Quivira Vineyards
Thirty-five dollars buys five current releases and nobody stands over you. You take a glass into the garden and come back to the bar when you want the next one.1
Why go
The estate is Wine Creek Ranch, on West Dry Creek Road about ten minutes out of Healdsburg, farmed organically and looking north at Mount St. Helena.1 The tasting works three ways and they are genuinely different afternoons. The Estate Tasting is self-paced through the gardens.1 Sip & Graze puts you at a table under the olive trees with snacks at $50, and if the weather turns you move into the Foudre Room, named for the big oak foudres the wine ages in.1 The third is a picnic table in the redwood grove, $50 for the table, and you bring the food.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Estate Tasting, $35 for five current releases. Quivira and La Follette are both poured here by the glass and the bottle.1
- Avoid: turning up to the picnic with your own bottle. Outside alcohol is a hard no, and the tables seat eight.1
Good to know
- Children and dogs are welcome in the redwood grove.1
- Members drink free on the tasting fees and the picnic table.1
- No critic has written about these wines anywhere I can point you at, so go for the afternoon and judge the bottles yourself.
Verdict
could-visit — The rung is set by what is actually established, and what is established is a good afternoon rather than a good bottle. Quivira farms organically on Wine Creek Ranch, ten minutes out of Healdsburg, and sells three clearly different visits: $35 for five current releases you pour through at your own pace, $50 for a seated tasting with food under the olive trees, $50 for a redwood grove table you bring your own picnic to. The tasting room's wet-weather room is named for the foudres the wine ages in. No critic, no score and no varietal appears anywhere in the record read, so the wine itself is unweighed, and that is the ceiling here.