By Virginie Boone

Local winemaker dinners hosted in Sonoma County restaurants abound this summer, a chance to enjoy a great meal with local wines. Tomorrow night Valley Bar and Bottle in Sonoma is the location for a Darling Wines takeover from 5 pm to 9 pm, with winemakers Thomas and Ashley Darling on hand.

Next week, Wit & Wisdom at The Lodge at Sonoma will start the Wine Cellars Series, a bi-monthly tasting event celebrating local winemakers and wineries where wines are paired with a four-course meal. The inaugural dinner is May 28th, 6 pm to 8 pm, featuring Three Sticks Wines and a menu of favorites such as Hamachi Crudo, Lobster Risotto, Grilled Duck Breast and Buttermilk Panna Cotta. July’s dinner will feature Blue Farm Wines, followed by Sangiacomo Family Wines in September and JCB in November.

Wit & Wisdom is an award-winning restaurant from acclaimed Chef Michael Mina, but not only for its food. It has been awarded Wine Spectator’s Best of Excellence Award in recent years, as well as earning a spot on The World’s Best New Wine Lists by The World of Fine Wine Magazine. Better still, it breaks its wine list into sections, including one they call “Our Backyard,” where Sonoma County wines are highlighted across varieties, down to the appellation.

Nearby, on June 5 MacArthur Place Hotel hosts the Sonoma Spritz Soiree in partnership with the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Foundation, a relaxed evening poolside with local wines and Sonoma Spritz cocktails, from 5 pm to 8:30 pm. With food stations around the pool, participating wineries include Chateau St. Jean, Hamel Family Wines, Sangiacomo Family Wines, Three Sticks and Buena Vista Winery.

MacArthur also regularly hosts Pours at the Porch Fridays 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, where it partners with local wineries for a tasting of three of their wines paired with small bites made by the on-site culinary team, a complimentary offering to guests and members of the community. The next one will take place this week, May 23, featuring Dunstan Wines/Durell Vineyard.

Up the road along Highway 12, Santé Restaurant at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn will have two Sunday Supper nights this summer, specially made prix fixe menus that feature local vintners, farmers and ranchers. Held from 5:30 pm to 9 pm, June 22 is with Domaine Carneros Winemaker TJ Evans, while August 24 will feature Hamel Family Wines and Pt. Reyes Cheese.

In Santa Rosa, John Ash at Vintners Resort holds a Winemaker Dinner Series of five-course farm-to-table menus paired with local wines and will next feature Aperture Cellars on Thursday, June 26 from 6 pm to 9 pm. On July 24, it’ll be Croix Estate; August 14 is DuMol.

Out on the coast, The Inn at the Tides in Bodega Bay hosts Winemaker Dinners at its Bay View Restaurant and Lounge. August 15 is Sangiacomo Family Wines, September 26 is Marimar Estate and October 24 is Carol Shelton. In November and December St. Francis Winery & Vineyards and Ferrari-Carano Vineyards & Winery will be on hand. Winemaker dinner guests are able to get special room rates for the dinners, held at 7 pm following a 30-minute reception.

Up in Healdsburg, Dry Creek Kitchen will hold its Three Valley Wine Dinner Series with Mauritson Wines on June 11. Winemaker Emma Kudritski Hall will join in on the four-course dinner plus dessert and wine pairings. The monthly series has been hosted by Bob Cabral Wines, Papapietro Perry, Radio-Coteau, Bella Vineyards and Read-Holland Wines this year, each of whom has showcased three of Sonoma County’s winemaking valleys – Alexander, Dry Creek, and Russian River, among others.

Don’t miss out. These dinners are a wonderful way to get to know new and legendary winemakers alike around a dinner table, the way it should be.

Image by: Inn at the Tides

By Virginie Boone

Sonoma-Cutrer has been part of the Sonoma County Chardonnay story since the early 1980s. At the end of the month, its tasting room on Slusser Road will be closed, the end of an era for a site with a long history of grand events.

In late 2023 it was announced that The Duckhorn Portfolio would purchase Sonoma-Cutrer Vineyards from Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman, a major name in Tennessee Whiskey (like Jack Daniel’s) and its owner since 1999. Along the way Sonoma-Cutrer became the third-largest luxury Chardonnay in America by retail sales.

Included in the deal was the brand trademarks, facilities and six vineyards in two appellations, Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast. The sale price was $400 million – $50 million plus 21.5% of The Duckhorn Portfolio – plus two seats on Duckhorn’s board. The deal officially closed in 2024.

At the time, Wine Spectator reported that “Sonoma-Cutrer had sales of $84 million in the 12 months through July. According to Impact Databank, a sister publication of Wine Spectator, Sonoma-Cutrer sold 543,000 cases last year, up 17 percent from the previous year, placing it among the fastest growing brands in the U.S. market.”

Duckhorn was itself acquired by private equity firm Butterfly later in 2024 for close to $2 billion. Earlier this month Butterfly announced it would be streamlining parts of its business, including closing several tasting rooms, Sonoma-Cutrer among them.

The outpost in the heart of the Russian River Valley has hosted a lot of happy occasions over its history, from Sunday Fundays, summer wine pairing parties, live entertainment and croquet. Hospitality has always been top of mind, with John Ash on board as consulting chef.

Considered quite modern at its opening, the 40,000-square-foot winery at Sonoma-Cutrer was described as “space age,” in a 1986 Press Democrat story announcing an award from the American Institute of Architects.

Designed by Santa Rosa architects Roland-Miller-Associates, the “burgundy-colored, board and batten winery was designed to blend with the surrounding countryside on Slusser Road in the Russian River Valley,” the story explained, and because of “the architect’s restraint, Sonoma-Cutrer did not become an architectural smorgasbord and emerged with clean, crisp lines that don’t intrude on the rolling hillsides.”

At the time, founder Brice Cutrer Jones was described as “the new breed of Sonoma County farmer… athletic, articulate and adventurous… rooted in science and deep reverence for technology,” as Press Democrat staff writer Tim Tesconi wrote.

Jones’s then $20-million Sonoma-Cutrer winery and vineyard operation – again described as “ultra-modern” – was originally owned by 75 investors.

Along the way, Sonoma-Cutrer bought 500-acre Vine Hill Vineyard in Forestville, still its biggest site, split into 49 distinct blocks of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay across 400 acres in Goldridge soils. When it was acquired in 1995, the land was unplanted and cost an estimated $12 million. Other interested buyers wanted to put housing, a hotel or a golf course on the property.

But sellers Robert and Barbara Walter sold it to Jones instead, continuing to use the property as a world-class thoroughfare horse ranch for many years. The Walters were inducted into the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association Hall of Fame in 2010. One of their horses, Cavonnier, lost the 1996 Kentucky Derby by a nose.

The only winery in the world with tournament-level croquet lawns, Sonoma-Cutrer has also been a popular place for visitors to book a game, complete with tutorial, the only place in Sonoma County to offer this level of croquet. Chardonnay and Croquet was Sonoma-Cutrer’s signature offering, an annual tradition kicked off in spring hosted once a month through summer.

For many years the winery also hosted the Sonoma-Cutrer World Croquet Championship. Thousands of people attended, helping launch American croquet players onto the world stage. There were just two requirements – wear white and sip wine, not beer.

See what Sonoma-Cutrer is all about while you can, now through May 31.

By Virginie Boone

Netflix is airing a four-part series called “Chef’s Table Legends” right now, a spin-off of its Emmy Award-winning “Chef’s Table” series which debuted 10 years ago. A celebration of that milestone, each episode of “Legends,” of which there are only four, focuses on one culinary superstar – Jamie Oliver, Thomas Keller, Jose Andres and Alice Waters – and how they have impacted the food world.

They are all globally recognized names with global impact, but the Alice Waters episode in particular struck close to home.

Waters of course is the founder of renowned restaurant Chez Panisse, which she opened in Berkeley in 1971. She is not only a restaurateur, but chef, cookbook author and memoirist. She has also earned many James Beard Awards, including for Humanitarian of the Year (1997) and Lifetime Achievement (2004). Many credit her with helping to create the farm-to-table movement in America and the concept of California cuisine.

Indeed, “Chef’s Table Legends” calls her “the mother of the farm-to-table movement,” while one of Waters’ most moving parting statements during the show is, “A place where we treasure our farmers, that’s the world I want to live in.”

Since day one of Chez Panisse, and still today, many of those farms in Waters’s farm-to-table concept, and the farmers that she treasures, are in Sonoma County.

One that gets specifically mentioned by Netflix is Seven Moons Farms, a collaboration between Rebecca Bozzelli, Kate Cherry, Ross Cannard and Nick Rupiper, all lifetime friends who have been farming as Seven Moons for only a short time. Seven Moons specializes in growing high-quality fruit and vegetables for restaurants and farmers markets, avocados and citrus in particular.

But also asparagus, leeks, radishes, spinach, green garlic, limes, navel oranges, blood oranges… the list goes on. The farm is set along the eastern side of Sonoma’s Valley of the Moon and was once known as Cannard Farms. Footage of the farm shows flowering Spigarello (an heirloom broccoli), and lettuce being harvested.

Seven Moons is following in the footsteps of original farmer (and Ross’s dad) Bob Cannard, the one Chez Panisse turned to in its earliest days – Waters has said she “found taste” when she met Bob Cannard, calling him one of her heroes.

In addition to Cannard Farms, Bob was later the founder of Green String Farm off Old Adobe and Frates roads in Petaluma, a 140-acre organic/regenerative high-quality produce farm he founded in 2003 with Fred Cline of Cline Cellars.

Green String closed in 2022 after Bob decided to relocate to Chico and do his own thing, “an indefinite pause,” as he put it on his Facebook page.

Cannard was also a longtime lecturer at Santa Rosa Junior College. In fact it was his father, Robert H. Cannard, who helped create and develop the agricultural department at the JC.

So when Waters needed a farmer, Cannard Farms was there, becoming so well-known that when juice company Odwalla started looking to grow carrots for its popular carrot juice, it came to Cannard, a “poster boy for ‘90s micro-farming,” who was a mix of “Jeff Bridges by way of Elmer Gentry,” as a profile in Metro Silicon Valley once described.

There are also several interview transcripts with Cannard in the UC Davis Library Digital Collection.

In one, he says that he started his vegetable farming career selling at farmers markets exclusively in Sonoma County, but “Chez [Panisse] came around and asked if I’d be interested in working with them and I recognized that they especially, but the restaurant crowd in general got lots better coverage [than farms] and Alice especially who was very keen on the promotion of what we were trying to do and freshness and closeness of the farm, localness.”

Cannard grew up in Kenwood, helping to run his family’s nursery. He later founded retail nursery Sonoma Mission Gardens, also on Valley of the Moon’s eastern edges.

Chez Panisse still lists farms and ranches by name on its menu and carries Sonoma County wines from the likes of Peay, Ridge, Hirsch, Cruse, A. Rafanelli, Arnot-Roberts and others, continuing its dedication to sourcing local – if you’ve never been, it’s worth every penny.

An aside – Alice Waters’ former partner Stephen Singer, with whom she raised daughter, Fanny Singer, is proprietor of Baker Lane Vineyards in Sebastopol, a producer of fine, cool-climate Syrah and Viognier.

You can also glory in one of Chez Panisse’s featured farms here at home. Find Seven Moons at the Sonoma Valley Farmers Market on Fridays 9 am to 12:30 pm and Saturdays 8:30 am to 1 pm at the Santa Rosa Farmers Market at Luther Burbank Center.

By Virginie Boone

This year’s Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience will feature a seminar called “Legendary Leaders of Terroir: Unearth California’s Grand Cru Vineyards,” led by Master Sommelier Jason Smith of ICON Wines and featuring six winemakers each representing one grand cru site.

Two are from Sonoma County: David Ramey of Ramey Wine Cellars to talk about Ritchie Vineyard; and Justin Ennis of Joseph Phelps to talk about Freestone Quarter Moon Vineyard, two very worthy sites.

But of course, as we know, Sonoma County has many vineyards worthy of grand cru-like distinction, a designation that can be difficult to define simply in words. These are places that not only grow incredibly high-quality grapes but often also hold historical significance, having endured over a great expanse of time and helped build the reputation of this region.

For example, the Historical Vineyard Society has identified many Sonoma County vineyards planted as early as the 1880s that have further established themselves as grand cru. These include such places as Monte Rosso, Pagani and Jackass Hill/Jackass Vineyard.

The term grand cru is linked most specifically to Burgundy where it literally translates as “great growth.” This classification dates back to the 19th century, when vineyards were divided into four classes that had to be stipulated on the label. Grand Cru is the first class, followed by Premier Cru, then Appellation Commune (also known as village wines) and lastly those labeled simply as Bourgogne.

In California we have no such strict classifications, but over time, and over many wines produced, vineyards here earn certain levels of respect for producing grapes of great quality and vineyard designations.

Let’s consider a handful of vineyards we would all agree are exceptionally long-lived sites, particularly for Pinot Noir/Chardonnay. We’ll explore more of Sonoma County’s grand cru sites in future editions of The Good Stuff.

B.A. Thieriot

Southwest of Occidental at 900 feet-elevation overlooking Bodega, this is a cool-climate site planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Purchased by Cameron and Bridgit Thieriot in 1988, the first part of the vineyard was planted by Warren Dutton in 1989. It has three clones of Chardonnay – Dijon 95, Hyde and Dutton selections; and several of Pinot Noir – Swan, Pommard, Dijon 114 and 777 and a proprietary clone. Littorai, Senses and Rivers-Marie are among the producers to source from here.

Hirsch

A pioneer on the Sonoma Coast/Fort Ross-Seaview, Hirsch was founded by David Hirsch in 1978 to make site-specific wines. The first vines were planted in 1980; it now has 72 acres of grapes. Making wines of their own since 2002, the Hirsch bottlings are among Sonoma County’s best, but Hirsch has also long been a sought-after vineyard-designate by the likes of Williams Selyem, Kistler, Failla and Littorai.

Kistler Vineyard

A Chardonnay-only site, Steve Kistler started focusing on a singular clone of Chardonnay in the 1980s, bringing material over from Burgundy. The site is on Moon Mountain above the Sonoma Valley, at 1,800-feet elevation in red volcanic soils and dry farmed. The first bottling was 1986. Kistler Vineyard Cuvée Cathleen is from a specific section of this vineyard with a broken shale uplift that gets afternoon sun instead of morning, planted in 1989. It has warranted its own bottling since 1998.

Occidental

Steve Kistler’s Pinot Noir-only vineyards in Freestone-Occidental are comprised of several sites in full view of the Pacific Ocean and planted to field selections of Pinot from two grand cru Vosne Romanée vineyards specifically determined by Kistler over many years, with the goal of producing wines with the highest natural acidity and finesse. The vineyards are named Bodega Headlands, Running Fence, SWK, Bodega Ridge and Occidental Station. It all began in 2008 with the purchase of a 250-acre Bodega Ridge property. The first single-vineyard bottling was in 2019.

Rochioli

Originally known as Fenton Acres, Rochioli’s 125-acre Russian River Valley property was first planted to Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc in 1959; the Sauvignon Blanc vines remain and are some of the oldest in the state. Joe Rochioli Jr. started planting Pinot Noir in 1968, followed soon after by Chardonnay. Davis Bynum and Williams Selyem were among the first buyer of grapes. In 1983 Fenton Acres became Rochioli Vineyards and Joe Jr.’s son Tom began making Rochioli wines in addition to selling grapes. In addition to Williams Selyem, Ramey and Gary Farrell are among the other producers who have long sourced grapes.

Sangiacomo Roberts Road

The Carneros-based grapegrowers helped establish the Petaluma Gap early on, buying and planting Roberts Road Vineyard in 1999 on the outskirts of the city. With both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay established, there are 14 different combinations of clones and rootstocks here making it is a highly sought-after source of grapes, selling consistently to Sojourn, Saxon Brown and Anaba, as well as making Roberts Road Vineyard-designated Chardonnay and Pinot Noir of its own under Sangiacomo Wines.

Pictured: Rochioli Vineyard 

By Virginie Boone

Italian varieties are no stranger to Sonoma County, a region rich in Italian heritage and history. The majority of these varieties exist in small pockets of acreage for the most part, with the possible exception of Sangiovese, which cracks the top 13 red varieties by value with only 276 acres planted (2023 Sonoma County Crop Report).

As we reported in a previous Good Stuff, the breakdown of other Italian varieties in Sonoma County consists of mostly Primitivo (59 acres), Barbera (47 acres) and 11 acres or fewer of Catarrato, Malvasia Bianca, Moscato Giallo, Palomino, Tocai Fruilano, Vermentino, Aglianico, Dolcetto, Graciano, Montepulciano, Nebbiolo, Nero D’Avola and Teroldego.

But two new varieties may now be added into the mix. The team behind Rhys Vineyards in Anderson Valley and the Santa Cruz Mountains have unveiled a Sonoma County project called Centennial Mountain (formerly known as Aeris). Centennial Mountain is the first to plant both Carricante (white) and Nerello Mascalese (red) vines in the New World, at 2,000-feet elevation along a ridgeline in northern Sonoma County just 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Both grapes are longtime mainstays on Sicily’s Mount Etna.

Owner Kevin Harvey’s first taste of Carricante in Italy made him think of a Grand Cru Burgundy meeting a Grand Cru Alsatian Riesling, while the Nerello Mascalese echoed Pinot Noir’s aromatics and complexity.

Jancis Robinson in her Oxford Companion to Wine describes Carricante as a “Zesty eastern Sicilian which can make wines worth ageing,” while Nerello Mascalese is “The most important and increasingly respected red grape on Etna,” a late-ripening variety that holds its acid and offers gentle tannins.

The Centennial Mountain team established the rootstocks for the vines in 2013 and grafted them in 2015 after years of study in Italy, collecting weather data, planting vineyards and making wine on Mount Etna under the Aeris name. The vines were then brought over from Italy through UC Davis Plant Services.

The vineyard uses the Alberello (small tree) method of vine architecture for both these varieties, dividing the 26.40 acres of vines into 42 smaller blocks. There are a little more than four acres of each, and the first wines are from the 2021 vintage. There is also Nebbiolo on the site.

Data from their time on Mount Etna showed that both the Carricante and Nerello Mascalese would need a modest diurnal temperate swing, with cool days and warm nights to preserve freshness and bring the acidity and sugar into balance, able to combine high altitude with a marine influence.

While grapegrowing in Sonoma County may date back to the late 1800s, our region continues to prove that anything is possible and that new varieties previously unknown to even California can thrive in our soils and microclimates. This bodes well for Sonoma County’s ability to sustain itself now and always.

Image by: Rhys Vineyards

By Virginie Boone

Dating back to 1905, and two brothers, Pasquale and Luigi Bastoni, who came to Sonoma County from Northern Italy, Bastoni Vineyards is one of our region’s illustrious members of Sonoma County Winegrowers’ Century Club, having farmed continuously for 100 years or more.

When Luigi Bastoni passed away at age 79 in 1952, his obituary in The Press Democrat said his vineyard “was once described by experts as one of the finest in Sonoma County.” The property had been sold five years earlier to Bastoni’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Maria Bastoni (Pasquale’s widow, also known as Mary), and nephew, Pasquale Bastoni Jr. The elder Pasquale and Maria had eight children.

Luigi first came to the area when there were only about half a dozen families here. He was said to be milking a cow under an oak tree when the 1906 earthquake hit, though the ranch was thankfully spared of any damage. Along with four sons, he had five daughters, who became members of the Sanchietti, Cardinelli, Valli, Basignani and Uboldi families.

The Bastonis started out with 160 acres of land in what we now know as the Fountaingrove District, settled along Riebli Road in Santa Rosa. The original vineyards were planted to Zinfandel on St. George rootstock, interplanted with Alicante Bouschet, Carignan, Palomino and Petite Sirah, but at its lowest point, consisted of only 13 acres of grapes. In its heyday, grapes were sold to Italian Swiss Colony, Charles Krug, Joseph Swan and Geyser Peak.

For a time it was a prune orchard and had some cattle. It also became known for its brick-oven breads; it was said that “better bread was never baked in Sonoma County,” in a 1955 Press Democrat piece by then-food editor Byrd Weyler Kellogg.

“The Bastoni family knows that no other homemade bread could compete in taste and nourishment with loaves baked in the outdoor brick oven,” it read. “There are hosts of friends to back this opinion. They have all eaten some of the white bread Mary Bastoni makes just as she did in Italy 50 years ago.”

For more than 40 years, Mary and her husband Pasquale baked Italian bread for her family weekly in an outdoor brick oven built two feet above the ground near their home on Bastoni Ranch. Prunings from grapevines often served as fuel for the fire. At its height, she baked twice weekly, 15 loaves at a time, to feed a 21-person household.

Today the third generation of Bastonis, Martha Bastoni Messana (daughter of Pasquale Jr.) and her husband Russ oversee 37 acres of sustainably farmed vines, replanting much of it in 2005 to predominantly Zinfandel and Alicante Bouschet, both still on St. George rootstock. The grapes are sold to such producers as Carol Shelton, Wonderment Wines and Miro Cellars.

Featured artwork: “Bastoni Vineyards” by Tom Rissacher.

By Virginie Boone

Though there’s tumult in the air, hope is never hard to find when a slew of Sonoma County wineries are opening long-awaited tasting spaces to enjoy their wines. None of these are newcomers, either. They’re all well-established Sonoma County-rooted brands and families taking their businesses to the next level, with hospitality that’s welcoming and rooted in a distinct sense of this place, all set within vineyards.

Auteur Wines

Operating what they call the Sonoma Bungalow for many years off the main square in the town of Sonoma, Auteur founders Kenneth and Laura Juhasz are just about to open their Russian River Estate on Wohler Road in Healdsburg. Auteur has been around for 22 years, but this is the first time it’s been able to showcase its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines in the midst of where they grow best.

Auteur sources grapes from across Sonoma County, from such well-known sites as Bacigalupi, Gap’s Crown, Durell and Green Acres, and other exceptional vineyards like Labyrinth, Balinard, Starkey, Nunnery (for Moon Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon) and Attune. Auteur also produces a Russian River Valley Pinot Noir from the Middle Reach and Laguna Hills, and a Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and Sonoma Coast Chardonnay made by blending several single vineyard sites into one. With doors opening this Friday, April 11, tasting options include an Appellation Series flight ($40) and Single-Vineyard Series flight ($60), with plans to add tastings of rare past vintages, wines by clone and a blind tasting option down the road.

Black Kite Cellars

The family-owned boutique producer of site-specific Chardonnay and Pinot Noir opened the Jasper House last year in the Freestone Historic District, seven miles from the Pacific Ocean. It is its first permanent tasting room despite being founded in 2003. Tastings of six wines are by appointment and take place in the cozy interior tasting salons, designed to reflect the different terroirs Black Kite loves, from West Sonoma Coast to Sonoma Mountain, Sonoma Coast and the Petaluma Gap. The producer also conducts tastings at Grand Cru in Windsor.

Bob Cabral Wines

A Sonoma County winemaking icon since his early days at DeLoach, Alderbrook and Hartford Family, and later Williams Selyem and Three Sticks, Bob Cabral quietly launched Bob Cabral Wines a few years back, focusing on Sonoma County Pinot Noir (Cuvée Troubadour and Cuvée Electric Hippy), Rosé of Pinot Noir (Cuvée American Girl) and Chardonnay (Cuvée Anne Rose). His Wildflower Riesling, in most years, is made from Sonoma Coast grapes.

A fourth-generation grapegrower, Cabral has long been devoted to Sonoma County and will also be launching a 2024-vintage tribute to his dad called Farmer Tinto, blending Tempranillo (aka Tinto Ruiz) from Marimar Estate and Petite Sirah from Bacigalupi. All the wines have a charitable component, especially to charities involving children, like Healdsburg Future Farmers Country Fair, The Guardsmen, Café Hope and others.

Cabral is making his wines in a brand-new production facility at Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa and invites one and all to come taste at his Backstage Lounge at LOVE Meadow (where the LOVE Sculpture lives) within walking distance of the winery. A huge music devotee, Cabral’s lounge reflects his deep connection to music and musicians and is meant to be a relaxing place to enjoy wine and music together – he correlates every label to an important song in his life and also pairs every bottle with a playlist of hand-picked songs.

Kanzler Vineyards

Overlooking Kanzler’s 20 acres of estate vineyards in the Sebastopol Hills, eight miles from the Pacific Ocean, the family unveiled a new tasting space opened July of last year after more than seven years of permitting and planning. Established as a vineyard in 1996, Kanzler sold grapes in the early days, to such notable producers as Kosta Browne, Landmark, Flowers, Gary Farrell and Rhys. They slowly built their own Pinot Noir brand, naming son Alex winemaker in 2011. A Chardonnay was added not long afterwards, produced from Walker Station Vineyard in Green Valley of Russian River Valley. A Rosé of Pinot Noir is also made. Intimate, the classic tasting experience includes a walk in the vineyards. By appointment Thursday-Monday.

Kutch Wines

Celebrating 25 years of making wine this year, Jamie Kutch and Kristen Green of Kutch Wines have finally been granted approval for a winery and tasting room on their estate vineyard in Sebastopol. Plans are now able to go forward and build a 12,000-case winemaking facility and tasting room that will be open by appointment.

Kutch and Green bought a 12-acre apple farm in Sebastopol in 2021 and soon set about planting, starting with 15,000 plants from a local nursery. The vineyard was planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in 2022 and is expecting its first real crop this fall. In addition to wine, the facility also holds a 500-gallon distillation permit; Kutch will make brandy from both Pinot Noir and two acres of apple trees they kept in the ground. They also planted native fruit trees and native plants, in addition to a pollinator garden for bees. Kutch sources from across Sonoma County for several vineyard-designated Sonoma Coast wines, including McDougall Ranch, Falstaff, Salt Point and Bohan vineyards.

Pictured: Black Kite Cellars’ Jasper House – Will Bucquoy/Black Kite Cellars

By Virginie Boone

All of April California celebrates the wine industry’s commitment to sustainability with Down to Earth month, highlighting the state’s leadership in sustainable viticulture and winemaking.

The Certified California Sustainable Vineyards and Wineries program is about growing quality winegrapes and making quality wines while protecting the environment, being a good neighbor and employer, and maintaining thriving family farms and businesses. Certification is done by a third-party auditor.

The amount of vineyards certified under the California Sustainable Winegrowing program has grown 86% since 2018, representing about 65% of total vineyard acreage in the state; the amount of certified wineries has grown 50% in that same time period. Another 22% are certified under other programs, which can include organic, biodynamic and regenerative farming practices.

Sonoma County remains far and away a leader in holding these certifications for both wineries and vineyards with 1,108 listed within the California Certified Sustainable database. The next highest is Napa County with 303.

The key areas of sustainable certification for vineyards center around water efficiency, pest management, healthy soils and energy efficiency, as well as the categories of stewardship, neighbors, employees and contributions.

Wineries also focus on water efficiency and energy efficiency but also waste management and supply chain. A comprehensive Workbook exists to help winegrowers evaluate their level of sustainability and learn more about improving practices.

But the best way to learn is to visit.

Here are 10 Certified Sonoma County wineries with tasting rooms:

Balletto – The Russian River Valley-based grower and winery has an extensive section on its website detailing the work it does in the vineyards with cover crops, its responsible water use, natural pest control, soil moisture monitoring, composting, making of solar-powered wine and a whole lot more, and has long been an active proponent in Sonoma County’s commitment to becoming the first 100% sustainable wine region in the United States.

Benziger – In the folds of Sonoma Mountain, Benziger has farmed in Glen Ellen for some 30 years, putting down roots in 1980 after buying the old Wegener Ranch. Over time they adopted Biodynamic farming practices, getting Demeter-certified in 2000. On April 13 VP/Brand Ambassador Chris Benziger will lead a Casual Biodynamic Vineyard Tour on the ranch.

Crossbarn – Started in 2000 by Paul Hobbs to honor his family’s family heritage and values of farming sustainably, this Sebastopol-based winery is in a former apple processing facility, where the wines are made from grapes grown across Sonoma County.

Hartford Family – Set just outside of Forestville, the first Hartford Court wines were released in 1996, and the winery remains committed to working with older-vined vineyards across the county, like Fanucchi-Wood Road and Arrendell. It farms sustainable organic.

Jordan – One of the grand Alexander Valley estates, Jordan is a certified sustainable winery and vineyard and farms other agricultural products as well across its 1,200 acres, from cattle to vegetables. It maintains considerable natural habitat around its 18 estate vineyard blocks. It is also the largest winery pollinator sanctuary after having turned 10 acres of non-native grassland into preserved habitat for pollinators like native bees and Monarch butterflies.

Pedroncelli – An historic family-owned property in the Dry Creek Valley that dates back to 1927, Pedroncelli’s vineyards are certified sustainable, and they take a comprehensive approach to all they do, from human resources to soil management.

Rodney Strong – Family-owned and operated, the winery based just outside of Healdsburg is 100% certified-sustainable in its 12 estate vineyards, which span across the Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley and Chalk Hill. The winery has long been committed to sustainable practices, earning the Sustainable Winegrowing Green Medal Leadership Award in 2004.

Seghesio – Based in Healdsburg, the Seghesio family first planted grapes at its Home Ranch Vineyard in 1895. It now farms more than 300 acres of sustainable vineyards in the Alexander, Dry Creek and Russian River valleys, some of them still planted to head-trained old vines and has some of the oldest Sangiovese in America.

St. Francis – Based in the heart of Sonoma Valley, the winery operates on three sustainability pillars: environment, equity and economics. It considers each one each time it makes a business decision. In addition to overseeing the winery’s 400 acres of certified-sustainable estate vineyards, Director of Vineyards Jake Terrell assisted in revising the Code of Sustainable Winegrowing Practices and its ongoing standards for sustainable practices in the wine industry.

Three Sticks – The winery based in the town of Sonoma is 100% estate, owning and farming such heritage vineyards as Durell, Gap’s Crown and Walala, all on the Sonoma Coast, while also selling these grapes to other producers. Its monopole sites include Alana, One Sky and William James, located in the Russian River Valley and on Sonoma Mountain. Certified sustainable, it looks at the three e’s in all decision-making, ecological stewardship, social equity and economic validity.

Image by: California Wine Institute

By Virginie Boone

The first farmers’ market in America on record took place in 1730 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Locals there have said, “Meet me at the Market,” ever since. The Lancaster Central Market in fact was built in the center of town as a focal point for the community. In 1995 it was designated one of our country’s “Great Public Places.”

Later, what became known as “curb markets” sprang up all over the burgeoning United States, a way for local farmers and merchants to set up their wagons on the curbs of streets to sell their goods to people in cities.

Farmers’ markets have continued to grow ever since, as both gathering places and sustainable market places. The USDA National Farmers Market Directory today counts more than 6,800 such markets operating across the United States. To be included, a farmers’ market must “feature two or more farm vendors selling agricultural products directly to customers at a common, recurrent physical location.”

The directory also lists farms, CSAs, agritourism destinations, on-farm markets and food hubs, places that aggregate and distribute local food products.

The Original Farmers’ Market in Los Angeles first opened in 1934 and is now a historic landmark, at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Third Street. When it opened, the property was a 265-acre dairy farm. Local farmers started parking their trucks on a field selling their wares, paying fifty cents a day to rent a space. Part of the market’s lore is that James Dean had breakfast there on the morning of his deadly car accident in 1955.

The Alemany Farmers’ Market in San Francisco, founded in 1943, calls itself the first farmers’ market in California, started during World War II to support farms that were near the city, and is particularly known for carrying Latin and Southeast Asian ingredients.

During the war, another reason markets sprung up was due to a shortage of aluminum, which caused canneries to stop canning fruits and vegetables, which needed to be sold in other ways. Also, larger grocery markets preferred to buy in bulk, which made it harder for small-scale farmers to compete. There were also rations on gasoline at the time, so consumers couldn’t easily travel directly to farms on a regular basis, prompting farmers to come to them.

At the time though, the success of the farmers’ market was almost its undoing, as larger grocery stores complained that it affected sales. But in the end, voters voted to keep the farmers’ market and it, and many others, became a permanent fixture of city and suburban life.

California now has more than 650 certified farmers’ markets, 60% are year-round.

The Santa Rosa Original Certified Farmers’ Market was established in 1967, making it the oldest in Sonoma County. In its early days it was held on Petaluma Hill Road near the Crane Melon farm. It then moved to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds and later the Veterans Building (it has since moved again to a lot near the intersection of Highway 12 and Farmers Lane).

In the 1980s Hilda Swartz was an important figure in Sonoma County farmers markets. Swartz grew up on a 10-acre family farm in Southern California after the Great Depression years, growing peaches, cherries and table grapes.

She moved to Oakmont in 1979 and soon met Sara Lee Kunde and began working at the Harvest Fair. Later with Kozlowski Farms, Swartz started selling their wares at the Sonoma Farmers’ Market in 1985 and two years later was hired to run it, starting with just 10 vendors.

Soon, the growth of more farmers markets across the region helped Sonoma County become a famous place for not only wine grapes but all the other things it was growing so well on local farms.

In a December 1989 Los Angeles Times story called, “Stalking the Perfect Asparagus,” the area was described as a place where, “it is now possible to achieve some level of fame by growing vegetables… The demand for the most succulent zucchini and the crunchiest endive has reached such heights that vegetable growers get mentioned in the same breath with the Chardonnay vintners. One now ‘has vegetables’ the way one used to ‘have grapes.’”

The Healdsburg Farmers Market is one of California’s original 22 Certified Farmers’ Markets. There are now many more, including in Bodega Bay, Cloverdale, Cotati, Forestville, Oakmont, Occidental, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Russian River, several in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma Valley, Sonoma, Windsor and Roseland.

The Certified part exempts farmers from packing, sizing and labeling requirements that had been in place until 1977 that required farmers to pack size and label their fruits, vegetables and nuts in standard containers to transport and sell anywhere other than their farm site, including farmers’ markets.

The Certified Farmers’ Market system gained them more flexibility, allowing farmers to interact directly with consumers, an increasingly important way for consumers to learn more about their local food supply.

California winegrowers holding a Type 02 license are able to sell wine at farmers’ markets with a special Certified Farmers’ Market Sales Permit so long as the wine is produced entirely from grapes or other agricultural products grown by the winegrower and bottled by the winegrower.

Here are just a handful of our local farmers’ markets:

Healdsburg Farmers Market –  April 12 to December 20, Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.; May 13 – September 30, Tuesday 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Rohnert Park Farmers’ Market – June to August, 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Roseland Mercadito Farmers’ Market – Year-round Sunday 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Santa Rosa Certified Farmers Market – March to December, 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Santa Rosa Community Farmers Market – Year-round, Wednesday 9 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Sonoma’s Tuesday Night Market – May through September

The Springs Community Farmers’ Market – September to November

Image by: Sonoma County Tourism

By Virginie Boone

When winemaker Joel Peterson was inducted into the Culinary Institute of America’s Vintners Hall of Fame in 2011, he noted how wine was just beginning to rival beer as the American beverage.

“I don’t think anybody when I started came close to thinking that was a possibility, it was a small, esoteric little business, boy has that changed,” he said at the time, adding, “You take stock and gather breath and move forward. I plan to die with my boots on, hoping that won’t be for a very long time.”

Well, he’s not dead yet. And neither is Ravenswood, the winery Peterson founded in 1976 after working for Joseph Swan. When Ravenswood was sold to Constellation in 2001, for $148 million, it was one of the biggest wine acquisitions of all time – with Peterson the only no vote against the sale. Constellation then took it from 400,000 cases/year to 1 million.

Peterson’s footprints loomed large for a little longer. In 2009 the National Museum of American History included Ravenswood memorabilia like a “No Wimpy Wines” T-shirt (a diss on White Zin) and famous three-raven label logo, designed by Berkeley artist David Lance Goines, as well as a punch down tool in the Evolution of Food and Wine exhibit.

The raven logo was so popular for a time that it inspired a fair few tattoos. People with such a tattoo would be invited to taste free at the winery back in the day.

But alas, not all tales are fairy tales, and by 2019, Ravenswood was being sold again, this time to E&J Gallo, as part of a 30-plus wine and spirits brands and six-winery package deal valued at $1.7 billion.

While that deal was tied up in a back and forth with the FTC, both Ravenswood’s production facility and Sonoma-based tasting room were closed and contracts with many of its old-vine vineyards allowed to expire.

In between, Ravenswood started to slowly disappear.

“It’s disturbing to see a once-proud wine brand stuck in limbo,” Wine Spectator’s Tim Fish lamented in a 2020 story. “It’s not even clear whether the winery made wine in 2019, and harvest 2020 is fast approaching. That’s not something that is going unnoticed by California Zinfandel’s small but dedicated cadre of fans.”

Fast-forward five years and the good news is that Ravenswood is poised to return after a five-year hiatus, with Peterson onboard for the relaunch. And according to Wine Spectator, “E&J Gallo recently released the first new wines, beginning on a modest scale, with just 3,400 cases of four Sonoma County Zins from the 2023 vintage.”

The wines will include a Dry Creek Valley appellation wine, and single-vineyard offerings from MacMurray Ranch (Gallo owned), Monte Rosso (Gallo owned) and Teldeschi vineyards, the wines priced between $27 and $70.

It’s good to see Ravenswood embrace old vines again. During its heyday of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Peterson was one of the most important champions of old-vine vineyards, deliberately trying to highlight sites with plantings dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, when there wasn’t much interest in such a thing.

He once told me that the price when he started sniffing around was under $300/ton back then and the vines not particularly revered, with everyone moving more into Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

The white Zinfandel phenomenon helped keep some of the vines in the ground, but many others were pulled and replanted. But he and others, like Joe Swan and Paul Draper of Ridge started looking at the sites as both an important emblem of California history and as right for the environment in which they were grown.

Peterson and Swan found Old Hill Vineyard in Sonoma Valley, first planted in 1852 to mixed blacks, with a majority of Zinfandel. Bedrock Vineyard was another treasure trove of field-blended grapes, a 152-acre property originally planted in the 1850s and again in the 1880s by Senator George Hearst near Old Hill that Peterson bought with his son, Morgan, who makes wine under Bedrock Wine Co.

Barricia Vineyard was another important source, with Zinfandel dating back to 1892. Big River in Alexander Valley also figured into the original Ravenswood lineup, a 100% Zinfandel vineyard planted first in 1893. Russian River Valley’s Belloni Vineyard was another single-vineyard, as was Teldeschi Ranch, with vines planted in the 1880s.

Moon Mountain District’s Monte Rosso is in keeping with Ravenswood’s love of old vines, first planted in the 1886 to Zinfandel and Semillon at 1,300-feet elevation. MacMurray Ranch in the Russian River Valley was first established as a farmstead in the 1840s, became a beef ranch in the 1950s under actor Fred MacMurray, and transformed into a Pinot Noir growing site by Gallo in 1996.

It is welcome news to see a brand like Ravenswood return especially with its founder Joel Peterson on board, a true icon of Sonoma County wine.