals make for good photos but they are all there to work. The alpaca eat cover crops on slopes too steep for tractors. The partially-blind cow he rescued eats grass around the vineyards, to create a barrier to wildfires.

(A visitor asked: Doesn't the cow increase carbon? Alex: Not nearly as much as a wildfire.)

The rare occasion that he fines, Alex uses organic egg whites from his free-range poultry flock.

Vinification with wild yeasts, full Malo, mostly neutral barrels and the smallest amount of sulfur are also keys to Porter Creek’s transparent winemaking.

All this thought and care comes together in Alex's wines, which are quintessential low-intervention, terroir-driven expressions that draw praise from old-world palates, such as Eric Asimov, Levy Dalton and Jay McInerney. (He doesn't submit to reviewers.)

I've been a fan since first adding Porter Creek wines to the list at Gary Danko when I was a sommelier there 20 years ago. The wines are consistently on point, some of the best in California especially for Burgundy fans. Like Jon Bonné says: “Porter Creek is nuanced, pure in its fruit and informed by [Alex Davis's] time in some of Burgundy's greatest cellars. It harks back to a much defter view of what Russian River could yield.”

Some folks may not be ready for that -- these wines are not meant to be everywhere. But for people who crave authenticity, farm to table, historic, biodynamic, small family, Porter Creek is an outstanding choice.

Speaking of choice, Porter Creek offers appellation designates as well as higher end vineyard-specific Pinot Noir bottlings. Please find a summary below, or check the full Porter Creek lineup here.