When Grapes Meet Pasta
Sonoma County's "Pasta King" now has a winery to go along with his famous pesto.
Art Ibleto, who is widely known as The Pasta King after decades of dishing out Italian fare at community gatherings, has teamed up with Marin County real estate investor Chris O'Neill to purchase the former Topolos winery outside Forestville for $3 million.
The 82-year-old Ibleto says the purchase made sense since he owns 50 acres of grapes and has no interest in retiring.
"I got the grapes, and I figured the only thing I was missing was the winery," Ibleto said Thursday from his catering business in Cotati.
The winery, Topolos at Russian River Vineyards, was founded by Michael and Jerry Topolos. It is one of only two wineries in the county with a permit allowing a full-service restaurant on a winery site. The other is the former Chateau Souverain winery in Geyserville owned by director Francis Ford Coppola, called Rosso & Bianco.
But the Forestville winery has had some financial trouble. Over the summer, O'Neill learned that Jerry Topolos was interested in selling.
O'Neill is a 54-year-old real estate investor from Baltimore. A wine enthusiast who began coming to Wine Country regularly several years ago, O'Neill said he moved to Marin County to live full time over the summer to take his wine dreams to the next level.
He began working with a local winemaker to craft his own wines and happened to be buying pinot noir grapes from Ibleto's ranch in Cotati.
"I was using his grapes before I met the man," O'Neill said.
Ibleto, who immigrated to the United States from Italy after World War II, planted about 50 acres of pinot noir on his property about 10 years ago. In recent years, he had begun making wines under the label Bella Sonoma, some of which have won gold medals at the Harvest Fair.
Ibleto said O'Neill pulled up in a Porsche one day a few months back and proposed they take a drive to visit Topolos.
"I said, 'Geez, that guy's got some bucks,' " Ibleto recalled.
Though he wasn't initially sure if O'Neill was for real, Ibleto said he liked his future partner immediately. As the discussions moved forward, Ibleto said he began to warm to the idea of being part owner of a winery, especially one named Russian River Vineyards.
Ibleto said his grapes are currently in the Sonoma Coast appellation, but may soon become part of the expanded Russian River appellation proposed by the powerful E&J Gallo winery.
That would mean Ibleto's grapes could be used in Russian River Vineyards' wines with the prestigious Russian River Valley appellation, he said.
The winery sale includes about 7 acres of vineyards, O'Neill said. Ibleto's grapes will give the winery flexibility in meeting its production goals of about 4,000 cases in the next few years. The facility has a permit for 20,000 cases.
While he loves nothing more than cooking hearty Italian dishes with plenty of garlic, Ibleto says he has no intention of opening a retail restaurant at the winery.
The current plan calls for chef Greg Hallihan to reopen his Stella's Cafe at the winery soon. Stella's moved to Topolos from its former location next to Mom's Apple Pie about two years ago.
The restaurant closed at the end of the summer. Hallihan said he needed to focus on his second restaurant, Elmo's, until the ownership of Topolos was resolved. Now that the winery is in new hands, Hallihan said he's thrilled to reopen Stella's at the winery.
"That place is just a diamond in the rough," Hallihan said. "There are only five licenses like that in the state of California."