Cuda Ridge Wines, newest addition to the Livermore Appellation, visited 17 Feb 2008 by Bruce Shore

Livermore’s newest winery, Cuda Ridge Wines,  is also its smallest. The winery, a family enterprise of owner Larry and Margie Dino, held its official opening on Sunday 17 February 2008 from a stock of 125 cases of Bordeaux-style red wines. It operates out of rented space in a portion of the commodious garage of the home of Mark and Maria Trisca on Cedar Mountain Drive, a small road amidst the scattered 20 acre estates that offer vineyard environments to gracious living below the hills south of Livermore.

 One reaches the tasting area (held outside under awnings on opening day) via Greenville road, which also leads to several other small but more established wineries and tasting rooms. Very definitely the approach is equal to any scene in the more well traveled Napa or Sonoma wine country. Opening day was balmy and spring-like, though in February, and a good crowd gathered to taste wines outdoors.

The genesis of this winery, and the name Cuda Ridge, ties closely with recent Dino family history. Their first wine, in 1989,  was made in the garage of their Fremont home, from grapes grown in the Healdsburg area by parents of  a high-school swimming buddy of Margie. As their winemaking skill improved they began looking for a larger place, closer to wine country. Their first attempt to purchase property, in Sonoma in 1999, failed. But though they came away from that encounter without land, they purchased instead a 1970 Barracuda “muscle car” — familiarly known as a ‘Cuda. It is from this car that the present company has taken its name.

 

The purple of the handsome auto, present for admiration in the tasting area on opening day, carries through with the purple of the company shirt and on the stylized image of a barracuda that forms the company logo.

The Dinos moved to Livermore in 2003, where they continued their winemaking in the garage of their home off Almond Avenue, while Larry commuted by BART to a computer-software job in San Francisco. Encouraged by the many friends with whom they shared their wines, they chose to become a commercial winery less than two years ago; the present locale, and the tasting and sales, is the result of that decision.

The festive nature of the opening day was further enhanced by the presence of Roger Kardinal, whose guitar playing is to be heard also at other wineries; he spends weekdays working at Fretted Friends in Livermore.
 
Larry is the winemaker, and handles the purchases of grapes, but the operation  is definitely a family enterprise: I met not only wife Margie but a sister Lolin and daughter Megan (an East Avenue Middle School student), all helping in the activities of the day.

Larry aims to produce Bordeaux-style wines. As he explained, this means that the grapes should be from the stock of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Verdot or Malvec for  red wine, or of Semillon or Sauvignon Blanc for white wine. Reds are aged entirely in new French and American oak. The wines themselves, I was told, have less alcohol and are less fruity than other wines. The winery presently offers just three wines, all red: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc (from $22 to $28), but by next year, with a doubling of their present output,  they will be offering some white wines. The needed stainless steel tanks have yet to be ordered, but there is adequate space next to the dozen or so barrels along one wall of the garage annex that houses their entire winemaking activity.

The grapes for future bottlings will come largely from the Livermore area — the Cab Franc from Ruby Hill and Wente vineyards, and the Cab Sauvignon from vineyards adjacent to the winery.

On this  excursion three members of my family came along — two of them visitors from Olympia, Washington. As they sat looking out over the the expanse of vineyards toward the distant city of Livermore, listening to the music of Roger Kardinal, they expressed their pleasant surprise that this area can, for tourists seeking wine country,  rival any of the better known locales.