Page 14 – Sonoma Magazine

Internationally Renowned Artist Richard Diebenkorn Took Inspiration From Rural Alexander Valley Landscape

February 2025

By John Beck

DO NOT REPURPOSE WITHOUT PERMISSION. Copyright of Richard Diebenkorn Foundation Archives — Artist Richard Diebenkorn in his Healdsburg studio, 1988. (C. Smith / Richard Diebenkorn Foundation Archives)

Near the end of his career, artist Richard Diebenkorn realized he needed to escape the very place he was famous for painting — Ocean Park, the bustling Santa Monica neighborhood that inspired his widely celebrated series of mesmerizing, abstract patterns and delicately hued landscapes.

After two decades in west Los Angeles, he had begun to feel “hemmed in and closed in,” he told friends. Never one to crave the limelight, he cherished his alone time in the studio, something that was harder to come by each day.

So, in the mid-1980s, he and his wife Phyllis began to search for a change of scenery, embarking on long road trips throughout California, the Southwest and the Midwest. They looked at a ranch in Montana. They thought about returning to Albuquerque. Then they pondered relocating to Springville, San Luis Obispo, Sonora and Reno before landing back in the Bay Area, where he had attended Stanford University in the 1940s and painted a well-known series of Berkeley paintings in the 1950s.

On the advice of friend Dick McDonough, they toured northern Sonoma County. One day, standing in front of an 1878 white farmhouse in Alexander Valley, Richard Diebenkorn fell for a new sense of place. It was not just the house, topped off with an ornate widow’s walk and meticulously restored by its previous owner, a former racing jockey. Nor the remote location on 6 acres, set back from winding West Soda Rock Lane and framed by a white corral fence. But also the surrounding vines, nearby Russian River and a towering, siren-like peak in the distance. Miles from the ocean, it was a landscape less defined by the Pacific blues of Ocean Park, expanding the palette to vibrant greens and reds — even yellow and gold when the spring mustard was in bloom.

DO NOT REPURPOSE WITHOUT PERMISSION. Copyright of Artists Rights Society/Richard Diebenkorn Foundation — An untitled work from Diebenkorn’s Healdsburg years, with a color palette and forms that seem to echo the view of vineyards and mountains from his front porch. “Untitled” c. 1988-1992, gouache, crayon and graphite on joined paper. (Artists Rights Society/Richard Diebenkorn Foundation)

Gazing across quilted vineyards, Diebenkorn could see Mount St. Helena from almost anywhere on the property. It inspired him. Later, he would introduce it to newcomers as “my Montagne Sainte-Victoire” or “Montagne de Cézanne,” in honor of the post-impressionist French painter, who recreated the iconic French mountain dozens of times.

“What drew him to (the house) was its simplicity and its lack of ostentatiousness,” says Andrea Liguori, executive director of the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation in Berkeley. “They chose that house visually, and he pursued it through his real estate agent and learned that it was, in fact, available. So, he manifested their moving into that house, like people generally can’t do now, where you just fall in love with a house.”

In 1987, after buying the two-story, five-bedroom white farmhouse (for $555,000 at the time), the Diebenkorns hired Berkeley designer Jay Claiborne to convert the barn-style garage into an art studio, adding a stark, angular second floor with clerestory windows that allowed natural light to fill the space. Although Claiborne installed a fancy new lighting system, Diebenkorn was content to use the simple, hooded clip-on aluminum lights he’d hung in studios for decades.

Tension Beneath Calm

By the spring of 1988, the great American painter had traded fast-paced Los Angeles for the slow hum of rural Sonoma County. Often referred to as “the Healdsburg years,” it’s a chapter in his life and a period in his work that doesn’t always get a lot of attention.

In an interview a few months before moving, Diebenkorn seemed almost anxious. Surrounded by paintings in his Ocean Park studio, Diebenkorn admitted “my fingers are crossed” about the move. He had fallen for Alexander Valley, but he added, “my concern is that it’s possibly just a little bit too beautiful. There won’t be enough irritants. There’s plenty of that here (in Los Angeles). I suppose I can always come back here and be irritated.”

It had always been a part of his process, that “tension beneath calm” referenced throughout his career. A calm, bespectacled, unpretentious man, Diebenkorn also had a wry sense of humor, remembers printmaker Renée Bott, who worked with him in the ’80s and ’90s on several large-scale prints he made at Crown Point Press in San Francisco. Diebenkorn and his close friend Wayne Thiebaud were two of the first artists to experiment with etchings and intaglio at the pioneering press.

The necessary “irritants” he mentioned were very much a part of his process, she says. “His paintings were about beauty and composition, and the beauty that happens when something’s well composed,” says Bott. “But he also wanted to create tension in his work, and I think he lived that way, too.”

She once worked on prints with him in a makeshift San Francisco studio, salvaged from a former autobody shop after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, as rats scurried throughout the space. “It was really beautiful to watch him work, because I always felt like he was solving a problem,” she says.

In his Alexander Valley studio, Diebenkorn often settled into a favorite chair he’d brought from Ocean Park, staring at works-in-progress for hours. “He had this energy for the struggle in the studio,” says foundation director Andrea Liguori. “For him, the act of making a painting was the goal. It was the process of figuring out that was of more interest to him, ultimately, than the end product.”

Looking at his writings over the years, she says, “It’s really fascinating that when he got too comfortable, he complained about it, because then there was no struggle anymore.”

Bott visited the Diebenkorns several times, often dining outdoors eating lunches that Phyllis prepared, beside a long, black-tiled pool and a rolling grass lawn. “It felt like a scene out of some romantic movie,” she remembers. “I felt like I was in Provence.” But what she remembers most about Diebenkorn is his humble nature — “very introspective and quiet.”

When he moved into his new Healdsburg studio, he brought two unfinished “Ocean Park” canvases from Santa Monica. At around 8 feet tall, they were so large that his contractor had to raise a gateway arch near the entrance to the property, so the moving truck transporting the paintings could pass underneath.

A Refuge in the Valley

It didn’t take long for the painter to feel at ease in his new backdrop. In 1988, when a “CBS Sunday Morning” production crew came to visit, Diebenkorn looked every bit the artist in transition, acclimating to his new surroundings, walking through autumnal vineyards with his dogs Amie and Lucy, talking about sketching scenes along the banks of the Russian River. He seemed eager to explore the light and geometry of the area.

“I think what an artist does is all about what’s around him,” he told the interviewer. “His environment — cultural, physical and visual.”

As the scenery changed, so did his palette — not immediately, but measured over time with daily walks through the vineyards. “After more than two decades in Santa Monica, his brain and body must have been madly recalibrating from all of the change: discernible seasons, a new spectrum of California colors (more greens and yellows, fewer blues), a jarringly different vastness (no more miles of sand and crashing waves, just parallel lines of vines extending up into quiet mountain ranges),” his granddaughter Phyllis Grant, a Berkeley author, once wrote.

In Santa Monica, Diebenkorn had often chatted over his fence with his neighbor Ry Cooder, the blues and world musician. His L.A. social circle included painter William Brice, film producer Ray Stark, art dealer Irving Blum and playwright Edward Albee. In Alexander Valley, Richard and Phyllis found new friends, making an instant connection with Dick and Mary Hafner, who owned nearby Hafner Vineyards. A former journalist, Dick Hafner had worked in public affairs at UC Berkeley, not far from where the Diebenkorns lived in the ’50s and ’60s.

“It was very much a symbiotic relationship,” says son Scott Hafner, a managing partner at the family winery today. “They respected that someone moves to this area, probably in part because they want the solitude, and that lack of glitziness has some attractiveness.”

The two couples spent many late evenings around a table, drinking wine and talking — sometimes at the Diebenkorns’ farmhouse, other times on the terrace overlooking the valley from the Hafner property on Pine Flat Road. The couples often hiked through the vineyards or along the river together, too. On his sojourns, Diebenkorn would pocket scraps of litter, like bottle caps, or bits of paper or plastic. The brightly colored objects would often find their way into his art, appearing in the collage “Skating Down the River at Soda Rock,” a gift to his granddaughter before she moved to New York for college.

But at age 66, Diebenkorn’s health began to decline. A few months after the “CBS Sunday Morning” episode aired, he took a winter walk and felt out of breath. He had to lay down and rest. Doctors later discovered a damaged aortic valve, and during surgery he developed an infection.

For a while, his studio was moved to a location inside the house. After a six-month recovery, he wrote a letter to his friend, the art consultant Mary Keesling, saying, “I am working daily in my Healdsburg studio, and think I should have come up here years ago.”

In 1991, Press Democrat reporter Tim Fish sat with Diebenkorn on his front porch, overlooking the vineyards in the distance. Fish remembers he was allotted one hour for the interview, and how Phyllis “was very protective of his time and level of energy.”

“He was fragile, but still mentally sharp,” recalls Fish, now a senior editor at Wine Spectator. “He seemed to truly enjoy talking about his life and work.” Fish took the photo that appeared in the newspaper — a portrait of Diebenkorn standing, his glasses removed, both hands in his jean pockets — because Phyllis wouldn’t allow a photographer.

While they were sitting on the porch, Diebenkorn pointed again to the westward summit he so loved.

When Fish asked him if Alexander Valley, like Ocean Park, had influenced his new work, Diebenkorn said, “That’s very hard to tell. I don’t go to a place for that reason. When I saw this place, I knew it right away. If I like a place, I kind of have a rapport with it.”

What Might Have Followed

It’s difficult to predict what effect Alexander Valley might have had on future work. In 1992, Diebenkorn’s health continued to worsen, and in March of 1993, he died of pulmonary failure in Berkeley. A New York Times obituary described him as “one of the premier American painters of the postwar era.”

In the five years he lived in Alexander Valley, the two 8-foot-tall, unfinished “Ocean Park” series paintings he brought from Santa Monica were never unwrapped, and never hung on the hooks driven into the wall to support them. In fact, after moving to Northern California, he would never paint on canvas again. He only produced works on paper — with charcoal, gouache and watercolor — a practice he often undertook while transitioning to a major new period of creativity.

Over the years, he wrote countless notes to himself in the studio on scraps of paper that he saved as reminders or words of encouragement to stay the course. One of them reads, “Have confidence in this landscape thing — even though it seems to have gone to hell today.” Another says, “Each painting requires weeks of dismal and embarrassing manipulation of meaningless lines and spaces. I never know what funny shift will put me on the track.”

During this time, even as he retreated to the country and focused on more intimate works on paper, his international fame continued to grow. His large-scale paintings were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, fetching more than $1 million from art collectors, and he was the subject of a feature profile in The New York Times Magazine in 1992.

“He was looking for a change of place, a change of space, a change of light, a change of look, and I think he really happily found that up there,” says John Van Doren, owner of Van Doren Waxter gallery in New York. In 2014, the gallery worked with the Diebenkorn family to stage the well-received exhibit “The Healdsburg Years 1988-1993.”

Looking back on this time of transition, Van Doren says, “It’s a shame that we don’t know where that went, because he was clearly getting into new approaches and new forms in the work that he was making. We have what we have, which is glorious.

But, of course, it would have been great to know what followed.”

One work in the 2014 exhibit that might be hard to pick out of a lineup as distinctly Diebenkorn, is a watercolor and graphite still-life of a skull, conjuring a classic memento mori symbolism dating back to the Renaissance. “I can’t help but look at that skull and think that there’s at least some reference to the passage of time,” says Van Doren.

Taking a closer look at some of his last works, Liguori and other art scholars have noticed how “the work got smaller, with rounder shapes and kind of mysterious with playful symbols… The little wheels and little circles of curiosity, little eyes and buttons and these fun shapes.”

When Diebenkorn was a child, his maternal grandmother gave him a set of playing cards that reproduced the medieval Bayeux Tapestry. He was also obsessed with the imagery of clubs and spades. Similar symbols of heraldry had cropped up in previous artwork over the decades and then reemerged during his time in Healdsburg.

“It makes you wonder, was he aware that he was dying soon?” says Liguori. “Was he thinking about childhood? Was he having this sort of summation of life experience that people can have when they’re in their last few years of life?”

Today, his daughter Gretchen Diebenkorn Grant still owns the white farmhouse on West Soda Rock Lane. She works with the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation to help preserve her father’s legacy and make his archives available to curious admirers and researchers. After the morning fog burns off in the valley, she can walk out the front door and see a mountainous reminder of her father in the distance, a post-impressionistic monument to Diebenkorn’s way of looking at the world.

Split by the Russian River and painted over with vineyards that turn lush green every summer, fiery red and gold in autumn, and almost barren brown this time of year, Alexander Valley was the last place that had that effect on him.

For more information on the artist, visit the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation at diebenkorn.org.

Thumbprint Cellars Closes Downtown Healdsburg Tasting Room After 15 Years

February 2025

By Maci Martell

San Francisco visitors taste wine at the Thumbprint Cellars tasting room in downtown Healdsburg. (Erik Castro / for The Press Democrat)

Thumbprint Cellars held its last wine tasting over the weekend at its Healdsburg Plaza tasting room, as first reported by The Healdsburg Tribune.

It is the latest in a string of recent tasting room closures in Wine Country — last week, two Napa Valley wineries shuttered their tasting rooms. Newton Vineyard in St. Helena and two of Silver Oak Cellars’ Twomey tasting rooms, in Calistoga and Philo, announced their closures.

However, this is not the end for Thumbprint Cellars, whose Plaza-facing tasting room enjoyed over 15 years of foot traffic on downtown Healdsburg’s Matheson Street. The north county winery will move all operations to its rural headquarters in Geyserville. In addition to the move, Thumbprint will also shift its business model to focus more on experiences for wine club members.

In an email Wednesday, Thumbprint founder Scott Lindstrom-Dake stated the team has “begun the move from our downtown Healdsburg tasting room we have lovingly referred to as ‘The Lounge’ over the past 20 years. The location is now closed for tasting and sales.”

Lindstrom-Dake stated they are in the process of consolidating the business and “creating a new venue for tasting and sales at our Geyserville location,” the details of which will be announced soon.

The winery’s first event at its Geyserville location, a club member pickup party, is tentatively slated for April, according to the Healdsburg Tribune article. Thumbprint also plans to hold more public events and wine tastings by early summer.

Since Thumbprint’s first release in 1995, founders Scott and Erica Lindstrom-Dake have been busy building the reputation of their boutique winery. They opened their first tasting room in 2004 in downtown Healdsburg, which they later relocated in 2009 to its popular Matheson Street home. In 2020, the founders’ son, Carter Lindstrom-Dake, helped remodel the tasting room.

Thumbprint wines have achieved plenty of success in recent years. In the 2021 North Coast Wine Challenge in April, three of the winery’s reds earned gold medals — the 2017 Ramazzotti Vineyard Cabernet Franc (94 points), 2020 Teldeschi Vineyard Dan’s Block Valdiguie (90 points) and 2016 Climax Red Blend (90 points). Seven months later, in the 2021 San Francisco International Wine Competition in November, Thumbprint’s 2017 Alexander Valley Premium Bordeaux Blend scored a near-perfect 99 points, earning it a Double Gold medal.

Other notable wineries in the area, such as Scribe Winery in Sonoma, have opted to offer member-exclusive tasting experiences and pickup parties. Thumbprint Cellars appears optimistic for the change of focus.

“We are excited for the next Thumbprint Cellars adventure!” Scott Lindstrom-Dake stated.

Those Working To Preserve the Russian River Watershed’s Native Coho Salmon Offer Hope for a Flourishing Future

February 2025

By Michael Shapiro

Coho salmon — Sonoma’s Russian River watershed was historically home to hearty populations of native salmon. After Russian River surveys in the early 2000s revealed that local species had dwindled to dangerously low numbers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sonoma Water and other local agencies have spent the past two decades trying to preserve the unique genetics of native coho salmon. (Kaare Iverson)

Santa Rosa photographer Kaare Iverson was on a photo assignment for a winery along Dry Creek outside Healdsburg when a colossal construction project caught his eye.

“I found these mysterious wooden pillars sprouting from the edge of the creek,” he remembers. Iverson later learned the pillars were part of a project to create habitat for endangered salmon. “I felt such an immense sense of pride in my community, that we would exert such enormous effort at such expense for conservation.”

Iverson grew up in a commercial fishing family in the Prince Rupert region of northern British Columbia, where a healthy salmon population makes annual returns in prodigious numbers. After moving to Sonoma County, Iverson became curious about the natural history of the Russian River watershed and, he says, “a bit obsessed with the idea that it once held, and could again hold, enormous runs of coho and chinook.”

Sonoma’s Russian River watershed was historically home to hearty populations of native salmon like those Iverson was familiar with in British Columbia. After Russian River surveys in the early 2000s revealed that local species had dwindled to dangerously low numbers, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sonoma Water and other local agencies have spent the past two decades trying to preserve the unique genetics of native coho salmon.

Sonoma’s Russian River watershed was historically home to hearty populations of native salmon. However, Russian River surveys in the early 2000s revealed that local species had dwindled to dangerously low numbers. (Kaare Iverson)

The contrast between the waters where Iverson grew up fishing with his father and the Russian River, where salmon populations have been so depleted, has led Iverson to consider what it would be like to live in a world without wild salmon. “I know what this place could be like… and I recognize that it’s going to take a considerable shift in public perception to get it there.”

For the project, Iverson photographed at the Warm Springs Fish Hatchery west of Geyserville, home to native coho breeding programs, as well as at several restoration locations in the Russian River watershed. He used both modern equipment and a large-format Ansco camera that, remarkably, once belonged to Ansel Adams. Iverson’s stepfather’s cousin, who worked in a framing shop in Carmel, acquired the camera in the 1980s and later passed it to Iverson.

Iverson’s portraits of the salmon — and the people working to save them — convey his belief in treating overlooked populations with the same reverence reserved for charismatic, keystone species like bison and grizzly bears. Iverson says he wanted to create portraits “that give these fish a sense of personality, going so far as to anthropomorphize them in a way that feels human, personal and conversational.”

Beyond composing his alluring images, Iverson brings a strong sense of purpose to the work, connecting viewers with the roots of their natural history — “so that the knowledge of what this watershed could be is not lost, and so that we can all remember what it is we should be fighting for.”

Precocious Jack

A precocious jack is a salmon that reaches sexual maturity at age two rather than the typical three years, a natural adaptation that leads to greater genetic diversity.

Iverson had been granted a single day to shoot at Geyserville’s Warm Springs Fish Hatchery. But the water that day was filled with silt, too opaque to create the portraits he’d envisioned. Fortunately, a biologist remembered they’d frozen about 20 gallons of clearer lake water, “just enough to fill the aquarium we were using to hold the fish,” Iverson recalls. The lake water still contained a small amount of silt; those are the flecks in the photo.

“After a few test images, I realized I could modify my lighting such that the silt would catch the light and create a bit of a vignette around the fish,” he says. “And it added depth and a sense of the water itself that I appreciate more than the original idea.”

A Brighter Dawn

The sun rises over a recently built side channel on Sonoma County's Dry Creek. The vertical stumps that at first appear as a recently logged streamside are actually full length logs that have been pneumatically driven into the ground to stabilize flow enhancing features. The denuded ground has been stripped of exotic plant species and reseeded with native riparian species. This stretch of water will maintain steady, cool and slow flowing water that is ideal for young Coho salmon. (Kaare Iverson) — The sun rises over a recently built side channel on Sonoma County’s Dry Creek. The vertical stumps that at first appear as a recently logged streamside are actually full length logs that have been pneumatically driven into the ground to stabilize flow enhancing features. The denuded ground has been stripped of invasive plant species and reseeded with native riparian species. This stretch of water will maintain steady, cool and slow flowing water that is ideal for young coho salmon. (Kaare Iverson)

Water trickles into one of dozens of new enhancement sites along Dry Creek. Seeded with native flora and studded with wooden poles, this development will form a year-round, cool-water refuge for young salmonids and other native animals. Before the first sprout broke through the burlap, the location was already occupied by fish-eating birds, a sign of the ecosystem coming back to life.

“I loved watching this site develop,” Iverson says. “To see a landscape torn apart by machines meticulously reassembled with engineered waterways, and ultimately repopulated by native animals, was inspiring. An untrained eye could easily mistake this site for a devastated clear-cut landscape, rather than a setting for potential ecological energy. There’s a definite sense of momentum.”

Handle with Care

At Warm Springs Fish Hatchery, biologist Ken Leister grips a female salmon. As part of restoration efforts, mature female salmon who return in winter to the Russian River watershed to spawn and die are instead euthanized at the hatchery. Their eggs are harvested and mixed with the milt, or sperm, of male salmon with desirable genetics, and the resulting juvenile fish are returned to local waters.

Leister holds the female salmon gently — any blood or fluids that contact the unfertilized eggs could damage them. “Each egg is important to the survival of the population. The margin for error in the recovery of these fish is slim,” Iverson says. “There’s a preciousness to how all this biological potential is handled, love and care and death and rebirth all happening at once.”

One Fish, Two Fish

A Sonoma Water staffer cleans the viewing window at a diversion dam below Wohler Bridge on the Russian River. (Kaare Iverson)

A Sonoma Water staffer cleans the viewing window at a diversion dam below Wohler Bridge on the Russian River. This narrow passage in the dam’s fish ladder allows for an accurate count of returning fish, including both hatchery-bred fish and those born in the wild. Iverson had hoped to photograph fish going up the ladder, but few fish have returned in recent years. When he made this image in early 2023, it was already apparent that the coho that year were either unusually late in their return, or perhaps not returning at all.

“As I watched them clean the viewing window, I was immediately struck by the mix of futility and hope these scientists were harboring,” says Iverson.

Breeding for Diversity

Biologist Emily Van Seeters places fertilized coho eggs into spawning racks at Warm Springs Fish Hatchery. (Kaare Iverson)

Biologist Emily Van Seeters places fertilized coho eggs into spawning racks at Warm Springs Fish Hatchery. In winter, during spawning season, the racks are fed with a constant stream of fresh water coming out of Lake Sonoma. Each female is spawned with up to four different males for genetic diversity, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A juvenile coho raised at the hatchery is weighed before being fitted with a tracking tag. The hatchery’s conservation work was honored as part of the Lake Sonoma Steelhead Festival on Saturday, Feb. 8 (steelheadfestival.org).

Human-made “Natural” Habitat

Large-scale dams such as Warm Springs are primary culprits in the decline of salmon populations. But as water temperatures rise in local creeks due to climate change, cooler water released from the depths of the reservoirs can help salmon. The problem is that high flows also wash away the gravel beds that females need for spawning, as well as stands of woody debris where juvenile salmon can shelter and grow.

Temporary equipment isolates a section of waterway so that workers can construct habitat features that will benefit young salmon. (Kaare Iverson)

“Without a place to rest, small fish would be blasted out into the main stem of the river where they stand little chance of surviving,” Iverson says.

Local agencies and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are driving wooden poles into the riverbank and piling up brush to simulate natural habitat, as well as installing metal blockades to slow the course of the water. The first 3 miles of a planned 6-mile restoration along Dry Creek is nearly compete.

Cycle of Life

This hatchery salmon, after it died, was planted in Green Valley Creek by volunteer Doug Gore. Salmon typically spend their first year in a river or stream before migrating to the Pacific Ocean to live for two years. In the winter of their third year, they return to the stream where they originated to spawn and then die. Their bodies become a part of the food web, providing nutrition for small invertebrates, younger salmon and otters.

Gore tells Iverson he’s seeing less invertebrate life in the streams he visits, a concern echoed by biologists worldwide. And without the local efforts of Gore and other passionate conservationists, it’s possible that native coho might already have disappeared entirely from the Russian River watershed. That’s a world difficult to imagine. But Iverson’s images of the salmon and those seeking to steward their recovery offer hope for a more bountiful, flourishing future.

Correction (Feb. 21, 2025, 2 p.m.): This story has been updated to correct the type of equipment shown in photos for salmon habitat restoration projects.

L’Oro di Napoli Opening in Petaluma This Week

February 2025

By Heather Irwin

Margherita, the queen of pizzas with sauce of fresh tomatoes, melted mozzarella cheese with fresh basil and EVOO from L’Oro di Napoli in downtown Santa Rosa. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)

Santa Rosa’s L’Oro di Napoli will officially open its 8,000-square-foot Petaluma restaurant Wednesday, Feb. 19, featuring a new menu, bar and impressive Italian wood-fired pizza oven. But one thing will be missing — the lasagna.

“No lasagna here,” said co-owner Domenico De Angelis, whose mile-high lasagna filled with layers of fresh pasta, Bolognese, béchamel, tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese is a bestseller at the Santa Rosa location and pushed the Fourth Street restaurant to the top of my Italian dining “best of” list.

L'Oro di Napoli in Petaluma — The entrance to L’Oro di Napoli in Petaluma is decorated with old Italian food and beverage posters (Heather Irwin)

De Angelis said he wants to keep the lasagna a Santa Rosa-only dish. But Petaluma will also have unique offerings, including veal Milanese, crispy arancini, whole Branzino and zucchini Parmesan. It also will serve wood-fired pizzas, like the Santa Rosa location.

Unlike the pocket-sized kitchen in Santa Rosa, the lavish new kitchen build-out in Petaluma will allow L’Oro di Napoli to expand its Neapolitan-influenced menu.

The 208 Petaluma Boulevard North restaurant (formerly Thai Issan) also has separate bar and restaurant seating, a pizza dough-rising room, a private dining area and the charming Neapolitan “windows” and faux balcony overlooking the dining room similar to the Santa Rosa restaurant.

“We want you to feel like you’re in Italy when you’re here,” said De Angelis.

L'Oro di Napoli — The enormous Lasagna with a Stagionale salad of arugula, roasted butternut squash puree, sliced almonds., topped with pecorino cheese, in an orange mustard and Extra Virgin Olive Oil dressing from L’Oro di Napoli in downtown Santa Rosa March 24, 2023. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)

You can reach Dining Editor Heather Irwin at heather.irwin@pressdemocrat.com. Follow Heather on Instagram @biteclubeats.

Modern Sonoma Estate Evoking Pantone’s 2025 Color of the Year Featured in Cottages & Gardens

February 2025

By Karen Kizer

A newly built estate and guest house on 2 acres in Sonoma is currently listed for $15,500,000. Set by a vineyard and centering around a courtyard, the modern five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom home achieves a powerful elegance through premium materials, pleasing geometry and restrained but inspired use of color.

Neutral, rich hues of brown throughout the home’s design evoke Pantone’s 2025 color of the year, Mocha Mousse. The home’s warm design and color palette earned it a feature in Cottages & Gardens magazine.

Limewashed walls, marbles, handmade tiles and wood cladding are just some of the premium materials that sing through the design. Simplicity and detail combine to make spectacular design “moments” throughout the 6,859-square-foot home.

Kitchen in modern Sonoma home — Kitchen. (Mike Battey)

The layout of every room has a strong sense of balance, punctuated with contrasting finishes. For example, custom white oak cabinets flank large slabs of Calacatta marble in the kitchen. The stone is placed so the variegation runs at alternating diagonals, creating visual movement in the quiet space.

A built-in bench runs the length of the hallway, on which sit a series of tonal pillows to provide comfort but also a sense of movement down the hall. Accent lighting illuminates the vertical trio of alcove shelves.

The tranquil palette of white oak, hemlock and Accoya woods on the floors, cabinetry and ceiling provides a warm backdrop on which gentle touches of color shine. The honey-hued walk-in closet is enlivened just enough by a plum ottoman that provides a comfortable spot to sit. Vertical tiles lend a gentle blue to the wet bar’s backsplash. An avocado green chair and headboard provide some rich jewel tone in the bedroom.

Modern Sonoma Estate — Great room and wet bar. (Mike Battey)

Bedroom in modern Sonoma home — Bedroom. (Mike Battey)

One bathroom has lime-washed walls combined with Zellige tiles in a deep gray — a departure from the rest of the home’s palette that is surprising and successful.

The smoothness of lime-washed walls yield focus to the soft geometry of the home’s repeating arches. The roundness is echoed in the custom-made and selected sofas, chairs and recliners — all of which come with the sale of the house.

Each room has a view into the courtyard with a pool and spa. The main room enjoys the setting through 14-foot sliding glass doors.

The home is the work of Ridge Design + Build, a local, family-owned business started by the late Alan Jay ‘A. J.’ Tudisco. The firm is now run by his children Allegra Diggins, Aaron Tudisco and daughter-in-law Sena Tudisco. The elder Tudisco was a designer and builder who, according to Aaron, “cared deeply about the details.” His children consider themselves “stewards of his passion and of his craft.”

For more information on 1608 Ridge Valley Road in Sonoma, contact listing agents Gina Clyde, 707-529-8504, Daniel Casabonne, 707-494-3130, 707-939-2222, Sotheby’s International Realty – Wine Country, ventanasonoma.com

Modern Forestville Home Offers Luxurious Indoor-Outdoor Living in a Tranquil Setting

February 2025

By Karen Kizer

This four-bedroom, four-bathroom home on 4.3 acres in Forestville is currently listed for $4,500,000. (Courtesy of Peter Colbert) (Courtesy of Peter Colbert) — This four-bedroom, four-bathroom home on 4.3 acres in Forestville is currently listed for $4,500,000. (Courtesy of Peter Colbert)

A modern Forestville home on 4.34 wooded acres is currently listed for sale. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom, 3,433-square-foot dwelling enjoys seclusion, views and luxury amenities. The asking price is $4,500,000.

Large windows and outdoor amenities offer seamless indoor-outdoor living. There’s a screened-in patio with a grill and outdoor furniture. A lap pool and spa, along with tiered seating areas, offer prime spots to take in the tranquil but spectacular setting. The outdoor hearth creates another spot for cozy gathering.

Pool and seating area in modern Forestville home — Pool and seating area at modern Forestville home. (Courtesy of Peter Colbert)

Dining area. (Courtesy of Peter Colbert) — Dining area in modern Forestville home. (Courtesy of Peter Colbert)

All rooms enjoy expansive views and the kitchen features top-of-the-line appliances. A great room layout keeps a sense of openness and the views unfettered.

Homebuyers looking for modern luxury in a tranquil setting may find themselves at home in this Forestville estate in the Russian River Valley. Forestville has its own diminutive downtown and is just a short drive to Guerneville and, further off, the Sonoma Coast.

For more information on 9224 Carols View Road in Forestville, contact listing agent Peter Colbert, 415-798-0203, Wine Country Colbert Group, Compass, winecountrycolbert.com

Ashes & Diamonds Is Still the Coolest Kid in Napa

February 2025

By Tina Caputo

Ashes & Diamonds tasting room in Napa. (Mike Battey)

When Ashes & Diamonds arrived on the scene nearly eight years ago, it was almost like an act of revolution. Deliberately foregoing the “faux Château” architecture and riper-is-better approach embraced by many wineries at the time, the Napa newcomer made a splash with its midcentury-inspired style and classically restrained wines.

The story

Kashy Khaledi spent most of his adult life working as a creative director in multimedia and advertising, including stints at Live Nation and Capitol Records, before turning his visionary talents to wine. The son of Darioush Winery founder Darioush Khaledi, he’d come to admire the new crop of California winemakers embracing organic and biodynamic farming practices, and he had a special love for Napa wines from the ‘60s and ‘70s. With Ashes & Diamonds, Khaledi set out to create modern-day renditions of the elegant, low-alcohol wines that filled his cellar. He opened the winery — named for the 1958 Polish film that inspired his life-altering career move — in 2017.

The vibe

By design, the Ashes & Diamonds winery looks like a stylish throwback to another era. Set along Highway 29, next to Don Giovanni, the place has a light and breezy aesthetic that’s more Palm Springs than typical Napa Valley. Los Angeles architect Barbara Bestor collaborated with Khaledi to conceive the boxy white building, with its wall-sized windows, zigzag roof and playful portholes. In contrast to his parents’ opulent winery up the road, inspired by the ancient city of Persepolis in the family’s native Iran, Ashes & Diamonds is all clean lines and minimalist decor.

The tasting room at Ashes & Diamonds winery in Napa. (Ashes & Diamonds)

Enter through the oversize yolk-yellow door and you’ll find an open space outfitted with curvy midcentury modern chairs and sofa seating. From its potted plants to its ‘70s playlists, everything is carefully curated to create a relaxed, lighthearted atmosphere. This makes the winery a magnet for a hip, younger crowd — though its style also feels comfortingly familiar to those of us who remember watching reruns of “The Brady Bunch” after school.

On the palate

Ashes & Diamonds wines are “classic California,” before oak and alcohol levels began creeping up. Taking a divide-and-conquer approach, the wines are crafted by a trio of winemakers: minimalist Steve Matthiasson, Diana Snowden Seysses, who makes wine in Burgundy as well as California, and sparkling wine innovator Micheal Cruse. The wines, which hail from the Ashes & Diamonds Vineyard in the Oak Knoll District as well as other sites in Napa and the Santa Cruz Mountains, are lower in alcohol than many Napa offerings, with less emphasis on new oak.

Try the chillable 2023 Rosa ($45), a deeply colored blend of Cab Franc and Sangiovese that tastes like a grown-up version of Hawaiian Punch — and I mean that as a compliment. I’m especially smitten by the 2021 Napa Valley Cabernet Franc No. 8 ($80), which skillfully balances fruit and acidity for optimal food compatibility (looking at you, duck carnitas!).

Tastings range from $45 for a three-wine teaser of club-only wines to $175 for the excellent A&D Wines + Food family style lunch. This season’s menu features incredible housemade focaccia with mushroom butter, plus squash spaetzle, and chicken schnitzel with tahini rémoulade.

Beyond the bottle

Keep it low key with a post-tasting hang at Napa Yard at Oxbow Gardens. The dog-friendly beer garden along the Napa River was made for lawn games, tasty tacos and chilling around fire pits.

Ashes & Diamonds, 4130 Howard Lane, Napa. Open daily. ashesdiamonds.com

Tina Caputo is a wine, food, and travel writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including SevenFifty Daily, Visit California, HuffPost, and Sonoma magazine. Follow Tina on Twitter @winebroad, view her website at tinacaputo.com, and email her story ideas at tina@caputocontent.com.

Kendall-Jackson Unveils NBA Co-Branded Wines at All-Star Weekend in San Francisco

February 2025

By Eden Collier

Kendall-Jackson Wines, the official wine partner of the NBA, has expanded its collaboration with the league by unveiling co-branded bottles designed by celebrated artist Victor Solomon.

Announced Monday, the partnership with Solomon officially kicked off Friday at the NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco where the Santa Rosa winery is hosting a series of events. The wines — a Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma County, a Chardonnay blend from Monterey County and a Sauvignon Blanc from Lake County — will be released in August.

Kendall-Jackson, known for producing America’s bestselling Chardonnay, was connected with Solomon through the NBA, which had previously worked with the artist.

Jackson Family Wines, which owns Kendall-Jackson, signed a four-and-a-half-year partnership deal with the NBA in April 2024. That arrangement also includes La Crema in Windsor, which is the official partner of the WNBA. Both wineries also represent USA Basketball’s men’s and women’s teams.

Kendall-Jackson and NBA co-branded wine — Kendall-Jackson Wines, the official wine partner of the NBA, has expanded its collaboration with the league by unveiling co-branded bottles designed by celebrated artist Victor Solomon. (Courtesy of Kendall-Jackson)

“When we partnered with the NBA, we set out to uniquely blend the culture of wine with the excitement of the game,” said Chris Jackson, coproprietor of Kendall-Jackson, in a press release. “We are excited to partner with Victor Solomon and bring his extraordinary talents in connecting art with sports culture to the look of our first NBA co-branded wines.”

Solomon, best known for designing the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, brings his artistic vision to the project. His past work includes the “Literally Balling” series, which uses stained glass to reimagine basketball imagery. Recent projects include a Swarovski crystal basketball installation for the NBA’s 75th anniversary celebration and his “Journey” sculpture series, which explores the evolution of the game through iconic materials.

“My work has always been about elevating the artistry within sport,” said Solomon in a press release. “Partnering with Kendall-Jackson allows me to extend that vision by creating and celebrating a shared spirit of craftsmanship.”

Amid falling U.S. wine sales, the partnership between Jackson Family Wines and the NBA is leveraging Americans’ passion for sports and the relationship between Wine Country and pro basketball — many players are wine connoisseurs, frequent Sonoma and Napa wineries and even have their own labels — to reach a wider audience.

During the NBA All-Star Weekend in San Francisco (Feb. 14-16), Kendall-Jackson will host several activities and events at the NBA Crossover fan experience at the Moscone Center. The winery is also part of events at San Francisco’s Pier 70 with a pop-up wine bar and an All-Star watch party (Feb. 16).

Purchase tickets and find more information about the NBA All-Star Weekend and NBA Crossover at nbaevents.nba.com/nba-crossover.

Soft Medicine Sanctuary Makes Perfect Sense for Bohemian Sebastopol

February 2025

By Carey Sweet

Chocolate Tahini Cookies with a gluten-free Almond Shortbread and a Euphoria drink with a ceremonial dose of cacao, milk, spices, adaptogenic herbs and maple syrup from Soft Medicine Sanctuary Friday, November 22, 2024, in Sebastopol. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)

This cafe, tea house and yoga studio in downtown Sebastopol, which opened in 2022, is all about organic wellness, with a “food as medicine” philosophy that includes vegan dishes and healing kavas, cacaos, matcha drinks, herbal teas and elixirs.

The concept makes perfect sense for Sebastopol, a town where the bohemian vibes are strong. But at this time of year, full of fresh starts and good intentions, the cafe’s healthy focus is a terrific choice for all kinds of diners.

The grain bowl is a plentiful, colorful creation piling on rice, mung beans, veggies, kraut, peppery winter greens and a lake of bright green pesto bound with Ayurvedic spices. Tacos are full of flavor and texture, featuring two corn tortillas stuffed with avocado, roasted veggies, greens, vegan cheese and spicy kimchi. And the “Kitcharito,” a hearty burrito of seasoned local rice, beans, cheese, avocado, crisp sprouts, and tart sauerkraut with salsa and vegan spicy mayo, is a standout.

Soft Medicine Sanctuary in Sebastopol — The Nori Wrap with quinoa, avocado, kimchi, veggies, sprouts and vegan spicy mayo with a Passiflora cold elixir with vanilla raspberry almond milk, valerian, skullcap and passionflower from Soft Medicine Sanctuary Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Sebastopol. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)

Throughout the menu, there are options to customize dishes to suit different dietary preferences: an aromatic vegetarian lentil soup with fresh herbs and greens, for example, can get a boost from ghee, a shot of miso or curry-infused bone broth. The cafe sources more than 80% of its produce from within 200 miles, uses only local grains and olive oils, and doesn’t use any seed oils, fillers, refined sugars or GMO products.

No alcohol is served, but the cafe does have a strong selection of kavas, cacaos and drinks made with nut milks and spices. Co-owner Jonathan Pinkston, an Ayurvedic practitioner and acupuncturist, says the sprawling, temple-like space also hosts late-night dance parties with music in the upstairs yoga studio.

“We’re here to sell food and drinks, of course, but the main thing is that we’re giving people a cultural space to meet new beautiful people and feel naturally good,” he says.

186 N. Main St., Sebastopol. 707-827-8130, softmedicinesebastopol.com

A Sonoma Ceramicist Works With Rainwater To Explore Natural Processes and Climate Change

February 2025

By Nate Seltenrich

Kala Stein is a ceramics artist and teacher based in Sonoma representing issues of climate and weather in her work. Last year, she did a large installation of an atmospheric river storm in a series of clay tiles. Part of her process includes using rain water representing the weather effects in the glaze. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)

If water is life, rain in California is so much more. It defines eternal cycles within cycles of boom and bust: dry summers broken by wet winters; multi-year droughts quelled by equally severe atmospheric deluges. Rain is a godsend, a destructive force and an indicator of long-term changes to our climate.

To ceramic artist Kala Stein, rain is all this — as well as a muse and co-creator. Water falling from clouds into the narrow breezeway outside her Sonoma studio, or drip-dropping from the lip of the gutter, rinses away pigments on the surface of small, handmade tiles she sets out to record its signature.

“The tiles are really a collaboration with the rainwater,” Stein says. “Depending on how much rain and how hard it’s raining, I get different effects on the surfaces.”

Some reflect a “harder drip,” where the rain has “eroded” away the white ceramic pigment she applies before placing the tile outside. Others show more of an “overall wash,” where the rainwater and pigment have “puddled” on the tile’s face.

Sonoma ceramicist Kala Stein — Kala Stein is a ceramics artist and teacher based in Sonoma representing issues of climate and weather in her work. Part of her process includes using rain water representing the weather effects in the glaze. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)

Sonoma ceramicist Kala Stein shapes tiles by hand, then allows the glazed tiles to sit out in the winter rain before they are fired, a process which results in an astonishing variety of patterns and shapes in the finished pieces. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)

“After it reaches a point where I feel like the surface is interesting, I’ll remove it from the rain and fire it to make the material permanent,” Stein explains. She likens the process to creating a fossil record of a particular day and a particular expression of rain. And just as with a fossil, the imprinting material — bone or shell or rainwater — disappears, leaving only its shadow. Stein calls the series “Ghost Rain.”

In a recent show at downtown Sonoma’s Alley Gallery, adjacent to the La Haye Art Center, Stein hung “Ghost Rain” tiles in groups of three or eight or 20, each representing a single day and evoking a certain aesthetic or pattern. The rest was left to the eye of the beholder.

“All of my work is abstract, so people can see what they want when they look at it,” Stein says. “It’s interpretive.”

Kala Stein has created smaller arrays of tiles that can be grouped together. (Chad Surmick / The Press Democrat)

Not in doubt, however, are the works’ foundation in natural processes and materials, including the base tiles themselves, which Stein fires from a dark, iron-rich clay body. Displayed indoors, the finished products “bring a natural element into the built environment” without literally depicting specific scenes. “I’m trying to tap into the feelings of nature, more so than the imagery,” she notes.

The same can be said of another of Stein’s ongoing series, “Atmospheric,” whose pieces memorialize a larger-scale phenomenon: the storms themselves that bring the rain. She starts with satellite images of storms, such as the atmospheric river that hit California on Jan. 4, 2023, dropping as much as 6-8 inches of rain in some parts of the region.

Stein rendered a snapshot of that January storm taken from more than 500 miles above Earth upon a wall-mounted mosaic of terracotta tile, forming a massive installation 6 feet tall and 12 feet across. A marbled blue-and-white glaze shows cloudy spirals and undulations against a dark-red, Mars-like field. The result is both familiar enough to recall unbridled natural forces and alien enough to invite ambiguity and close inspection.

In any case, it is no romantic idyll. Stein calls the piece “an investigation of the tragedy of the Anthropocene Epoch that marks a moment in time, a collective experience of severe historic weather.”

Other works exploring dichotomies of natural-versus-disturbed and creative-versus-destructive take different forms, like the large white vessels with unruly surfaces inspired by satellite imagery of Hurricane Helene. Closer to home, her “Urns for Manzanita” are a tribute to all that burned during the Nuns, Tubbs, and Pocket wildfires of 2017. Crafted of fired black clay and a cracked glaze that recalls charred manzanita wood, the urns are designed to “evoke emotion and loss,” Stein says. At the same time, they are imbued with a sense of “rejuvenation and resilience.”

The 2017 wildfires were an introduction of sorts to California for Stein, who was raised in rural upstate New York by back-tothe- land, homesteading parents and developed an intimate yet pragmatic connection to the natural world. She spent many more years living up and down the East Coast before moving to Sonoma in 2015 to run the ceramics program at the Sonoma Community Center, where she still teaches.

“It’s a completely different experience living out here,” Stein says. “Experiencing the seasons here, and the geography, has been really influential and inspirational.”

So too has been witnessing the reality of the climate crisis.

“I want my work to address that, without overtly pointing to the problems with it. I’m basically celebrating it, maybe lamenting it — lamenting loss caused by natural disasters, the loss of our non-renewable resources. I’d like this work to be in conversation with those issues.”

Kala Stein’s ceramics studio is at La Haye Art Center, 148 E. Napa St. in downtown Sonoma, just off the square. The studio is open by appointment — to visit, email kala@kalastein.com. For information on ceramics workshops or to purchase her work, visit kalastein.com.