Charley Papera planted this vineyard in 1934, the year after Prohibition ended — a fitting expression of optimism after thirteen years of waiting. He planted old-vine Zinfandel, head-trained and dry-farmed on the eastern side of the Laguna de Santa Rosa in the Russian River Valley. Most of his original planting is still in the ground.
Stuart Coulson purchased Papera Ranch in 2007 and immediately set about improving it — replanting vines that were too diseased to continue productively and adding an additional irrigation line for the new plants. Stuart came to this with an unusual background: 25 years as a senior corporate executive in airline and travel reservations, a BA from Trinity College Dublin, and an MBA from the University of Geneva. He approached the vineyard the same way a good operator approaches any complex system — with attention to what is actually working and the discipline to fix what isn’t.
Papera Vineyard is a textbook old-vine Russian River Zinfandel site. The head-trained, dry-farmed vines produce intensely flavored fruit that reflects the specific character of the Laguna de Santa Rosa. The work Charley Papera started in 1934, and the work Stuart Coulson continues today, adds up to nearly a century of this particular piece of ground producing something worth paying attention to.
