Preston Farm and Winery sits on West Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg at the far western reach of the Dry Creek Valley, on a property that Lou and Susan Preston began transforming from a prune orchard into a farm winery in 1973. Lou had just completed his studies in Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis when the Prestons acquired the land. Over the following decades, they built an operation that is as much a working farm as it is a winery — producing estate wines alongside olive oil, cured olives, and house-baked sourdough bread from certified organic and biodynamic land.

Lou and Susan Preston: from prune orchard to farm winery

Lou and Susan Preston purchased the West Dry Creek Road property in the early 1970s, taking on what had been a prune orchard. Lou had completed his studies in Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis and arrived with a clear idea of what he wanted to build: a working farm that also produced wine, rooted in the land rather than positioned above it. The Prestons planted their vineyards, began making wine, and launched the commercial label in 1973.

The farm identity was never incidental. Preston Farm and Winery produces its own olive oil from estate olive trees, cures olives from the same trees, and bakes sourdough bread on-site — a breadth of production that situates the winery in the tradition of the mixed-use European farm estate rather than the dedicated wine production facility. The organic and biodynamic certification reflects the same holistic approach: the land is treated as a system, not a factory.

One of Dry Creek Valley’s most distinctive farm wineries: estate wines, olive oil, sourdough bread, and 50 years of biodynamic farming on a converted prune orchard.

Organic and biodynamic farming on the West Dry Creek Road property

Preston Farm and Winery is certified organic and farms biodynamically, a combination that goes beyond avoiding synthetic pesticides and herbicides to treating the vineyard and farm as a self-sustaining ecosystem. Biodynamic farming incorporates compost preparations, cover cropping, integration of farm animals to maintain soil health, and timing of activities to natural cycles. The result, proponents argue, is soil that regenerates naturally rather than requiring continual inputs.

The West Dry Creek Road location places the Preston estate at the cooler, foggier end of the Dry Creek Valley, where the valley narrows and the marine influence from the Pacific is strongest. That positioning produces grapes with higher natural acidity than the warmer valley-floor sites closer to Healdsburg — characteristics that carry through into the wines.

Estate wines: Zinfandel, Rhone varieties, and the farm expression

Preston Farm and Winery produces estate wines from the grapes grown on the property, with Zinfandel as the foundation and an increasing focus on Rhone varieties that suit the cool western end of the valley. Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier, and Roussanne appear in the lineup alongside the Zinfandel, reflecting the shift in Lou Preston’s winemaking interests toward southern French varieties over the course of his career.

The wines are small-production and available primarily through the winery directly. They carry the character of the estate: organic farming, cool western Dry Creek Valley positioning, old-vine concentration where applicable, and the integration of variety and place that comes from 50 years of continuous farming on the same property.

Pairing Preston Farm wines with food

The diversity of what Preston Farm and Winery produces — wines alongside olive oil, cured olives, and sourdough — suggests the food pairing context immediately. A tasting visit to Preston naturally leads to a table spread of cured olives, fresh bread, and the current wine lineup, which is how the best of the Mediterranean farm tradition expresses itself in hospitality.

For pairing the wines specifically: the Zinfandel from the cool western valley positioning tends toward the more restrained, food-friendly end of the varietal range, pairing well with lamb, grilled pork, and aged hard cheeses rather than the rich braised preparations that heavily extracted Zinfandel requires. The Rhone varieties — Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre — pair naturally with preparations from the same Mediterranean tradition: lamb tagine, herb-roasted chicken, olive-forward braises, grilled sausages, and sheep’s-milk cheeses.

Preston Farm and Winery: common questions