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| The Meeker Vineyard | Geyserville, CA 95441 |
www.meekerwine.com
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21035 Geyserville Ave. In the old bank building Geyserville, CA 95441 (707) 431-2148 Fax : 707 431-2549 Email: gillian@meekerwine.com
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Charles and Molly Meeker bought their first vineyard in Sonoma County's Dry Creek Valley in 1977, and thereafter, in 1984, established their winery -- The Meeker Vineyard -- with Charlie as the winemaker. In its early years, the winery specialized in Zinfandel, Cabernet and Chardonnay. The winery's first red wine release, a 1984 Zinfandel, was an instant success, winning eight wine competition medals and becoming the third most awarded Zin in the country that year. Thereafter, among other awards, the 1985 Meeker Zin was a Wine Spectator "Best Buy", the 1986 Zin was a "Spectator Selection", and the 1990 Zin was included among the Wine Spectator's "100 Best Wines of the World". During this period Charlie was also honored to present a Meeker Zinfandel at one of the famous Windows on the World wine dinners in New York. And Zinfandel wasn't the winery's only success – for example, the Spectator gave a 91 to one of Charlie's early Chardonnays. All this while Charlie was working full time in Los Angeles in the motion picture business (first as an attorney, then as a film producer, and later as a studio executive), so his winemaking career was confined to weekend and holiday trips (many, many trips!) to Dry Creek Valley. Finally, in 1990 when Charlie became President of Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, this two-career life became too much, and the Meekers hired a full time winemaker for the winery. During the 1980's, Meeker wines were generally distributed in a number of states throughout the country, but this began to change in the early 1990's when Sonoma rapidly became a prime target for wine- tasting tourists. At this point, The Meeker Vineyard winery consisted of a 1,664 sq. foot building with no tasting room and only a tiny wine lab in which to welcome growing numbers of visitors. In an act of desperation, we erected a 40-foot-tall tipi (an authentic Sioux tipi in every respect except size) beside the winery and began using it as a tasting room. This crazy idea worked, and the winery was soon deluged with visitors, such that we had to pull back from normal wine distribution channels in order to retain enough wine to satisfy customer demand at the winery. In 1993 we formed a wine club – named, naturally enough, the Meeker Tribe. This club currently has about 1,900 members from around the country. In the late 1990's we sold our original winery property for various reasons (including Sonoma County's threat to close down the tipi for lack of a tasting room permit) and bought a new property at 5377 Dry Creek Road, on the eastern side of Dry Creek Valley. This site is more acceptable to the County for a winery and tasting room, and we are now in the process of working with an architect to design a new winery -- which will, of course, include the return of the Meeker Tribe teepee. In the meantime, we obtained a long-term lease on a much larger, existing winery facility located just south of Healdsburg in Sonoma County. The Meeker winery has been operating at this leased site since 1999, and during this period the winery's production level has expanded to about 17,000 cases for the 2002 harvest. This increased production has allowed us to once again begin distributing Meeker wines in selected areas throughout the country. In 1999 Molly and Charlie left Los Angeles and moved full time to Sonoma County. Molly now manages the winery's business affairs, while Charlie has resumed his active winemaking role as co-winemaker with the winery's winemaker, Matt Blankenheim. With one exception, Charlie and Matt are making only red wines, including Four Kings (a Bordeaux blend), a Gold Leaf Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon, the Winemakers' Handprint Merlot plus a Gold Leaf Cuvee Merlot, a Dry Creek Zinfandel plus three vineyard-designated Zins and a Gold Leaf Cuvee Zinfandel, FroZin (a red dessert wine), a Petite Sirah, a Syrah, three vineyard- designated Carignanes, and a proprietary blend named Barberian. The non-red exception is Tutu Luna, an ice-wine-style dessert wine featuring a blend of Muscat, Chenin Blanc and Gewurztraminer. The Meeker Vineyard tasting room is currently located in the 100-year-old Geyserville Bank Building in the farm town of Geyserville, about six miles north of Healdsburg between Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys. In 2001, the Meeker tasting room was cited by The Wall Street Journal as one of the most enjoyable wine tasting experiences in all of Napa and Sonoma Counties. As Molly says, "If you enjoyed tasting in a tipi, try it in a vault!" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Winemaker Charlie Meeker & Matt Blankenheim
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ABOUT CHARLES MEEKER: Charlie Meeker was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, where he learned about great wine from his father. After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Charlie moved to Los Angeles, and ever since, he’s been a distracted man. Even though he and his wife Molly bought their first vineyard in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley in 1977, and opened their winery in 1984, Charlie wasn’t able to be a fill time winemaker in Sonoma County until 1999. Oh sure, he made the wine from 1984 to 1999, but he had to live in L.A. and keep his day job – first as an entertainment attorney, then as a film producer, and ultimately president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in order to finance his winery habit. That all changed in 1999 when the family moved lock, stock and barrel to Dry Creek Road, which will soon be the home of a new Meeker winery. Charlie is now co-winemaker with Matt Blankenheim, and they specialize in big reds; including Winemaker’s Handprint Merlot, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Barberian, “Great Cabs” Cabernet Sauvignon and a Bordeaux blend called Four Kings. ABOUT MATT BLANKENHEIM: Matt’s story is an interesting one. He got into the wine business through the back door, having only stumbled onto it through a misfortune. Matt was a contractor renovating Victorians in San Francisco, when after a long Labor day weekend, he showed up for work and found that everthing was gone! All of his tool, the bank account, the office equipment, and even his chair! Everything gone-except his old Chevy truck, and that was only there because he had the keys! Now of course, and needless to say, he needed a DRINK. But instead of going to a bar, he drove to his sister's house in Sonoma County. His sister later introduced him to a friend of hers that was the assistant winemaker at one of Matt's favorite wineries at the time. He offered Matt a job for harvest. During the interview, the winemaker asked Maqtt why he wanted to get into the wine business and Matt said that he thought it was a romantic profession...the winemaker laughed... About a week later around one o'clock in the morning, Matt was covered in grapes, soaking wet and shivering (that's harvest for you). The winemaker asked "Where's the romance now, Blankenheim?" And began laughing! Matt was absolutely hooked! Sixteen years later and working with the Meeker's since 2001. The romance is still there... |
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Red
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2007 Carignane
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Regular as of 05/05 |
Order Direct Online Phone: (707) 431-2148 Fax: (707).431-2549 Tasting Room Open Info & Map Geyserville, CA |
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