Before natural wine had a name, Tony Coturri was already making it. On Sonoma Mountain above the tiny hamlet of Glen Ellen, Coturri Winery has operated since 1979 without pesticides, without sulfites, and without compromise. Tony is one of the most important figures in American wine history, a man who endured decades of critical dismissal to be vindicated by a movement that finally caught up with him.
A Family Rooted in the Land
The Coturri story begins with Enrico, Tony's grandfather, who immigrated from Farneta, Italy in 1901 and worked as a barrel cooper. His son Harry "Red" Coturri learned to make wine from Enrico during Prohibition, passing those traditions down to Tony and his brother Phil. When Red and his sons established Coturri Winery in 1979, they were not following a trend. They were continuing a lineage that had never deviated from the principle that wine begins and ends in the vineyard.
The Philosophy: Just Grapes
Coturri Winery has never and will never use grapes treated with pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides. The estate's biodynamic Zinfandel vineyards are dry-farmed on Sonoma Mountain, and fruit is harvested by hand at peak ripeness. In the cellar, indigenous yeasts drive spontaneous fermentation with no sulfur additions at any stage, from crush to bottle. The results are wines of rare authenticity, built from the deep, calcareous soils and fog-tempered climate of the Valley of the Moon.
Vindication and Legacy
Tony was panned by critics, including Robert Parker, for producing what they called flawed wines. He didn't budge. Today, certified organic through the CCOF, Coturri Winery stands as a benchmark for low-intervention winemaking in California. Tony is now mentoring his son Nic in the craft, ensuring that the Coturri approach to wine, one of the most principled in the country, carries forward to a fourth generation. A jazz enthusiast and motorcycle rider, Tony remains as uncompromising in life as he is in the cellar.
