By Virginie Boone

Five years ago Sonoma County was awarded The Region of the Year Wine Star Award from Wine Enthusiast Magazine, a great honor recognizing Sonoma County’s world-class wines and sustainability leadership.

This week, Sonoma County was well represented again at the magazine’s 25th Wine Star Awards event Monday night in San Francisco.

There, Tom Klein of Rodney Strong Wine Estates was acknowledged as this year’s American Wine Legend for his decades in the wine business, a recognition in particular of his longstanding dedication to Sonoma County wine and commitment to sustainable vineyard and winery practices. He is only the sixth recipient of this distinction but is no stranger to industry accolades; he also accepted a Wine Star Award when the winery was named 2013 American Winery of the Year.

Founded in 1959 by another Sonoma County legend, Rod Strong, as only the county’s 13th bonded winery, Klein has stewarded Rodney Strong Wine Estates since 1989, adding in the Davis Bynum portfolio of wines in 2007. In 2018 Klein launched ROWEN Wine Company to focus on ultra-luxury wines grown on the Cooley Ranch Vineyard in the remote reaches of northern Sonoma County above Rockpile.

Raised in Stockton, Klein hails from a multigenerational Central Valley farming family, who farmed beans and raisins. His dad Bud was a first-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox, an opportunity he turned down to keep the family farm growing. And expand it he did, landing a multimillion-dollar deal to sell beans to Mexico, moving into packaged snacks like Sun-Maid raisins, and bringing the California Cooler to market in 1981 by buying excess white wine and bottling it with fruit juice.

The younger Klein attended Stanford University and Stanford Business School where he took a wine class for fun. Soon after, working as a consultant for McKinsey Company, Klein met Rod Strong and his winemaker Rick Sayre.

Along the way Rodney Strong had become a publicly traded wine company called Sonoma Vineyards and had gone through a series of corporate acquisitions. When Klein got a call in 1989 about buying it, the owner was Guinness of beer fame and was selling about 50,000 cases a year of relatively low-priced wines like Johannisberg Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Gewurztraminer and red and white table wine.

Klein got rid of most of these varieties and categories in favor of making better Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel from Alexander Valley, Sauvignon Blanc from “Charlotte’s Home,” a heritage vineyard planted in 1971 named for Rod Strong’s wife, Merlot from around the county, and Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley.

In 2005, Klein built a winery within a winery at Rodney Strong to focus on higher-end wines, with winemaker David Ramey consulting. Justin Seidenfeld joined the winemaking team in 2010 and was named Director of Winemaking in 2018 to take things to an even higher level. He is now the Senior Vice President of Winemaking and Winegrowing and a member of the Sonoma County Winegrowers’ Board of Directors.

When Klein came on board to run Rodney Strong, he considered Sonoma County-focused Rod Strong among the three most important pioneers of California’s wine industry, alongside Ernest Gallo in the Central Valley and Robert Mondavi in the Napa Valley.

Among Strong’s contributions are releasing the first Alexander’s Crown in 1974, the first Sonoma County single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon; planting some of the first Chardonnay in Chalk Hill beginning in 1962; planting some of the first Pinot Noir in 1968 in the Russian River Valley; and promoting the quality of Sonoma County’s wide range of winegrowing areas. The winery on Old Redwood Highway outside of Healdsburg was built in 1970.

Throughout Klein’s tenure, Rodney Strong has bought and replanted land and worked hard to incorporate sustainability. It was Sonoma County’s first carbon neutral winery and is a leader in solar energy and water conservation, as well as sustainable and regenerative viticulture. He and his team continue to push a culture of excellence in their wines, offering a lineup of great options at every price point.

In addition to Klein, Sonoma County’s La Crema was given this year’s American Winery of the Year Wine Star Award and Jean-Charles Boisset, owner of Buena Vista and Deloach wineries in Sonoma County, was recognized as Person of the Year.

For all their contributions to Sonoma County wine, we offer a heartfelt congratulations to these well-deserved honorees.