Dave Phinney
David S. “Dave” Phinney was born in January of 1973 and grew up in the Los Angeles area in a family of educators. His father was a microbiologist who taught botany, while his mother was a psychologist who taught childhood development. At the University of Arizona, Phinney majored in political science and initially considered law school, but work for a public defender and a member of Congress persuaded him against careers in law and politics. A semester in Florence, Italy, in 1996 introduced him to wine and abruptly changed his professional direction.
After completing his degree, Phinney moved to Napa Valley and secured temporary harvest work at Robert Mondavi Winery in 1997. He subsequently worked at Whitehall Lane, where he met Kim Leonardini, his future wife. In 1998, he started Orin Swift Cellars with two tons of Zinfandel; the name combined his father’s middle name, Orin, with his mother’s maiden name, Swift. Phinney and Kim later had two children.
Orin Swift developed into a major wine business, helped by Phinney’s ability to blend wines and present them through arresting names and labels. His best-known creation was The Prisoner, a California red blend that became a commercial phenomenon. He sold The Prisoner and Saldo brands in 2008, then sold Orin Swift Cellars to E. & J. Gallo Winery in 2016. By that point, Phinney had established additional projects in California and abroad, giving him access to both mature winemaking programs and a varied inventory of used wine barrels.
Phinney’s interest in distilled spirits was already developing before the Orin Swift sale. He began distilling in 2014 and founded Savage & Cooke in 2016. The company’s name honored two nineteenth-century Californians, Richard Savage and Isaiah Cooke, while its physical home connected the new operation with another part of California history. Phinney chose Mare Island in Vallejo, the site of the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard and the first United States naval yard established on the Pacific Coast.
The distillery occupied two historic brick structures. Building 45, dating from 1864, contained barrel storage, a public tasting room, and a private tasting vault; Building 65, built in 1901, accommodated production equipment, offices, and additional barrel storage. Savage & Cooke opened in 2018, with Jordan Via serving as master distiller. Its equipment included a Vendome pot-column hybrid still, and whiskey production began that year, although properly aged house-distilled bourbon and rye would necessarily require several years to reach the market.
Savage & Cooke therefore began by selecting and blending mature whiskey obtained from established producing states. Its original grain-derived lineup consisted of The Burning Chair Bourbon, Second Glance American Whiskey, and Lip Service Rye. These were not presented simply as purchased whiskey placed into bottles. Phinney selected barrels and employed a finishing program that joined American whiskey production to his winemaking background.
The Burning Chair was a four-year-old bourbon made from 75 percent corn, 21 percent rye, and 4 percent malted barley. After conventional maturation, the bourbon received additional time in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels from Phinney’s wine projects. Second Glance was a corn-heavy American whiskey whose youngest component was five years old; small lots were selected from Kentucky, aged in previously used bourbon barrels, and finished in barrels that had held Phinney’s Napa Valley Zinfandel. Lip Service contained 51 percent rye, 45 percent corn, and 4 percent malted barley, matured for at least three years in new charred American oak, and was finished in Grenache barrels connected with Phinney’s French wine operations.
Water became another California component of the whiskey. Savage & Cooke reduced its mature spirits to bottling proof with spring water drawn from Phinney’s high-elevation property in Alexander Valley. The finishing barrels were selected according to the individual whiskey: Cabernet Sauvignon for bourbon, Grenache for rye, and Zinfandel for American whiskey. This systematic pairing established the central identity of Savage & Cooke’s grain spirits and carried Phinney’s knowledge of wine maturation directly into whiskey production.
Phinney also collaborated with retired basketball star Scottie Pippen on DIGITS Bourbon. The whiskey was assembled from barrels sourced in Indiana and Tennessee, with the youngest bourbon in the blend aged five years. Phinney and Pippen jointly selected the barrels, which were matured at Savage & Cooke on Mare Island. The resulting 90-proof bourbon retained the familiar Savage & Cooke mash bill of 75 percent corn, 21 percent rye, and 4 percent malted barley.
Meanwhile, whiskey distilled at Mare Island continued aging. In 2023, Savage & Cooke introduced a revised core collection that marked the arrival of its own mature distillate. The new bourbon and rye were produced, matured, and bottled on Mare Island under Via’s direction, using grain grown within 50 miles of the distillery. Five distillation batches were blended before barreling to promote consistency, and the spirits aged for at least three years in locally coopered, char No. 3 white American oak barrels.
The house-produced bourbon maintained a mash bill of 75 percent corn, 21 percent rye, and 4 percent malted barley. A portion of the mature whiskey spent approximately two additional months in Phinney’s Cabernet Sauvignon barrels before the finished and conventionally matured portions were combined. The house rye followed the same production structure with its 51-percent-rye mash bill and a partial Grenache-barrel finish. Both were bottled at 100 proof, giving Savage & Cooke two genuinely California-made grain whiskeys alongside a sourced American whiskey aged and finished on the island.
The distillery’s progress earned public recognition in 2023, when the New York International Spirits Competition named Savage & Cooke California Bourbon Distillery of the Year. The award arrived as its own bourbon and rye reached consumers, approximately five years after production began on Mare Island. It marked the completion of the company’s transition from a brand dependent principally upon selected mature stocks to a functioning California distillery with locally produced whiskey.
Phinney’s ownership of Savage & Cooke ended in December 2024. Purple Brands, the parent company of Redwood Empire Whiskey, acquired the distillery, its spirits-brand assets, barrel room, tasting facilities, bar, restaurant, and event space. Redwood Empire had already used Savage & Cooke for supplementary whiskey production and planned to transfer its operations to Mare Island. The sale closed Phinney’s direct stewardship of the distillery, but the operation he established had already completed a full whiskey-making cycle: locally grown grain had been mashed, fermented, distilled, barreled, aged, selectively finished in wine casks, and bottled at the former naval shipyard.
Phinney’s contribution to California whiskey rested on a clear production idea supported by an operating distillery. Savage & Cooke began with sourced stocks that allowed him to practice selection, blending, proofing, and wine-cask finishing while newly distilled bourbon and rye matured on Mare Island. When those barrels came of age, they preserved the techniques that had defined the original releases while adding local grain and California distillation. The historic buildings, the nearby grain, the Alexander Valley water, and Phinney’s wine barrels gave Savage & Cooke a specific California identity in an industry whose traditional center lay far to the east.
Sources:
San Francisco Chronicle, “Wine Mogul Dave Phinney Poised to Transform Mare Island with Distillery”, Esther Mobley, January 7, 2018, sfchronicle.com
USA Spirits Ratings, “Wine Industry Mogul Dave Phinney Launches Savage & Cooke Distillery on Historic Mare Island”, May 17, 2018, usaspiritsratings.com
Savage & Cooke Distillery official website, savageandcooke.com
Bourbon & Banter, “The Whiskies of Savage & Cooke Come of Age,” Patrick “Pops” Garrett, October 3, 2023, bourbonbanter.com
Market Watch Magazine, “Savage & Cooke Releases Bourbon, Rye, and American Whiskey,” editors, December 10, 2023, marketwatchmag.com
Vintegrity Wine & Spirits, “Savage & Cooke Wins California Distillery of the Year,” author not given, July 14, 2023, vintegritywine.com
Purple Brands, “Redwood Empire Whiskey Acquires Luxury Northern California Distillery,” author not given, December 20, 2024, purplebrands.com
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
