After graduating from Davis and beginning work at a larger winery, his winemaking mentality was heavily influenced by the theoretical nature of his education as well as the methodologies employed by others.

After making wine for about a decade, Larry felt much more comfortable calling himself a ‘winemaker’ and charting his own path. His general philosophies include the use of zero new oak barrels (all reds are aged in 4+ year old French oak, with many up to 15 years old, and all whites that see oak are aged in 6+ year old barrels), and extended barrel aging in most cases (up to 48 months for some reds).

One of the key elements of Larry’s red winemaking program is he use of 100% stem inclusion – each of his red lots is aggressively foot stomped exclusively by Larry – and no, it does not resemble the I Love Lucy episode. Larry believes the stems are an integral part of the expression of the vineyard and the variety and by foot stomping, it allows the stems to add small amounts of bitter compounds, tannins, and these stems change the aromatic profile of the subsequent wine as well. There’s some ‘unknown’ elements in doing this process and that truly excites Larry and makes his wine that much more ‘distinctive’.