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The Wine: Stefano makes his wine utilizing old world techniques learned from the family’s decades of wine making. The emphasis is on as little manipulation as possible with no added enzymes for color and using gravity whenever possible instead of pumping. If fining is required the winery utilizes the estate chickens to produce the egg whites to do the trick; manually separating eggs that aren't even 24 hours old for the process. The Chardonnay does not go through malolactic fermentation, is racked off the lees and spends no time in oak. In spite of this, there is a great round mouth feel to the wine that is hard to account for based on the techniques used. The answer, according to Stefano, is the use of a type of yeast that adds a glycerol element to the wine and gives it that round mouth feel without any butter or toast in the flavor. This allows the great mango, pineapple, papaya and peach fruit quality to shine through unhindered. The wine has a very nice acid structure, but is not tart in the finish. It also has a subtle mineral quality to it that, combined with the tropical fruit characteristics, makes this a truly distinctive wine. The same day the winery released its Chardonnay it also released this year’s Barbera varietal wine. This is another wonderful wine, aged in French and Hungarian oak with soft vanilla and chocolate flavor qualities. It truly flies out of the tasting room, so stop in soon if your passion is great Barbera. Avio makes a very limited supply of Cabernet Sauvignon that will be bottled in the next few weeks, as well as a very fun California style Chianti that is more like one you would find in a home in Italy. Conclusion:When the Watsons were trying to decide where to put their tasting room a lot of tough decisions needed to be made. If they wanted the best possible visibility they would take out a few of the estate’s vines near the road and they could have a 'drive-in' winery for all who were passing by to access quickly. But they wanted a trip to their winery to be an experience, and their true desire was to recreate that great Italian farmstead experience of driving through the vineyards on a journey of discovery. They wanted the drive to the tasting room to be a mystery – to draw you in and give you an afternoon in Italy with great family hospitality and even better wines. So they built the tasting room in the midst of the vineyards far from the road with just the right atmosphere to make your trip memorable. It is a place that draws you in and that you may find hard to leave. Click here to read more on our sister site Sierra Wines and to get maps and contact information for Avio.