Dunne on Wine: El Macero garage is the winery

Davis vintners Craig and Karen Senders like to boast that their first wines are drawing raves from Parker.

But if listeners are awed, the Senders don't let the impression last long. The couple are quick to confess that the person praising their wines isn't esteemed critic Robert M. Parker Jr. but their son Parker.

Whether Davis humor or sly marketing, the quip is meant to be taken lightly, though the couple wouldn't be disappointed if the senior Parker liked their initial Senders Wines, just being released.

The family, which also includes daughter Julia, lives in the posh El Macero subdivision, where there are no wineries, though Craig Senders wants to change that.

He sees himself as a potential member of the elite community of garagistes – winemakers whose châteaux are garages.

Senders envisions a little suburban winery where he can make just a few hundred cases per vintage. As director of the Cleft and Craniofacial Program at UC Davis, he already has a full-time job.

In 1997, however, he began to make home wine under the tutelage of seasoned Davis home winemaker Henry Spoto. He got hooked, took viticulture and enology classes at UC Davis.

By 2005, he was ready to go commercial, working out of leased space at Monticello Vineyards in the Napa Valley.

The first Senders Wines include a youthfully juicy 2005 syrah from the Napa Valley ($35), a fastidious and elegant 2006 pinot noir from the Russian River Valley ($35), a bright 2005 cabernet sauvignon from the Napa Valley ($40), and a somewhat more aromatic and complex "reserve" 2005 cabernet sauvignon from the Napa Valley ($55).

Senders approaches winemaking with the scientific grounding and precision of a surgeon. (He joined the Department of Otolaryngology at UC Davis in 1984.)

In the operating room, he specializes in correcting facial birth defects of children, while in the winery he's keen on achieving a similar natural grace.