A visit to Page Mill Winery,  1960 S. Livermore Ave,  3 Feb 2008
Bruce Shore

Along South Livermore Avenue, and its continuation through open
countryside to the east as Tesla Road, are sited almost half of the
wineries and wine-tasting venues of the Livermore Valley Wine
Country. One of the newest and   smallest of the arrivals along this
wine avenue is Page Mill Winery. Located  at the end of what appears
at first glance to be just an unpaved private driveway past a small
single story residence, the small tasting room has an interesting
history of its own: it has served, amongst other purposes, as an
automobile repair shop, before being converted to its present
function as a combination barrel room and tasting room by the
previous owner.

 

The exterior of the tasting room, showing the stone facade. The
barrel room is to the rear of the building.
The exterior is now attractively faced with a layer
of rounded rocks, of the sort that cover the nearby vineyards and
which I used to excavate in my Livermore back yard.

 

A visitor to the tasting room relaxing on a comfortable divan
while enjoying the Merlot. The red curtains screen the barrel room;
some of these can be glimpsed to the right. 

Inside, the racks
of barrels are only partly obscured behind a tall dark red curtain
that gives one the impression of a stage curtain about to open onto a
lively event, rather than the silent maturing of wine.

Although Page Mill came to this location only last year, the winery
has been in operation for three decades. As the name suggests, it was
previously located in Los Altos Hills, on Page Mill Road above
Stanford, from which its founder, Dick Stark, had graduated. In 1976
Dick turned away from his career in laser products and began making
wine from his small vineyard. He and his wife Ome (like me, a
graduate of College of Pacific) ran the business out of the basement
of their home, steadily increasing their circle of fans. Indeed, two
of these peninsular couples had made a pilgrimage to Livermore on the
Superbowl Sunday when I was visiting the tasting room, and they
accompanied the casual tasting ceremony with stories of the old days.
They are the sort who still have some cellared wines from the 1970s.
To their dismay, their favorites, the Zinfandel and the Cabernet
Sauvignon, had been sold out some time earlier; with a total output
of only 3 thousand cases of wine, this is not uncommon.

The originators of the winery, Dick and Ome Stark, have now retired
from active participation to a home in Twain Hart, from which they
are better able to continue their skiing. Nowadays their son Dane, a
Livermore resident, and a partner, Gary Brink, run the business. Dane
is the winemaker; he followed in his fathers footsteps after spending
his junior year (at U. Colorado) in Bordeaux, where he “fell in love
with the art of winemaking”.

 

 Co-owner Gary Brink pouring in the tasting room.
Gary was pouring the day I visited: two
whites,  three reds, a white dessert wine and a port.  Their wines
have frequently taken medals at the S.F. Chronicle Competition; not
surprising in view of the “hand crafted” approach to winemaking that
has been part of the Stark family tradition.

The grapes used by Page Mill come from various sources, ranging from
Santa Maria in the south  to northern Napa Valley and Pope Valley.
They still get some from their Los Altos Hills property, but many of
their wines are shifting toward grapes from Livermore vineyards,
either from their own vineyards or by contract.

Prices of those available now at the winery range from $17 (2006
Sauvignon Blanc) to $30 (2005 Pinot Noir). I was told that some of
their wines, no longer available at the winery, might be still on
shelves at Beverages and More. Members of their Wine Club, like
members of other winery clubs, have the chance to ensure delivery of
the more popular wines, such as their Zinfandel, or their estate
Petite Sirah which took a gold medal from the S.F. Chronicle but is
no longer available.

I rather liked their 2006 Chardonnay, which comes from their Los
Altos Hills grapes — said to be “farmed organically” by Dane. My
wife was partial to their 2005 Merlot, also from Los Altos, and it
was a bottle of this that made its way home with us.  Their dessert
wines are enjoyable, though we have no present need to add to our
supply; the port has rather less residual sugar (7%) than many ports,
but would make a very nice finish to a dinner with company.

Gary and I enjoy a glass of Merlot outside the large doors of the
tasting room. The doors allow access of the fork lift, needed to move
the barrels.
Small it may be, and not easy to discover, but Page Mill Winery has a
lot of homey charm and some wines that are a good bargain.