Kastania Winery site is now home to Parum Leo

Petaluma’s half-dozen downtown tasting rooms are a great way to enjoy the fruits of our local wineries’ labor and to introduce guests to our great local producers, but sometimes it’s nice to slip away to something more agrarian. This is where vineyards with tasting rooms come into play, and Petaluma’s newest goes by the name Parum Leo and offers affordable wine here in town, without battling traffic to Sonoma or Napa.

Parum Leo is located at the old Kastania Winery (4415 Kastania Road), which is easily reached by following Highway 101 south to the exit with the same name. Kastania Road’s northern terminus is that actual freeway overpass.

Parum Leo is an impressive reboot to a facility that prior owner and local wine legend Hoot Smith started back in 1996, eventually opening up a tasting room in 2007. Looking to retire, Hoot put the vineyard on the market in 2019, however, due to Kastania’s limited size, it would need a budding winemaker because few current winemakers want to add such a small facility to their portfolio. As luck would have it, the size was just perfect for new owners Laurence and Angela Donald and once purchased, their first step was to start with a remodel of the tasting room.

They redesigned both the tasting room and the outdoor patio, adding plenty of shaded seating, with a view of the vineyard and the Petaluma River basin beyond. They went with a black-wash theme, which is simple, cleaning and inviting. The property had been in Hoot’s family since the mid-1800s and much of the family still lives along Kastania Road. The tasting room building began its life as Hoot’s grandfather’s dairy barn in 1914 and was used by the local volunteer fire department up until the 1970s. The Donald’s have thoughtfully retained elements of the property’s history, such as repurposing some of the original timber into an impressive set of doors that lead from the parking lot to the patio.

Laurence’s path to winemaking is not what one might expect and certainly adds character to the wines he makes. Born in Toronto to New Zealander parents, the family moved to the Bay Area when Laurence was 6, settling in the Sunset District of San Francisco.

After high school, instead of going straight to university, Laurence entered the financial world, working the trading floor for Montgomery Securities in the TransAmerica building in San Francisco’s Financial District. Shortly after 9/11, Laurence decided he was ready for a change.

“I felt like I was gambling every day,” he said. “Customers were relying on this money for their future, so every day was a rollercoaster ride whether we were going to be able to help them or not in the long run.”

After two years at Santa Rosa Junior College, Laurence moved on to Sonoma State University, where he would earn his business degree, although, with a love of wine, he always gravitated towards classes such as wine marketing. After a six-month sojourn in 2005, starting in New Zealand and Australia and winding his way up through Asia, Laurence returned to the U.S. and entered into a career of pharmaceutical sales, focusing on blood pressure medicine.

“Instead of gambling with their money in the financial markets, I wanted to do something that would help people,” said Laurence.

His territory reached from Marin to Fort Ross and over into Lake County, so Laurence was on the road a lot, but he enjoyed getting to know area intimately, including most of the area’s back roads, where many small vineyards are located. Eventually, some of Laurence’s friends suggested he explore the wine business. Because he was older than most who enter into the field, his winemaking friends warned him of the challenges, but it made sense to Laurence, so he gave it a go.

He started by completing eight back-to-back “crushes” (harvest seasons) working Northern California’s crush in the fall and then switching hemispheres and working New Zealand’s crush in the spring (their “fall” season). This was no easy task on the New Zealand side as work visas for agriculture workers are usually reserved for the young, not a 39-year-old looking to start a new career. Thankfully, due to his parent’s status as citizens, he too was able to get the proper documentation to continue his education down south. In conjunction with the experience he gained through so many successive crushes in row, he also earned degrees in viticulture (the study of grape growing) and enology (the study of wine) from Lincoln University (New Zealand).

Back here in the North Bay, Laurence earned quite a winemaker’s pedigree by working for luminaries like Mary Edwards, Leeuwin Estate Winery and Outpost (Thomas Brown) before landing at Gary Farrell, eventually becoming their viticulture liaison. This meant intimate contact with, and knowledge of, dozens of local vineyards, which would pay dividends once he started his own winery. Knowing how they grow and pick their grapes gives Laurence a lot of insight into what kind of wines those grapes will produce.

Angela, meanwhile, grew up in the South Bay before moving on UC Santa Barbara to study political science. She then moved to Washington D.C. to attend American University where she earned a master’s in public policy. She has worked extensively for elected officials, from Diane Feinstein to the assessor/recorder of San Francisco County, as well as nonprofits such as United Way. Currently, when not hosting at Parum’s tasting room and even doing wine deliveries, she works in government relations from the corporate side.

Angela and Laurence meet at a wedding at his family’s property in Calistoga roughly a decade ago, and had an immediate connection. Seven years later, they have three little girls, who they hope will inherit the winery.

“My dream has always been to have a small business we can pass on to our kids,” said Angela.

Agriculture is part of the Donald’s heritage, as both of Laurence’s parents grew up on farms.

“We love that our children are getting to learn where their food comes from and get to run around the vineyard,” she said.

To this end, the Donald’s hope to continue Hoot’s work towards sustainability, a certification he received just prior to selling the vineyard.

“I gained a great appreciate for natural farming while working at a biodynamic vineyard in New Zealand,” said Laurence. “We are hoping to move towards an organic certification at Parum.”

The name Parum Leo means little lion, a nod to Laurence’s favorite wine varietal, pinot noir. While it is said that “cab is king,” he felt at Parum, they could shift that view.

“Our pinots can hold their own,” says Laurence. “But they are more subtle and graceful than cabs, so our local mountain lions seemed like the way to go.”

Laurence’s first inclination was to simply offer four or five pinot noirs, but he likes to mix things up and figured customers would too. Because he had so much experience with sauvignon blancs in New Zealand and chardonnays here in the North Bay, it was natural for him to start producing those wines.

“I have always gravitated to this region because of the pinots,” said Laurence. “They are difficult to grow and I like that challenge. Chardonnays are a must have in our area, and sauv blancs are something my parents first discovered at Cloudy Bay Vineyards, in the Malborough wine region of New Zealand. Our merlot is an homage to Angela’s mother, who passed away from cancer recently.”

Just as the Donalds were taking over their new winery, Sonoma County was hit first with fires and then by then by COVID. The pandemic actually ended up being the perfect beginning for Parum as it gave them a chance to get everything up and running prior to the crowds starting to visit.

“We were lucky to get our permits quickly and because much of that first harvest was smoke-tainted, it gave them a chance to do a practice run with the fruit so we could get familiar with all the equipment,” said Laurence.

Parum is currently open Thursday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by appointment only, although those are easy to book. They offer two tasting choices – the “Signature” tasting, as well as the option to buy a bottle or three of Parum’s wines and do your own tasting in their bucolic picnic area location under an old oak tree in the lower portion of the vineyard. While we were visiting, we wandered down to check out the picnic area and found several families who were visiting to enjoy an afternoon of wine tasting, games and quality family time.

The “PL Signature” tasting is $20 per person and comes with an assortment of olives, cheese and crackers, which was a nice touch and assisted us in determining which of the wines was a light afternoon sipper and which were bold food-pairing wines. The current tasting includes their 2020 Anderson Valley Sauvignon Blanc ($21), 2018 Russian River Chardonnay ($26), 2018 Russian River Pinot Noir and 2019 Santa Clara Valley Merlot. We added Parum Leo’s fifth wine, their 2018 Pinot Hill Pinot Noir. One fee is waived with each purchase of three bottles of Parum’s wine.

During our visit, we received a nice mixture of wine introductions and pours from both Laurence and Angela. They exhibited a great juxtaposition, with Laurence passionately expounding on a lot of the technical information, as well as thoughtfully answering our winemaking related questions, while Angela simply, yet elegantly explained what she liked about the wines, including a great preview of the difference between Parum’s two pinot noirs. She called the Russian River an everyday drinker, while the Pinot Hill is more bold and will definitely go well with a meal.

Sauv blanc is a New Zealand staple, so Laurence had plenty of practice both making and tasting this varietal while working and studying with the Kiwis. I found Parum’s to be refreshing with a pleasantly subtle tartness to it. “

These grapes were picked early to ensure that we could capture their bright tropical notes,” states Parum’s website.

Every winery needs a “chard” and this one was great, although not what we were expecting. In place of heavy oak, there is a subtle nuttiness and in place of bold buttery-ness, this one has a mild creaminess, hints of citrus and a pleasantly mild back end. Laurence “scoured 20 vineyards for the best Burgundian and California clonal varieties” to bring a “subtle minerality to the finished wine.”

The two pinots were light day and night. The first was the Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, which was easy and breezy, with a lighter color and a smooth finish and was well described by Angela as the one she can enjoy any day of the week. This one is listed on their website as having “flavors of black currant, cherry, and strawberry, thereby creating a wine whose suppleness belies its strength — just like the mountain lions who still prowl these Sonoma County vineyards.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the Pinot Hill was big and bold, with tons of color and a great plum fruit forwardness and a lingering back end that will pair up to hearty dishes of lamb or beef. We agree with the winemaker’s description that this one has notes of Bing cherries and raspberries. Although they were not allowed to share which competition, Parum just received an award for one of its pinots and recently scored a 90 point rating for the same.

Finally, there was the merlot, which is the first I have seen on a tasting menu in quite a while. Damaged in reputation by the movie “Sideways” (2004), we are starting to see a comeback, which is good because merlot’s are great dinner wines. Angela’s mother loved this varietal and had a small vineyard of merlot planted at the family property in the South Bay.

“When given the opportunity to make wine from those grapes, I jumped at it,” Laurence said.

However, Parum’s is not your ordinary merlot. “We make ours like our pinot noir. It is not cold-soaked that much longer than our pinot, and so it has a lighter more fruit forward flavor but is not overly bold.”

According to the site description, this merlot is: “barrel-aged for over a year to mellow the tannins” and will continue to age nicely.

“A little acid goes a long ways, specifically for food pairing wines,” Laurence said.

Parum offers several levels of wine club members, all with “Pride Membership” benefits including 10% off current case and future bottle purchases, complimentary tasting for member and one guest, priority access to new releases and reservation fee discount for group picnic area. The three levels of Pride Membership are “Pounce” ($280 – one case of various varietals per year and annual release party and priority access to special events for the member, plus one), “Feast” ($448 – same as Pounce plus an additional guest) and “Family” ($728 – two cases customized or hand selected by Laurence and member plus four guests to the annual release party and special events). See Parum’s website or exact terms and details.