Wells Guthrie is the mind behind Auden (pronounced AW-den), a new project from the Petaluma Gap. Auden is an Old English name meaning “old friend,” and it is also the name of the celebrated 20th-century poet W.H. Auden. Most of the fruit for Auden comes from Gapstone Vineyard, located in the Petaluma Gap near the base of Sonoma Mountain. Gapstone was planted a decade ago by Garrett Buckland, a partner with Steve Mathiasson at Premier Viticultural Services.  The vineyard is planted on exceptionally rocky volcanic soils with excellent drainage and less clay than the surrounding areas. Just 12 miles from the Pacific, the coastal influence means a long, cool growing season and remarkably balanced fruit. Gapstone is owned by Kenny Kahn, owner of Blue Rock Vineyards, where Wells is a partner and head winemaker.  

Wells is best known for the pioneering “Burgundian” style of Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays he produced at Copain in the mid-2000s. Guthrie spent time in the mid-1990s in France, where he worked at celebrated wineries like M. Chapoutier in the Northern Rhône, Domaine Dujac in Morey-Saint-Denis, and Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier in Chambolle-Musigny. After returning from France, Wells worked with Helen Turley at Turley Wine Cellars as well as Martinelli and Marcassin. With Helen’s encouragement, he founded Copain in 1999. At the beginning, Copain was producing wines in the style most prevalent in California at the time: dense, ripe wines with power and impact.

Wells found that his wines were developing more rapidly than he wanted and started to change the style of his winemaking. Drawing on his experiences in France, he leaned towards earlier harvesting, with lower alcohol levels, more balanced acidity, less extraction, and oak. In the mid-2000s, Copain became a beacon of the “New California” style of winemaking, more balanced than powerful. Copain was a place where like-minded winemakers like John Raytek from Ceritas and Duncan Meyers and Nathan Roberts of Arnot-Roberts spent time tasting some of the great, old-school and “benchmark” wines of Northern Rhône, Burgundy, and Piemonte. These wines had a profound impact on the trajectory and winemaking shifts for all of these winemakers. In 2016, Jackson Family purchased the estate, and a few years later Wells started DuPuis wines in Anderson Valley. DuPuis closed its doors after the 2022 vintage when Wells suffered an accident and was unable to finish the last few vintages in barrel. Shortly after, he met Sonoma winery owner Kenny Kahn and became a partner in Blue Rock, a winery with an estate vineyard in Northern Sonoma County planted to Bordelais varieties, and Gapstone, in Southern Sonoma County planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Blue Rock was one of the first clients of Premiere Viticultural Services and Garrett Buckland manages viticulture at both properties.

Auden is a project firmly based on the cool, Coastal Sonoma area, produced with estate-grown fruit. The wines reflect both the cool climate and rocky soils of the Petaluma Gap as well as Wells’ balanced winemaking style. The wines were fermented naturally, without pigage for the first half of fermentation, then punched down once per day until the end of fermentation. Aged in neutral French oak, Wells bottles Auden without any fining or filtration. When we first tasted the wines from barrel, we were immediately struck by the poise and balance, defined sense of place, and delicious drinkability. The wines represent tremendous value, and we’re very pleased to reintroduce Wells with this exciting new project.