Sonoma County Winery- Leonhardt Vineyards History
From its founding in 2003, Leonhardt Vineyards has recognized Dry Creek Valley’s potential and sought to highlight it’s diversity. Today our vineyards fulfill the promise foretold by the land decades ago. Located off Dry Creek Road and near the historic site of Dry Creek Valley’s first winery established in the late 1800’s. This gravely hillside is ideal for producing Zinfandels. The view from this land is breathtaking. The vineyards are managed by Ulises Valdez.
Our Philosophy
Great grapes make great wine. There simply is no greater truism in the field of winemaking. The unique environment that contributes to the richness of the land directly impacts the quality of our grapes which go into every bottle we produce. To that end, we spend a tremendous amount of time with our wine grower. This relationship ensures that the fruit arriving at the winery has met every opportunity to excel. Continuous dialogue between the wine grower/winemaker makes certain our product always meets the highest standards.
At Leonhardt Vineyards, we enhance the natural characteristics of the wine through gentle handling of the fruit, careful fermentation, and unique aging processes. We grow our grapes on the best vineyard lands Dry Creek Valley has to offer.
Our Winemaker ~ Michael Dashe
In 1996, the husband and wife winemaking team of Michael and Anne Dashe founded Dashe Cellars. Focused on crafting exceptional single vineyard wines, Dashe Cellars blends Anne's classic French winemaking training with the experience Michael has gained at such noted American wineries as Ridge Vineyards, Far Niente and Schramsberg Wine Cellars. Together, the Dashe's strive to create authentic, vineyard-focused wines that capture the charm and personality of top, independent vineyards throughout Sonoma County and beyond.
Our Vineyard Manager ~ Ulises Valdez
From a remote village in Michoacan, Mexico, to the vineyards of Sonoma County,
this is the story of Ulises Valdez' pursuit of the American Dream, culminating in the
first releases of Valdez Family Winery, on July 8, 2006. This year marks twenty years
in the vineyard business for Ulises, first as field worker, then as a partner in the vineyard
management business, and now owner of Valdez and Sons Vineyard Management.
Working on several hundred acres of vineyards has enabled Ulises to select some
of his favorite blocks for his first wines. Collaborators include such acclaimed winemakers
as Mark Aubert, Jeff Cohn, Paul Hobbs, Kent Rosenblum and Rolando Herrera.
Our Story - Leonhardt Vineyards History
Every one of the thousands of wooden vineyard posts on our 15 acre property at 8500 Dry Creek Valley Road in Sonoma County represents an obstacle overcome in route to establishing the vineyard. Howard J. Leonhardt drove south from Minnesota with $600 in savings in 1984 and upon arrival in Florida could only afford to sleep in his car in a campground with his wife Brenda and baby boy Ryan in tow. From those humble beginnings he went on to patent and develop more than 20 different products for treating heart and cardiovascular disease and established over 20 companies employing thousands of people. Leonhardt is most noted for the invention of the TALENT stent graft for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery which is the world's leading system today. Over 180,000 patients have been treated with Leonhardt's inventions to date.
Other inventions include; cardiovascular balloon catheters, a percutaneous heart valve, a biological pacemaker, stem cell delivery catheters, compositions and methods for treating heart failure www.bioheartinc.com, an artificial lung catheter and an advanced heart pacemaker that is able to regenerate damaged heart tissue by recruiting stem cells www.myostimpacers.com. Leonhardt Ventures www.leonhardtventures.com today specializes in helping entrepreneurs with social good enterprises to develop their business plans and get funded. In April of 1998 World Medical the company Leonhardt founded in 1988 to develop his cardiovascular inventions merged with Arterial Vascular Engineering, Inc. of Santa Rosa, California (later sold to Medtronic, Inc. of Minnesota in 1999 with vascular operations still based in Santa Rosa). That brought the Leonhardt family to Sonoma County. In early 2000 he bought a small farm house with 15 acres of sheep grazing land at the northern end of Dry Creek Valley. The views from this property are spectacular. The work began to convert the property to a vineyard. Leonhardt recruited the help of Ulises Valdez, The Florence Family and Michael and Anne Dashe whom have been instrumental in making Leonhardt's wines amongst the highest in quality. Nine years later in 2009 the family entered their Leonhardt 2007 Dry Creek Valley Estate Reserve Zinfandel into the Sonoma County Harvest Fair medals competition. The family beamed with pride when it was announced they had won a Gold Medal in one of the toughest wine medal competitions in the world with more entrants than any other contest.
In recent years Ryan Leonhardt the son of Howard Leonhardt has moved to the property and has taken programs at Santa Rosa Jr. College in vineyard management, wine making and wine business management. He now undertakes much of the vineyard pruning and management himself and gets out and sells wine to local restaurants when not working at the property. Leonhardt Vineyards was the primary wine sponsor of the San Francisco Giants and their Community Fund during the coveted 2010 World Series Championship season. The Leonhardt Family and Leonhardt Vineyards has donated substantially to charitable and community organizations over the years including many entrepreneurship institutes at colleges around the nation and has been primary sponsor of Wine Country Old Fashioned Baseball www.winecountrybaseball.com in Sonoma and Napa counties since 2009.