In most circles, the phrase “jug wine” connotes cheap swill. The archetype, Carlo Rossi, is what its $15-for-4-liters price tag would suggest: so sweet and lacking in acidity that it tastes like flat grape soda.
But in a secluded corner of Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley, jug wine is something else entirely. At Preston Farm & Winery, jugs are vessels for simple but soul-stirringly satisfying wine. And they’re part of a California tradition dating back to the 19th century, when bringing your own jug to a local winery was standard procedure.
On Sunday, visitors descended on Preston Farm for their monthly fill-up. While tourists sat in the tasting room or in the gardens for a guided wine tasting, about 50 of Preston’s most loyal customers headed for the dark cellar, handing over their green, three-liter jugs — bulbous, with a handle on the tapered neck — for a refill. Owner Lou Preston presided over the weathered barrel whose spigot dispensed a hearty red blend, all the grapes grown organically at the property. Outdoors, children scrambled on the bocce courts and ran around the chicken coops.
“Lou has always wanted it to stay true to a historical 19th or early 20th century Northern California field blend,” winemaker Grayson Hartley said: Zinfandel-based, with a smattering of other grapes that were planted alongside it, producing a wine that’s hearty, fruity and rustic. The current iteration of Preston’s jug wine — from the 2023 season, though not vintage-labeled — consists mostly of Zinfandel, with Petite Sirah, Carignan and Cinsault, all varieties that were common in Dry Creek Valley at the turn of the century…