Limerick Lane Cellars: Old Vines and Long Roots – Healdsburg

A visit to Limerick Lane Cellars does not begin at a tasting bar. It begins in the vineyard rows, where gnarled old Zinfandel vines frame a carpet of yellow mustard flowers and the land rolls gently toward low Sonoma hills. This is the kind of place where the setting does half the talking before a glass is ever poured.

The vineyards are on the edge of the Russian River Valley AVA. The AVA ends at the nearby hills, the boundary where the fog rolls into the area. 

On my visit, tastings were set outdoors, under a line of bright orange umbrellas shading long wooden picnic tables placed directly between the vines. There was no sense of hurry, no background music competing for attention. Instead, the experience was defined by space, quiet, and time, all rare commodities in modern wine country.

A Vineyard With A Story

The old growth vines at Limerick Lane are central to everything here. Some of these vines date to 1910, others to the 1940s, and they are still producing fruit today. Walking the rows, you can see the physical evidence of that age in the twisted trunks, wide spacing, and low yields that come only with time. The oldest of these vines have endured Prohibition, changing ownership, replanting cycles elsewhere in Sonoma, and decades when Zinfandel fell in and out of fashion.

This history is not treated as an abstract talking point. It is embedded directly into how Limerick Lane presents itself. One of the most notable examples is the winery’s label design, which features an illustration of a tree cross-section. The image shows an actual tree on the property that fell in 2022. Its growth rings serve as a visual timeline, marking significant moments in the vineyard’s and winery’s history, including the planting of the original 1910 vines, the 1940s replantings, and the end of Prohibition.

It is a subtle but powerful reminder that the wines here are part of a much longer agricultural story. Like the vineyard itself, the label rewards attention. The longer you look, the more detail you notice, and the more the sense of continuity comes into focus.

The Tasting Experience

Tastings are $40 per person (90 minutes). One tasting fee is waived with the purchase of three bottles.

The tasting menu focused on current estate releases, with Zinfandel clearly anchoring the experience. The lineup I tasted included the 2024 Rosé ($36). The wine is a blend of 4 grapes, GSM (Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre popularized in France’s Southern Rhône Valley), and Grenache Blanc, which I am less familiar with. Jen, who was managing the tasting, described it as a “fresh, South of France eat oysters on the coast rosé.”

The next wine was the 2022 Grenache ($46), a mellow wine that made a great transition into the deeper reds. 

From there, the tasting moved into Zinfandel, beginning with the 2022 Russian River Zinfandel ($46), which we quite enjoyed. The 2022 1910 Block Zinfandel ($68) took things further. Sourced from the oldest vines on the property, this is a confident, mellow wine. 

The tasting concluded with the 2022 Marquis Zinfandel ($72), a wine that encapsulates much of what Limerick Lane does well. The Marquis is a blend drawing from several historic vineyards, including Limerick Lane, Banfield, Bedrock, Maffei, and Monte Rosso. The result was complex without being showy, a very approachable wine that would pair with food or could be enjoyed on its own.

The 3 Zinfandels had Wine Spectator scores of 92, 94, and 95, respectively. In short, the winemaker, Chris Pittenger,  is good at finding good Zinfandel grapes and knows what to do with them.

We came home with a bottle of the 2022 Marquis Zinfandel, which comes from old-growth vines on Olivet Road in the Piner Flats region, planted in the 1920s by Umberto and Maria Maffei.

Wine Clubs with a Sense of Place

One of the more distinctive aspects of Limerick Lane is how its wine club offerings extend beyond bottles. The club structure includes several tiers, from an entry-level option to the Inner Circle, each increasing access not just to wines but to experiences.

What caught my attention was the inclusion of access to the 1023 Vineyard Farmhouse, a property available through VRBO. At the highest membership level (36-bottle commitment), club members can receive complimentary nights when booking stays there (one night free for a three-night stay). It is an unusual perk that reinforces the idea that Limerick Lane wants people to spend time with the land, not just drink its wines.

The lowest-level wine club membership (12-bottle commitment) only gives you one complimentary tasting a year, which is well below what some wine clubs offer.

A Place That Feels Personal

Limerick Lane’s sense of place is inseparable from its human history. In the late 1970s, brothers Tom and Michael Collins began acquiring parcels of the old Del Fava vineyard, recognizing the potential in land that had largely been overlooked. Tom Collins, in particular, was deeply involved in restoring the vineyard and shaping the early identity of Limerick Lane Cellars. Under the brothers’ stewardship, the site became known for high-quality Zinfandel fruit, much of which was sold to other respected producers before the Collins brothers began bottling under their own label in the mid-1980s.

That momentum was cut short by Tom Collins’ unexpected death in the early 1990s. The loss was both personal and professional, and the winery’s trajectory changed as a result. Michael Collins continued to farm the vineyard, but the estate eventually passed to new ownership. Even then, the vineyard’s reputation endured, in large part because of the quality of the old vines Tom had fought to preserve.

What makes Limerick Lane unusual is how that story comes full circle. The current owner, Karen Francis DeGolia, was Tom Collins’ fiancée and worked alongside him in the winery’s early years. Decades later, she returned to Limerick Lane as its owner, bringing a continuity that is rare in California wine. This is not a reinvention driven by trend or branding. It feels more like a continuation of an interrupted story.

Why It Is Worth the Visit

Limerick Lane is not a large winery, producing only 3-5,000 cases of wine a year, but in a region where tasting rooms can sometimes feel interchangeable, Limerick Lane Cellars stands apart by refusing to separate wine from land or history from hospitality. 

This is a winery best appreciated slowly, ask questions, and let the wines unfold at their own pace. For travelers exploring Healdsburg and the Russian River Valley, Limerick Lane offers something increasingly rare: a tasting that feels grounded, personal, and genuinely connected to the place where the wine is grown.

My tasting at Limerick Lane was paid for by the winery; the opinions expressed are my own.