Ep 561: Fred Peterson of Peterson Winery on the (d)Evolution of Soil Health Over the Last 40 years

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fred Peterson has been making wines in Sonoma County for more than 40 years. While attending UC Santa Cruz, he took a job in a classmate’s family vineyard in Mendocino County and he found his passion. He left Santa Cruz, and used the rest of his GI Education benefits to attend UC Davis.

Photo: Peterson Winery. Credit: Wine for Normal People

Fred got his bachelor’s degree in Viticulture and Enology in 1978. And after managing vineyards for a large winery in the Central Coast, he moved to the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma in 1983. That same year, he planted a vineyard and built his house on Bradford Mountain.

In 1987, Fred hung a shingle on a red barn off of Lytton Springs Road and Peterson was born. The winery is no longer in the red barn, but it remains an important part of their history and is represented on every wine label with a back drop of Bradford Mountain, where the Peterson Estate Vineyard is located.

Photo: Fred Peterson. Courtesy of Peterson Winery

In this (super dorky) show Fred takes us through some of the fascinating history of how philosophies about terroir and soil have changed since he started as a grower and winemaker in the early 1980s and how he has managed to be a leader in sustainable, but not dogmatic sustainable farming and winemaking. Fred was one of the first voices in Sonoma to promote low intervention farming and winemaking. It shows in the wines!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.9	I'm your host, Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book, and Certified Wine Dork.
0:21.8	Join me as I hit record on this conversation with a friend in the wine industry.
0:26.2	This and all shows with guests are informal that educational discussions between passionate
0:30.9	wine friends. All guests are personal friends or friends of friends in wine, not strangers.
0:36.2	And like any conversation between
0:37.9	friends, we're going to talk back and forth, interrupt each other, laugh, have fun, debate,
0:43.1	tough questions, voice opinions. Most of all, enjoy sharing our time together and with you. If you're
0:48.5	in, pour yourself a glass, pull up a chair, and join us for this great chat. This show is brought to you by Wine Access, my exclusive sponsor.
0:58.5	Who wants the best selection of wine delivered right to your door?
1:02.0	You do.
1:03.1	If you go to Wine Access.com slash normal, you get four shipments a year,
1:07.5	six amazing bottles that I select with the Wine Access team around a theme. It's
1:12.2	150 bucks. It includes shipping. Our goal is to teach you about wine and help you explore the
1:18.6	world in an easy format. Go to Wine Access.com slash normal. Listen in the middle of the show for more
1:24.3	details. I was so excited when I received an email from Fred
1:28.3	Peterson, who is a friend and an icon who has been making wine in Sonoma County for more than
1:33.9	40 years. He said he had an idea for a show and really wanted to talk about the evolution
1:39.7	and maybe the evolution and the rebuilding of soil and land in Sonoma County.
1:46.6	So that is the topic of today's show really brought by Fred.
1:51.7	And I'm excited to show you this and really give you a sense of where we were and where we are today.
1:58.0	But to give you some background on Fred besides the fact that he's been making wine
	...

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