Winemaking
Beginning with our 2007 vintages, the Barra family is proud to welcome veteran winemaker Dan Kopache to the BARRA of Mendocino team. Dan comes to BARRA of Mendocino with over 18 years of premium winemaking experience, ranging from the successful brands of Benziger's Imagery Series to the well known Kendall-Jackson Collage wines. Moving forward Dan will be responsible for all of the BARRA of Mendocino wines as well as the Barra family's other brand, Girasole Vineyards.
Working with incredibly talented winemaking consultants, the pre-2007 vintages of BARRA of Mendocino wines have been hand-crafted to optimize the superior fruit that acts as the foundation for everything we produce.
Consulting winemakers, John Parducci, Rich Parducci and David Rosenthal – Winemaker David Rosenthal finds it exhilarating to work on the small lots of wine produced from organically grown grapes for the award-winning brands of BARRA of Mendocino and Girasole Vineyards (a second label under BARRA of Mendocino). He enjoys developing different flavor profiles for each of the brands through the changes in fermentation processes, use of different yeasts, types of barrels and other winemaking techniques. Rosenthal attended UC Davis and graduated with a degree in fermentation science. He was winemaker for many years at Konocti Winery in Lake County, Buena Vista in Sonoma County and finally made his way to winemaker at Redwood Valley Cellars in 1995, where the two above-mentioned brands are made.
Senior winemaker John Parducci purchased McNab Ridge Winery in 1999 to continue the Parducci family’s tradition of making fine, Mendocino County wines. John was soon joined by his grandson Richard Parducci, who has a winemaking degree from California State University at Fresno, and had held various winemaking positions before accepting the head job at McNab Ridge. Because of these two talented winemakers’ skills at handling the sometimes-over-the-top tannins in petite sirah, cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel, these varietals are made for BARRA of Mendocino at their winery just south of Ukiah. At 88 years old, John still goes to work every day and adds his strong opinion about the quality of the wine before it is bottled.
