By Virginie Boone

The annual Healdsburg Crush took place on the Healdsburg Plaza on Sunday, a walkaround tasting of mostly Sonoma County Pinot Noir and sparkling wines that raises money for the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma-Marin. More than 60 wineries give money and donate wine and time to support the cause, helping to raise upwards of $224,000 this year.

It’s just one example of the many ways local wineries step up to support various charities and causes that benefit the overall quality of life here in Sonoma County, in good times and bad.

At Gather 2024: Women, Wine, Chefs and Cheese, an annual fundraiser benefiting YWCA Sonoma County, a vital provider of domestic violence services, $450,000 was raised earlier this year, with many wineries sponsoring tables and donating wines.

The Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience also directly invests in local non-profits including Farm to Pantry and the Sonoma County Fundación de la Voz de los Viñedos which directly supports Sonoma County vineyard employees and their families and has the only Leadership Academy for vineyard workforce in California.

Then there are the individual wineries in Sonoma County that donate portions of their wine sales to give back. A portion of every bottle of Iron Horse Vineyards’ Ocean Reserve Blanc de Blancs benefits the Surfrider Foundation, which seeks to protect our ocean, waves and beaches. Its Resilience sparkling rosé raises money for the Sonoma County Resilience Fund and Maui Strong.

The women of Breathless Sparkling Wines have been consistent supporters of non-profits since they started in 2011. They give to the Alpha-1 Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation (the team recently rode in the Sonoma County Michael J. Fox Ride), Green Music Center, The Spinsters of San Francisco and other causes that benefit those in need. They are also a sponsor of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts and make their tasting room available to nonprofits to host educational and fundraising events.

Rodney Strong also supports Luther Burbank Center for the Arts as well as CORE: Children of Restaurant Employees, World Central Kitchen, California Academy of Sciences, Professional Business Women’s Conference, American Forests, Sonoma County Fund the Future for Children’s Literacy, and the Sonoma County Grape Growers Farmworker Resiliency Fund, raising more than $2 million to help after the 2017, 2019 and 2020 fires. The winery also gives money to Meals on Wheels Sonoma County and the Redwood Empire Food Bank.

J Vineyards and Winery’s Shifting the Lens culinary series not only brings guest chefs from diverse backgrounds to Sonoma County to shift our collective thinking about food and wine pairings, it supports Santa Rosa Junior College’s Shone Farm in educating a diverse and culturally rich student population and opening agricultural opportunities to all.

Sonoma Epicurean, a fundraising weekend that benefits the V Foundation for Cancer Research, is another way wineries step up, donating wines for the various events as well as auction lots and experiences. Sponsoring wineries have included Arista, Benovia, Kistler, Lynmar, Bricoleur, Three Sticks, Aperture, DuMol, Medlock Ames, Sixteen600, Ridge Vineyards, Lasseter, Jackson Family Wines. Ramey, Dot Wine, Aldina, Convene, Smith Story, The Setting and WALT.

WALT also gives in additional ways through a family foundation across four categories: Community, Arts, Responsible Business Practices (including sustainable farming) and Entrepreneurship.

Ron Rubin of Ron Rubin Wines suffered sudden cardiac arrest many years ago and was saved by the use of CPR and a defibrillator’s shock. Afterwards he created the Trained for “Saving Lives” program, providing automated external defibrillators to wineries across California, working with ZOLL Medical Corporation and the Red Cross to train winery staff.

Rubin has also donated money to support the UC Davis Library in creating a searchable database of 5,000-plus wine labels and 1,000 menus collected by the late wine professor Dr. Maynard Amerine, and was a major donor to the Wine Spectator Learning Center’s education complex at Sonoma State University.

This is all just the visible stuff that wineries and the wine industry do for our region. There’s also all the wine donations to schools, churches and other entities across Sonoma County that don’t get the same recognition but matter in day-to-day lives, donations in kind that lead to real dollars.

In fact, almost every winery and farming operation supports our local community. A grape grower survey from 2017 showed that 93% of grape growers give personally and 74% also contribute from their businesses, with support totaling almost $27,000,000 annually and 13,000 volunteer hours. We all benefit from the generosity.

We would love to hear from wineries and growers who are giving back. Send us a note at info@sonomawinegrape.org so we can include you in the next round-up.

Image by: Healdsburg Crush