Dan Barwick

Dan Barwick, Trecini Winery winemaker, joins Steve Jaxon and Dan Berger on California Wine C0untry, back on the air after summer vacation. Today California Wine Country returns to live radio on a new day, Friday, and on our new station, Wine Country Radio 95.5 FM in Sonoma County.

The Drive with Steve Jaxon is back on the air, weekdays from 3:00-6:00 PM on Wine Country Radio 95.5 FM and also streaming live online at TheDrive955.com.

Dan Barwick, winemaker at Trecini Wines, has been a guest on California Wine Country an average of once a year since we began this podcast in 2017. His first episode in the podcast series is from May 17, 2017. It’s an interesting episode for many reasons. For one, Dan Berger mentions that he was starting to hear more and more about Rosé wines. Something was starting to happen there that kept on going. Also, Dan Barwick was the winemaker at Paradise Ridge at the time and talks about that. This July 29, 2020 episode is also interesting since he talks about how Paradise Ridge had rebuilt since the fires that struck Sonoma County in October 2018. His last time on CWC was November 16, 2022, after he had been at Trecini for some time.

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They begin by tasting a wine that comes from Dan Berger’s enormous personal cellar. This is a 2016 Frog’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc. Most people drink their Sauvignon Blanc quickly so they rarely get a chance to age. This is seven years old and is delicious. Dan says that SV is interesting because when it gets a chance to age, it is great. This is his last bottle of the 2016 but he still has one of the 2017.

Dan Barwick made his first wine for Trecini in 1999. He has brought a Grenache Blanc from Rockpile vineyard which reminds him of some fruit he used twenty years ago. Grenache Blanc is a white grape from the Rhone region of France.

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Dan Barwick came from England in 1991 for a harvest, when he was working in wine sales. One harvest just led to another and another. Previously he lived in France, South Africa and later in Australia. He did a harvest in the Barossa Valley, in south Australia. Just like Steve Jaxon, once he came to Sonoma County for work, he decided to stay.

The Trecini tasting room is no longer open. (The website may need to be updated). One of the co-founders passed away last year and they are keeping the winery going.

Harvest is approaching and both Dans report that expectations are high for this year. It resembles 2011, which was great. It may be average for quantity. Dan Berger says that the acidity in the vineyards is good this year which means this is a promising year.

Dan Berger writes a weekly column about wine and recently he has written some articles looking back at what he wrote many years ago.

The next wine tasted is a 2022 Russian River Chardonnay, a Trecini pre-release. Dan Berger wrote an article about balance in Chardonnay, and Dan Barwick has brought this particular wine to reply to that. No malolactic, fermented in large used French barrels. He has been trying to make a Chardonnay with this much balance for twenty years. There are grapes from two different vineyards in it.