Jungle Wine: Massican Sauvignon

“As for Juliana, I think the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
– Dan Petroski

Massican SB at Lou Aug 2010 2HERE’S SOMETHING I’VE LEARNED since moving to Napa Valley seven years ago: among the winemaking set, kids’ birthday parties are popular occasions to debut side labels and one-offs, or otherwise unload mistakes on friends. For a good example of the former, see Dan Petroski, whose full-time job is assistant winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Calistoga. On the side, he runs a tiny project he founded last year called Massican, with a production so limited it makes some boutique winery outfits seem Gallo-esque by comparison. I first came across Dan’s unique white wines at a mutual friend’s daughter’s birthday in May. It was a warm day in a St. Helena park, and the wines were an unexpected but very welcome find. One of the bottles—a crisp, delicious sauvignon blanc—etched a deep impression on my palate. Over hot dogs and cake, he agreed to show me around its source, a vineyard in the Napa hinterlands of Pope Valley.

Larkmead Sept 4 #8 web sizedDan knows from out-of-the-way places. It could be in his Italian genes: his great-grandfather grew up north of Naples in the foothills of Monte Massico, for which he named his label. He got his winemaking start in 2005 working at Valle dell’Acate, a winery in southeast Sicily whose location must rival the Corleones’ ancestral hometown in the category of remote getaways. And he lives in Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley. While not as far-flung as Sicily, the pickup trucks and minivans there still appear to outnumber Range Rovers and Maseratis. The town is its own little island of unpretentious solitude.

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