Unti Vineyards is located on Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg, on an estate that George Unti purchased in the early 1990s with a specific thesis about variety and place. George and his son Mick launched the Unti Vineyards label in 1997, built around Italian and southern French grape varieties that were not commonly grown in Dry Creek Valley — Grenache, Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Syrah, Vermentino, Fiano, Picpoul — varieties they knew from the wines of Italy and the southern Rhone, and believed would thrive in the Dry Creek Valley climate. The vineyard has been farmed organically since 2003.

George and Mick Unti: variety selection as a founding principle

George Unti purchased land in Dry Creek Valley in the early 1990s with a clear intention: to grow the varieties that interested him most, even if they were not what anyone else in the valley was producing. As fans of Italian wines and the wines of the southern Rhone — the Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre blends of the Languedoc and Chateauneuf-du-Pape — George and his son Mick saw the warm days and cold nights of Dry Creek Valley as an environment that could support these varieties with the same success it had given Zinfandel.

They launched the Unti Vineyards label in 1997 and built the production program around small lots of estate-grown varieties, most of which were uncommon to Dry Creek at the time. The commitment to variety diversity has remained consistent: the Unti lineup continues to include multiple Italian grapes, several Rhone varieties, a dry Rosé, and white wines that few Dry Creek Valley producers offer.

Unti took Dry Creek Valley in a different direction: Italian and southern French varieties, organically farmed, from a family that asked what the land could do beyond Zinfandel.

Organic farming since 2003 on the Dry Creek Road estate

Unti Vineyards converted to fully organic farming in 2003, removing synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers from the vineyard management program. Organic farming in a dry, warm climate like Dry Creek Valley requires attention to disease pressure, particularly during cooler, wetter periods, but the combination of natural air circulation and the valley’s generally dry summers makes it more achievable here than in more humid wine regions.

The organic approach at Unti is consistent with the overall estate philosophy: direct engagement with the land, transparency about what goes into the vineyard, and a commitment to producing wine that expresses the specific character of the Dry Creek Road site rather than compensating for what the site might lack through chemical interventions.

The Unti Vineyards lineup: Italian varietals, Rhone varieties, and Zinfandel

The Unti wine program covers a range of varieties unusual for a single Dry Creek Valley estate. On the red side: Zinfandel, Grenache, Sangiovese, Syrah, Barbera, and Montepulciano. On the white side: Vermentino, Fiano, and Grenache Blanc. A dry Rosé made from Grenache and Mourvedre completes the lineup. Each varietal is produced in small lots from estate fruit.

Montepulciano, Vermentino, and Fiano are particularly rare in California, and Unti is one of only a handful of producers working seriously with them. That commitment to uncommon varieties has made the winery a reference point for wine drinkers interested in Italian varieties in California — a category that has grown significantly since the early 2000s as the Italian wine renaissance in California expanded beyond Sangiovese.

Pairing Unti Vineyards wines with food

The variety of wines in the Unti lineup maps directly onto a wide range of Italian and Mediterranean food traditions. Vermentino, the white grape of Sardinia and coastal Tuscany, carries the saline, herbal character that makes it ideal for seafood — oysters, clams, branzino, grilled shrimp, and preparations with olive oil and fresh herbs. Fiano, from Campania in southern Italy, pairs with richer preparations: white fish in cream sauce, pasta with seafood, roasted chicken with lemon.

On the red side, Sangiovese’s high acidity and moderate tannin make it the natural partner for tomato-based preparations — the acid in the wine and the acid in the tomato reinforce each other rather than competing. Grenache, softer and more fruit-forward, pairs with lamb, roasted pork, and dishes with the warm spice character of the southern Rhone tradition. The Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel follows the same logic as other estate Zinfandels from the benchland: grilled lamb, slow-cooked pork, aged hard cheeses, and preparations that can match the wine’s concentration.

Unti Vineyards: common questions