Dave Stare anointed ‘Wine Legend’

We’re not often rewarded for being stubborn, but that’s not the case with Dave Stare.

The vintner of Dry Creek Vineyard has been particularly obstinate for decades, and it’s worked in his favor. Stare, 82, was recently named a “Wine Legend” by Wine Enthusiast magazine as part of its 22nd Annual Wine Stars Awards.

“Dad was just stubborn enough not to listen to the word ‘no,’ which he must have heard a lot in the early days,” said daughter Kim Stare Wallace, now president of the Healdsburg winery.

“He was told many of his ideas wouldn’t work, but he didn’t listen to the naysayers. ... When we first arrived in Dry Creek Valley in 1972, Dad’s ideas were not welcome. Most thought he was crazy, and they were upset he wanted to build a winery.”

Stare’s bold thinking shaped the course of Dry Creek Valley. In the 1970s, most of the land was home to post-Prohibition prune orchards, but Stare was instrumental in petitioning for American Viticultural Area status (AVA). He succeeded in 1983.

The vintner’s tenacity also gave the unlikely grape — sauvignon blanc — a footing in Dry Creek Valley. Today it’s regarded by many as the appellation’s premier white grape.

Back in the early 1970s, experts told Stare the region wouldn’t be hospitable to the grape. He refused to listen and was the first to plant sauvignon blanc in Dry Creek Valley, in 1972.

“I believe Dave Stare’s early risk-taking inspired others to explore and push the boundaries of what could be grown and produced in our diverse soils, topography and climates across the 18 different AVAs,” said Karissa Kruse, president of the Sonoma County Winegrowers, a trade group that represents grape growers. “Today Sonoma County is home to over 66 different grape varieties.”

Stare also stepped away from convention by showcasing sailboats on his label in the early 1980s, at a time when running with a theme was a rarity.

“Sailing has always been a passion of mine,” he said. “I started sailing when I was 9 years old. When we began to feel like the Dry Creek Vineyard’s label needed to be updated, I believe one day while sailing with my daughter, Kim Stare Wallace, and my son-in-law, Don Wallace, we came up with the idea of creating a label to reflect our family passion. The label has gone through numerous changes over the years, but we’re sticking with the sailing theme.”

Old vine origins

Stare’s marketing prowess has reached beyond Dry Creek Valley and Sonoma County, influencing the entire scope of the wine industry. For example, Dry Creek Vineyard, under Stare’s leadership, coined the phrase “old vine zinfandel” in the mid-1980s.

Grappling with a modest supply of zinfandel grapes in 1985 and an oversupply in 1986, the decision was made to combine the two. But that combination would make the bottling non-vintage, which presumably would make the label harder to sell.

With the phrase “old vine zinfandel,” the idea was to entice customers with the romance of ancient vines while diverting the focus from the non-vintage characteristic.

Now wineries throughout California have adopted the phrase, whether their bottlings are vintage or non-vintage. While there’s still no legal definition, Dry Creek Vineyard was referring to vines that were at least 50 years old back in the mid-1980s. Today, the average age of vines for the winery’s current release — the 2019 Old Vine Zinfandel — is 100 years old.

Stare also was behind a marketing move to sidestep traditional labeling for Bordeaux blends. This tradition requires that a varietal like cabernet sauvignon is at least 75% cabernet sauvignon before that varietal is printed on the label.

“This meant that if Dave made the best wine of his life with a final blend of 74% cabernet sauvignon and 26% merlot, the wine would be required to labeled merely as ‘red table wine’ and would be challenging to sell,” said Sara Rathbun, director of marketing and communications for Dry Creek Vineyard.

“This was unacceptable to Dave, so in 1988 Dry Creek Vineyard and a small group of American vintners formed the Meritage Association (now the Meritage Alliance) to identify and promote handcrafted wines made from the traditional ‘noble’ grape varieties.”

Derived from the words “merit” and “heritage,” the Meritage Alliance now has more than 300 member wineries, with thousands of bottlings with Meritage printed on the label.

Engineer to wine maker

Like trains on different tracks, the wine industry nearly missed the benefits of Stare’s stubborn genius because his first love — before wine — was railroads.

Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stare first was an industrial engineer with B&O Railroad in the late 1950s. But after a few years, he and his then-wife Gail wanted to live abroad. Once he secured a marketing job with a German steel company, they moved to Germany and spent weekends exploring wineries up and down the Rhine and Mosel rivers.

When the Boston native returned home, he took a wine appreciation course and that inspired him, once again, to explore wine in Europe. In June 1970, Stare spent two weeks in Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Loire wine regions.

“I came up with the scatterbrain idea that what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was to move to France and to get into the wine business,” he said. “Fortunately for me and France, an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal about what a great future California had for becoming a world-class wine producing area. ... As a result, I forgot about France and turned my eyes to California.”

In September 1971, Stare and his family loaded up their mint-green station wagon and headed west. The engineer became a graduate student at UC Davis, studying enology. Now he spent his weekends searching for vineyards and a place to make wine.

Stare honed in on the Healdsburg area for its 100-year history of grape growing. It helped, too, that land prices were reasonable. By March 1972, he had found his chosen spot, 70 acres of land with rundown prune orchards, and he was primed to make his vision a reality.

“I’m always amazed when I think back on the fact that my father was only 30 with two young children when he made such a bold career change, coming to California to start the first new winery in Dry Creek Valley post Prohibition,” Stare Wallace said. “He didn’t have an oil well or tech money to fall back on.”

Tim Bell, winemaker of Dry Creek Vineyard, said what he admires most about Stare is his “chutzpah.

“I see some foreshadowing of some modern unorthodox red blends when he chose to blend zinfandel with cabernet sauvignon early on,” Bell said. “I think his spirit of ‘Let’s just try it’ really set the tone for California winemaking.”

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.