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Amphora Winery — Dry Creek Valley Winery & Tasting Room

Dry Creek Valley · Dry Creek Valley AVA
🐾 Dog Friendly 🌄 Scenic Views 🧺 Picnic Grounds 🥂 Estate Wines ✅ Walk-ins Welcome
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Hours
Thu–Mon 11am–4:30pm
📞
Phone
(707) 431-7767
💰
Tasting Fee
From $20
📅
Reservations
Walk-ins welcome
🌿
Est.
1996

About Amphora Winery

Amphora Winery is the most genuinely adventurous and varietal-diverse small producer in the Dry Creek Valley. Rick Hutchinson founded the label in 1996 with a conviction that was genuinely unusual for Dry Creek Valley at the time — and remains unusual today: that the warm Mediterranean climate of the valley's benchland terrain is ideally suited not just to Zinfandel and Cabernet, but to the varietals of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece that share the same climate origins.

The Amphora program spans Tempranillo, Graciano, Aglianico, Touriga Nacional, Primitivo, Mourvèdre, and other Mediterranean varieties sourced from California and Pacific Northwest vineyards — a genuinely educational journey through the world of warm-climate Southern European viticulture expressed through American terroir. Each wine is produced in tiny quantities that reflect the research project character of the program: Hutchinson is genuinely curious about what each variety can achieve in California conditions, and the wines are the results of that decades-long experiment.

The Wine Creek Road tasting room — dogs welcome, picnics available, walk-ins genuinely warmly received — provides the most intellectually stimulating varietal education available anywhere on the Dry Creek wine circuit.

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What WinoNotion Loved
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Amphora Winery isAmphora Winery is the most genuinely adventurous and varietal-diverse small producer in the Dry Creek Valley.
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Rick Hutchinson foundedRick Hutchinson founded the label in 1996 with a conviction that was genuinely unusual for Dry Creek Valley at the time — and remains unusual today: that the warm Mediterranean climate of the valley's benchland terrain is ideally suited not just to Zinfandel and Cabernet, but to the varietals of Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece that share the same climate origins.
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The Amphora programThe Amphora program spans Tempranillo, Graciano, Aglianico, Touriga Nacional, Primitivo, Mourvèdre, and other Mediterranean varieties sourced from California and Pacific Northwest vineyards — a genuinely educational journey through the world of warm-climate Southern European viticulture expressed through American terroir.
"Rick Hutchinson's small-lot Italian, Spanish, and Greek variety program at Dry Creek Valley — Tempranillo, Graciano, Agl"
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Featured Wines

Tempranillo
Tempranillo
California / Pacific Northwest
Amphora's Spanish flagship — Tempranillo from carefully selected California and Pacific Northwest sources showing what this Spanish Rioja variety produces when farmed in warm-climate California conditions with Rick Hutchinson's minimal-intervention small-lot approach.
Estate
★★★★☆
Aglianico
Aglianico
California
Southern Italian Aglianico — one of California's rarest varietal programs, showing the dark, tannic, age-worthy character of this Campanian variety in Amphora's patient, research-driven production style.
Estate
★★★★☆
Graciano
Graciano
California / Pacific Northwest
Spanish Graciano — the variety most associated with Rioja's finest traditional blends, produced as a varietal wine at Amphora showing the aromatic complexity and structural depth that this rare Spanish grape achieves in Hutchinson's adventurous sourcing program.
Estate
★★★★☆
Touriga Nacional
Touriga Nacional
California
Portugal's noble Port variety produced as a dry table wine at Amphora — one of California's only Touriga Nacional programs showing the dark fruit intensity and floral complexity that this Portuguese variety produces when farmed for table wine rather than fortification.
Estate
★★★★☆

Tasting Experiences

Book on Tock →
🥂
Mediterranean Variety Walk-In Tasting
Walk in Thursday through Monday for Rick Hutchinson's most adventurous wine education on Dry Creek Road — Tempranillo, Aglianico, Graciano, and Touriga Nacional from California and Pacific Northwest sources in one of the valley's most intellectually unusual and genuinely fascinating small-producer programs. Dogs welcome.
$20

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