In 1996, the husband and wife winemaking team of Michael and Anne Dashe founded Dashe Cellars. Focused on crafting exceptional single-vineyard wines, Dashe Cellars blends the two winemaker’s combined 40-plus years of experience at such noted wineries as Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château La Dominique, Ridge Vineyards, Cloudy Bay, Far Niente, Chappellet, and Schramsberg Wine Cellars. Drawing on this wealth of experience, the Dashes create vineyard-focused wines that capture the complexity and character of top vineyards throughout Sonoma County and beyond.
At Dashe Cellars, Michael and Anne are committed to creating wines that reflect the unique soil, climate and regional characteristics of world-class vineyards. Focusing on older vines, steep hillside locations, rocky soils and stressful growing conditions, they work closely with their growers to ensure careful vineyard management and low yields. Building on the gentle, authentic winemaking approach that has helped to define Dashe Cellars. Since its inception, Michael and Anne extended the boundaries of their natural winemaking philosophies with the creation of their first Les Enfants Terribles wine in 2007. Wines in the acclaimed Les Enfants Terribles series are made from special vineyards—often organic, biodynamic, or sustainably farmed—and are created in a more classic “Old World” style, spotlighting the delicacy that comes from cooler climates, lower alcohols, the judicious use of oak, and minimal handling.
"Since 1996, Dashe Cellars has been making Zinfandel from the Dry Creek Valley. To celebrate our 20 years of making wine from the region, we have selected some of the best vineyards—and the best barrels from lots within the vineyards—to create a special Dry Creek Reserve. We wanted to show off the best characteristics of the Dry Creek Valley with an intensity, a complex spectrum of flavors, and a balance of pure fruit flavors and bright acidity which are typical for that area. This Reserve wine is a particularly complex, lovely, and fruit-forward wine—a classic, balanced Dry Creek Zinfandel.
The wine was fermented using only the natural yeast population on the grapes—our tradition at Dashe Cellars—and the resulting wine shows off the terroir of the vineyards beautifully. The wine was aged for 13 months in 20% new French oak barrels, and the remainder in older French oak barrels to gain the softness of oak aging without adding excessive oak flavors. Before the final blend, we tasted all our barrels to select out only the best Zinfandel lots for this reserve wine. Finally, in our blending trials, we added about 8% of Petite Sirah, for structure and long aging potential."