LIOCO Wine Barrel Room

Matt and Sara Licklider press their whites hard with no sulfur, on purpose, and put zero new oak on anything they make. You drink it at 125 Matheson St in Healdsburg, noon to seven, not at the Hopper Avenue pin.2 1

Why go

Matt and Sara Licklider buy fruit rather than farm it, out of Sonoma, Mendocino and Santa Cruz counties, and Drew Huffine makes the wine with Prudy Foxx and Scott Knippelmeir working the vineyards.1 2

The cellar publishes what it does, which is unusual and useful. Whites are crushed and pressed hard with no sulfur, handled oxidatively on purpose, and sit about forty-eight hours before going to barrel on gross lees for native-yeast fermentation and spontaneous malolactic.2 The oak is all used, with no new barrels at all, alongside experiments in acacia and cement eggs.2 Ten months on lees, then six months in German-made Mueller stainless barrels, and mostly unfined and unfiltered into bottle.2 The Pinot Noirs run 25 to 30 percent whole cluster with 15 to 25 percent new French oak over eleven to sixteen months, and the outlier reds go in whole-bunch with some carbonic maceration.2

The Healdsburg room runs to 1,300 square feet and Paige Pierce Design did the renovation.1

Order this / avoid

Order: the Elevated Tasting in the private lounge, $60 for wine alone or $75 with the food pairing, which pours library, large-format and off-menu bottles in Gabriel-Glas.2
Order: a Chardonnay if you want to taste the no-sulfur press and the zero-new-oak policy in one glass.2
Order: an outlier red, the Carignan or the Valdiguie, both fermented whole-cluster.2 1
Avoid: Hopper Avenue. That is where they make the wine, in a Santa Rosa cooperative, and the door you want is in Healdsburg.1

What locals & experts say

Christi Warren, Sonoma Magazine (October 2018): LIOCO wines, which draw fruit from vineyards in Sonoma, Mendocino and Santa Cruz counties, are produced in a Santa Rosa winemaking cooperative.1
LIOCO on its own method: Our winemaking is guided by a few underlying principles. Chief among them is a resistance to dogma. And: We believe if our grapes are holistically grown and come from a truly compelling site, there is little we can do to improve upon it.2

Good to know

125 Matheson St, Healdsburg, noon to 7pm daily. Three tastings run $40 to $60, wines are poured by the glass, and small bites are available to buy.2
You can sit indoors, at shaded sidewalk tables or in a parklet off the plaza.2
There is a vintage Marantz turntable and a collection of more than 450 albums behind the bar.2
Service animals only, and cancelling inside 24 hours costs $25 a head.2

Verdict

could-visit — Nobody outside the winery has published a judgment on these wines, and the newest outside coverage is an opening report from 2018, so the cellar's own account is what there is to go on. It is specific enough to argue with: the whites are handled oxidatively on purpose, the Pinots run a quarter to a third whole cluster at 15 to 25 percent new oak, and the outlier Carignan and Valdiguie ferment whole-bunch with some carbonic. Three tastings run $40 to $60 and there are wines by the glass, which is unusual in this county. Service animals only, and the door shuts at seven.

LIOCO Wine Barrel Room.