Wine Spectator - Papapietro Perry

September 15, 2004
PAPAPIETRO PERRY
TURNING A HOBBY INTO A BUSINESS
I
t’s been more than 30 years since Bruce Perry and Ben
Papapietro met and discovered they both loved wine,
especially Pinot Noir. Since then, these San Francisco natives
with a history of home winemaking have slowly transformed
their hobby into a profession.
standout Pinots. Both the Sonoma Coast Peters Vineyard 2002
(91 points, $42) and the Russian River Valley 2002 (87, $38)
show balance among ripe fruit flavors, firm tannins, juicy acidity
and supple texture.
Growing up, Papapietro and Perry watched their respective
acquainted in the 1960s while working for the San Francisco
Newspaper Agency, which then published both the San
met Burt Williams, a fellow pressman who had turned his hobby
into a career, making wine in the garage of his Sonoma home
on the weekends. Perry and Papapietro helped Williams on
occasion, and watched as he guided his Williams Selyem label to
the forefront of the Pinot Noir movement.
Meanwhile, Papapietro, now 57, started experimenting
with his own wine in his San Francisco garage. It was 1980,
and Papapietro made five gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon. “I
thought I could make wine as good as what I was buying,” he
says. Because of his experience with Williams Selyem—and
with drinking red Burgundy
Burgundy—Papapietro knew he wanted to
make Pinot Noir, but quality Pinot grapes were elusive to home
winemakers.
Finally, in 1982, Papapietro got his hands on some Pinot Noir.
“It was a difficult learning curve,” he admits. Starting with tiny
lots, he wasn’t able to use the French oak barrels he wished for
and had to experiment with the more available, more affordable
and smaller American oak versions until he was able to make
enough wine to merit a French barrel. Perry joined him in his
garage in 1985, and continued to fine-tune their techniques.
“I read everything I could get my hands on,” says Papapietro,
admitting he took “veracious” notes. “With a little bit of luck,
we defined the style,” says Papapietro.
Papapietro describes his wines as very Californian, focusing
on ripe, rich fruit flavors, and his winemaking style as
noninterventionist. Friends and family encouraged the partners
to sell their wine commercially, and when Perry retired after
Retired pressman Ben Papapietro (left) and Bruce Perry are making news with a Pinot
label that has transcended the garage as production now tallies 2,000 cases annually.
30 years with the news agency, he turned his attention to
professional winemaking. “We had Burt Williams In our garage
telling us the wine was good. Besides, I trusted my own taste.”
says Perry.
After retiring, Perry, now 63, and his wife, Renae (who handles
first commercial release of Papapietro Perry was a modest 75
cases from the 1998 vintage. Today, they make just more than
2,000 cases annually, in a rented space at a Healdsburg winery.
Papapietro remains in San Francisco, but during harvest and
the weeks that follow he lives in his van, parked at the back of
the winery. After working more than a dozen years of early
hours for the newspaper, he’s used to taking catnaps, letting his
natural alarm clock wake him periodically throughout the night
to check on the temperature of the fermenting grapes, in case he
needs to punch down the cap. Papapietro retired in 2002, after a
scare with a burst colon slowed him down. “Now is the time for
me to spend with the wine” he says.
—MaryAnn Worobiec Bovio