Bacigalupi Vineyards & Winery
Charles Bacigalupi was a Healdsburg dentist who planted Chardonnay on Westside Road in the early 1960s, using budwood from Karl Wente. Mike Grgich bought that fruit for the Chateau Montelena wine that won Paris in 1976.1
Why go
The prize belonged to Montelena and to Grgich, and the vines belonged here.1 Steven Spurrier poured ten Chardonnays blind in Paris on 24 May 1976 and the 1973 Montelena came out on top, with Bacigalupi Russian River fruit in the blend.1 The family still farms those vines and still makes wine off them, four generations in.12 You taste by appointment in an hour slot, six people at most, on an outdoor terrace above the vineyard.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the estate Chardonnay. It is the variety and the site that the whole story turns on.1
- Avoid: Tuesday. The tasting room is closed, and every other day runs by appointment only.2
Good to know
- Appointments run at 11:00, 1:00 and 3:00, sixty minutes each, groups capped at six. Call 707-473-0115 before you drive, because those times may be out of date.2
- Ridge's Monte Bello placed fifth among the reds at the same 1976 tasting, which is the other Sonoma-linked wine in the room that day.1
Verdict
could-visit — Held at could-visit because the ground is the whole case: nobody I read has published a word on the wines themselves. What the ground is worth is not in question. Charles Bacigalupi planted Chardonnay on Westside Road in the early 1960s off Karl Wente budwood, Mike Grgich was buying that fruit by 1973, and it went into the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay that took the white category in Paris on 24 May 1976. The family still farms those vines and still pours from them.