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Winery Profile

“Marietta Cellars: Spinning Magic

in Sonoma County” By: Nan McCreary
M arietta Cellars owner and winemaker Scot Marietta Cellars on the map and earned a stable of ded-

icated followers that continues to this day. What makes
Bilbro remembers growing up and watch-
ing his late father, Chris, perform magic in
just of varieties, but of vintages. “This is a delicious wine
his winery in Sonoma County. Not magic with cards or this wine especially distinctive is that it’s a blend not
sleight of hand, but magic in transforming cardboard that has become a well-known table wine for people
wine boxes into suits of armor for his boys or grilling across the country,” Bilbro said. “And yet it started as a
sweet but spicy ribs and blending a fruity Zinfandel and little brainchild created by my father in a little cow barn
a hearty Petite Sirah to make a perfect wine pairing for in the hills above Dry Creek and Healdsburg.”
dinner.
Bilbro, with a winery as his child-
hood playground and a degree in
Viticulture and Enology at U.C. Davis,
has been continuing his father’s
legacy since Chris retired in 2012.
While that legacy was well estab-
lished — Chris’s success with OVR
allowed Marietta to grow and pur-
chase its own vineyards rather than
continue to source fruit from friends
and farmers — the younger Bilbro
has access to Marietta’s 310 acres of
estate-based vineyards in Alexander
Valley in Sonoma and McDowell
Valley and the Yorkville Highlands in
Mendocino. Marietta still chooses
to source a small amount of grapes
from a few select growers with
whom they have significant history.
Scot Bilbro & his late father Chris
Marietta’s vineyards offer an ideal
It is that same magic — the magic of creativity and climate for grape growing, with hot days for ripen-
possibility — that inspires Scot, second generation ing and cool nights for developing acidity to balance
winemaker at the small family winery founded by Chris the flavors. All grapes are farmed organically, with no
Bilbro in 1978. “I’m building off what my father start- synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers. “This
ed,” Bilbro told The Grapevine Magazine, “and keeping means lots of hand labor,” Bilbro told The Grapevine
a lot of his creeds and thoughts in my head and heart Magazine, “but most of our vineyard crew has been
while also making it my own thing.” with us for years — some for decades —and they know
what needs to be done and when.” Bilbro and his crew
The hallmark of the elder Bilbro’s winemaking was a tend the vineyards year round, and when harvest time
certain freedom of expression, his son explained, which comes, they pick the grapes with care and precision. In
inspired him to create unique blends of wines atypical some years, they may harvest multiple times per block,
of Sonoma County, and all of California for that matter. depending on the ripeness of grapes in that block. “All
“Dad was just a pleasurable, comfortable gentleman of this is time-consuming,” Bilbro acknowledged, “but
who did things that made sense to him,” Bilbro remem- there are no shortcuts in the vineyard, or in the winery.
bered. “It wasn’t that he threw the rulebook out; it Everything is determined by information we’re getting
was just that he hadn’t been classically trained so he at the time rather than by going on autopilot.”
did things in a way that made sense to him.” One such
blend was his now-iconic Old Vine Red, a combination In the winery, Bilbro is now spinning wine with his
of Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Syrah and Carignan that Chris own magic, just like his father before him. “My wine-
Bilbro created in the 1980s. The proprietary blend put making philosophy is an amalgam of my father and my

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