By: Virginie Boone

Next Thursday, October 23, the Sonoma Home Winemakers (SHW) are hosting a free movie night at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma to show off their homemade wines and screen Tiny Vineyards, a 2019 award-winning documentary about Sonoma Valley home winemaking and the people behind the wines. The evening is a celebration of the group’s 40th anniversary, a collection of hobbyists “under the spell of Bacchus.”

The event begins at 6 pm, the movie starts at 7 pm and afterwards, attendees are invited to meet local movie producer, winemaker and documentary filmmaker Joseph Daniel and the other winemakers on hand. It’s free but an RSVP is required.

An excerpt from Daniel’s journal before making the film reveals that he was not someone who knew much about wine at the beginning.

“A friend treats me to a birthday wine-tasting experience,” he recalled. “I’ve never gone wine tasting, at least not at a real winery. In fact, I’ve never been to ‘wine country’ before, or even seen a proper vineyard. But I like wine, and posture like I know something about it.”

After several winery visits, he added, “I have now been drinking wine all day. But instead of making me sleepy, it feels like some kind of awakening. I have begun to ferment.”

The awakening led Daniels to change his life, driving 18 hours from his former Colorado home to Sonoma, turning off Highway 121 on the outskirts of Napa onto the famed Highway 12 into Sonoma, where he would now live and make a movie about what he saw all around him.

“I couldn’t suppress a tiny feeling of excitement. Vineyards, acres of vineyards, rolled away from me on either side of the road like the fields of winter wheat in my native state. The sight elicited a tired and barely audible ‘Well, will you look at that…’ and left me a bit awestruck as the rays of the late-afternoon sun backlit row after row of grapevines, iconic in their just-pruned silhouettes, and seemingly poised to erupt into a new season.”

Daniel’s wine brand is also called Tiny Vineyards, and he actually went from amateur to commercial, releasing his first wines in 2024, a Malbec called Eclipse. When he first started working on the film in 2018, he didn’t know that much about wine, but following home winemakers gave him the inspiration to try growing grapes and make wine for himself, attending UC Davis even to earn an advanced Winemaking Certificate. Another SHW alum, Dennis McCarter, also went pro launching McCarter Cellars.

Based in Sonoma since 1997, the nonprofit SHW club aims to promote growing grapes, making wine, tasting, and sharing information amongst its members. They meet monthly and often invite in speakers from the professional winemaking world. Their September meeting featured legendary Once and Future vintner Joel Peterson on the topic of Zinfandel’s rise and resurgence who provided tips on winemaking.

The group also raises money in support of the Sonoma High School Viticulture program, donating tools like pruning shears to the students.

SHW has about 100 members who grow a number of wine varieties and make all sorts of wines. Many live on a property with a front-yard hobby vineyard, as they put it, or help take care of others’ acres to get free grapes to use.

The Leveroni Group is how it all began, inspired by a 1-acre vineyard on Leveroni Road looked after by some of these amateur winemakers. The vineyard was adopted by the Valley of the Moon Dilettante Enological Society before being rebranded as SHW. In those early days, the club asked Joey Leveroni to donate 400 Chardonnay vines and got another 400 Merlot vines from Kunde. The Sangiacomos donated irrigation supplies. Once the city asked the group to pay for water though they switched to dry farm.

Since 2002, that original acre has been officially called the Tex Juen Park and Vineyard after the original caretaker of the site and one-time club president. The Sonoma City Council approved the name and a lease through 2026 with two five-year extensions.

Interested in joining the group? It meets the second Thursday of every month except August and December at the Sonoma Community Center in downtown Sonoma and attendees are encouraged to bring their homemade wines for discussion and advice.

Photo By: Sonoma Home Winemakers