The Sipping Point: Wine, Food & More! · Laurie Forster

Family, Vines & Vision: The Story Behind Dry Creek Vineyard

April 1, 2026·35 min·2 clips

Kim Stare Wallace warns that the 'increasing corporatization' of California wine leads to appellation labels shifting from 'Dry Creek Valley' to 'California' to, in one recent case, just 'America' — a sign the winery is sourcing cheaper grapes from lesser regions.

1. The Sipping Point host Lori Forster speaks with Kim Stare Wallace, president of Dry Creek Vineyard, a 53-year-old family winery in Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley. 2. Kim Stare Wallace has been with the winery since the mid-1980s, became president in 2011, and previously worked in fashion design in San Francisco with time spent in France; she describes herself as 'a country girl' who could not move to New York. 3. The episode centres on the question of what separates a family-owned, appellation-focused winery from the growing wave of corporatised producers that homogenise their wines by broadening or removing appellation labels. 4. Kim's father, David Stare — a civil engineer from MIT — moved his family from Boston to Napa in the early 1970s to attend UC Davis, then bought a neglected 55-acre prune orchard in Dry Creek Valley, which local farmers resisted because they did not want prune trees replaced with grapevines. 5. David Stare was the first to plant Sauvignon Blanc in Northern Sonoma County; local farmers told him it was 'a dumb variety that would never grow,' but it became the most prominent white grape in the valley. 6. Kim introduced the iconic nautical label theme after suggesting to her father that a sailboat on a wine called 'Dry Creek' had a funny irony — the first label was a watercolor of a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, which still hangs in the winery office. 7. Dry Creek Vineyard has been the official wine at America's Cup World Series races and was chosen as official winery by Swedish team Artemis Racing for the 2013 San Francisco America's Cup. 8. The winery's flagship Fumé Blanc is 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc, blending half Russian River Valley fruit and half Dry Creek Valley fruit with no oak aging; the tasted Sauvignon Blanc uses exclusively Dry Creek Valley fruit. 9. Kim's husband helped plant two rare clonal selections: Sauvignon Musqué — adding stone fruit and white peach aromatics — and Sauvignon Gris — adding body and texture — used in prestigious Bordeaux estates like Château Smith Haut Lafitte. 10. Winemaker Tim ferments a small portion of the Sauvignon Blanc in neutral French, chestnut, and acacia barrels for texture, not for wood flavour; the wine scored 99 points at the California State Fair and was chosen Best Sauvignon Blanc in the state. 11. Kim warns that as family wineries sell to corporations, appellations progressively broaden — from valley to county to state to, in one case she witnessed, simply 'America' — allowing sourcing of cheaper fruit while charging similar prices. 12. She advises consumers to look for 'produced and bottled by' on the back label, which confirms the winery grew the grapes and made the wine on site, as opposed to 'vinted and bottled by' or 'cellared and bottled by,' which often indicate blended bulk wine. 13. David Stare coined the term 'Old Vine' for a Dry Creek Vineyard label in the late 1980s, and Kim takes personal blame for never trademarking it, noting the term is now applied by some producers to vines as young as 10 to 20 years. 14. The Old Vine Zinfandel has a vine age requirement of at least 50 years; the current bottling has an average vine age of 95 years and includes fruit from vineyards first planted in 1896 — before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. 15. Kim describes vines no more than two feet tall and hollow in the middle that still produce grapes, yielding very low, concentrated yields; the oldest vineyards in the blend were planted by Italian families with a horse and plow in the late 1800s. 16. These old Zinfandel vines survived Prohibition because grapes could be used for home winemaking and church wine; Kim notes many historic Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel vineyards have since been torn out, which motivated the winery to develop a 'Heritage Vine Zinfandel' using old vine budwood grafted onto new rootstock. 17. The Old Vine Zinfandel is blended with a small amount of Petite Syrah and 1 percent old vine Carignan or Alicante Bouschet; Dry Creek Valley's daily 30-degree temperature swing from Pacific fog influence prevents the overripe, jammy, pruney characteristics common in warmer Zinfandel regions like Lodi. 18. Kim observes a diverse crowd of visitors — young couples, families with dogs and toddlers, foreign visitors, groups of friends — at the winery on a recent Saturday and calls it evidence of what makes Dry Creek Vineyard special: wines that appeal to a broad range of people without snobbery. 19. Wine enthusiasts interested in Sonoma history, family winery advocacy, or practical label-reading skills will find the episode directly useful. 20. Listeners looking for technical winemaking deep dives or varietal comparisons beyond Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel will find the conversation oriented more toward family story and consumer advice.

As heard by us

A family winery story that pairs Sauvignon Blanc details with an easy, table-ready tasting conversation.

Dry Creek Vineyard comes across as a family operation with a clear sense of place. Kim Stare Wallace grew up among the vines, left for fashion, then returned and helped shape the nautical label design the winery is known for.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Sonoma family-winery story with a Sauvignon Blanc that's all about tradition and innovation.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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