Want to hear about all of BiteClub’s tasty adventures? In our new Biteclub Podcast, Chief Fork Heather Irwin takes you on some delicious adventures around Sonoma County as she interviews local chefs, hits up her favorite food trucks, makes your mouth water with her “Best Dish This Week”, and recommends new and exciting eateries you’ll want to check out.
Hear it here first. And remember — keep your forks close and your adventures tasty!
Many workers have had to embrace a working from home routine since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and, as they’ve done so, they’ve discovered its pros and cons. Casual workwear, less commuting and more flexibility are some of the perks but, on the downside, there’s the feeling that the boundary between work and home life becomes increasingly blurred. For parents, working from home can pose another set of challenges as many children are now at home, instead of at day care or in school.
So what’s a worker to do if they’re getting tired of the at-home scene? In Wine Country, they can book a hotel suite.
Tapping into a national trend, a handful of Sonoma and Napa county overnight accommodations are now offering packages and promotions designed to give locals and visitors an incentive to focus on work in different surroundings. Guest rooms can be booked for daytime hours, often without the requirement of an overnight stay.
“Sometimes you need a change of scenery to get creative juices running. Sometimes you just need peace and quiet,” said Brooke Ross, director of sales and marketing at the Hotel Trio in Healdsburg, one of the local properties offering work-from-hotel deals.
The Trio is renting its meeting room for full ($200) and half ($125) days. The hotel also is offering special room rates starting at $185 per night, so guests can stay for multiple nights to get their jobs done and, during their stay, receive room service from a robot named Rosé.
Elsewhere in Healdsburg, the Harmon Guest House recently rolled out a similar offer, but it comes with a futuristic twist: a Sonoma-made workstation dubbed Altwork. The adjustable desk comes equipped with a 32-inch screen and special seating that allows guests to sit, stand — even lie down — while doing their work or making video calls.
Harmon only has one Altwork, so advance reservations are necessary. As part of this deal, guests at the Harmon Guest House can book a suite (rates start at $425 per night) and reserve the Altwork station for an additional $200. Day use of a suite with the Altwork station is also available for a flat fee of $300; with this offer, guests can use the setup for a maximum of 12 hours. They also get in-room snacks, free parking and free Wi-Fi.
Circe Sher, partner of Piazza Hospitality, which owns Harmon Guest House, said hotel staff sanitizes the Altwork station after each use. She added that she sees the concept of hotel-rooms-as-offices catching on.
“The trend we have been seeing is guests looking at longer stays where they can come enjoy the Wine Country and continue to work during their stay,” she wrote in a recent e-mail. “We want to provide an amazing space for that so they can be highly productive and then go and enjoy themselves.”
Thanh Nguyen booked the Harmon Guest House package and said it was a perfect escape. The entrepreneur, who splits time between Healdsburg and San Francisco, said he particularly appreciated the Altwork station, which enabled him to work in different positions than usual.
“We have standup desks in my office but this was quite nice,” he recalled. “I didn’t try the laying but I did try the sitting and standing. It was nice to have varied positions. I was able to churn through the stuff I had to do quickly.”
Other hotels are either offering or considering different options that would facilitate remote work. The Andaz Napa, which is owned by Hyatt, is offering the “Work from Hyatt” package with room and workspace options starting at $139 per night for stays of at least seven nights. In Calistoga, Solage has a deal through which hotel guests can rent out pool cabanas as offices. Other properties, such as The Sandman in Santa Rosa, said they were considering adding a similar promotion.
The notion of designating hotel rooms for day-use only is not new: Yannis Moati founded an entire company on the concept back in 2015. That company, HotelsByDay, has grown to include more than 1,500 hotels, and has seen a significant uptick in the number of inquiries for day-use bookings since the start of the pandemic.
Moati said the current situation will force hotels to reinvent themselves to stay alive, and he predicted that offering rooms for day-use only is one of the directions they will go—anything (within reason) to turn a profit.
“A hotel is a big box full of space,” he said. “We hope this is a way for hotels to monetize the fact that [space] is something everybody seems to want right now, and they’re looking for spaces they know are safe.”
Long before most of us are awake each morning, tamale vendors roll their steaming carts into gas stations, vacant lots or along busy streets, filling orders with dexterous hands. Predawn workers stuff them into bags or their pockets for a warm, comforting carbo-load on their way to their jobs.
Filled with meat, vegetables and cheese and wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves, these ancient corn masa cakes are the original fast food. But Sonoma County radio host and businessman Neil Pacheco wants to elevate this ubiquitous street food into something far grander.
Pairing the salsas and long-simmered homemade moles of his Oaxacan ancestors with a handful of California cuisine-inspired ingredients like extra virgin olive oil, finishing salt, edible flowers and microgreens, he’s created Tamales Oaxaquenos, a newcomer to Roseland’s Mitote Food Park.
Pacheco, dressed in a crisp collared shirt and fedora, cuts a striking figure while dishing up tamales under a simple pop-up tent. The host of a weekly radio show called “What’s Cooking Sonoma County” on La Morenita FM and a board member of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Pacheco has teamed with longtime tamale-maker Maria Castillo of Tamales Magos to produce the tamales and make his dream a reality.
“These are the recipes from my grandmas and aunts in Mexico. I did research through my relatives,” said Pacheco, who was born in Texas but spent much of his youth in Oaxaca.
Rooted in ancient Mayan traditions and passed down family lines, the sauces and cooking methods are truly what set Pacheco’s tamales apart. And when we say sauces, we mean mole.
Pacheco’s wife, Graciela Cruz, spends days making each batch of mole. Moles take time to prepare and are as unique as the various families and regions they come from. And mole recipes can be a closely guarded secret. Cruz’s includes seven kinds of peppers, chocolate, cinnamon and more than a dozen other ingredients that are roasted, toasted, pounded and simmered into an indescribably magical sauce. You almost feel honored to be part of such pure tradition that’s woven into the fabric of Pacheco’s ancestry.
At the same time, standing in a parking lot, balancing a takeout box on a wine barrel as traffic roars past, brings it all back to community. This isn’t dinner at a four-star restaurant. It’s lovingly created street food that’s OK to spill on your shirt and eat with plastic utensils.
Tamales de puerco en mole Oaxaqueno negro (Pork tamales in Oaxacan black mole): The mix of cinnamon, citrus and chocolate in this long-simmered sauce tastes like Christmas morning. With soft, round flavor rather than the bitter petrol notes often found in premade moles, it’s a velvet comforter of a sauce and the most approachable and delicious black mole I’ve ever had. Shredded pork stands up nicely to the sauce.
Tamales de pollo en mole de epazote (Shredded chicken tamales with epazote mole): Epazote is a magical, pungent herb frequently used in Mexican cuisine. In fact, it often grows in Sonoma County as a weed and is eagerly snapped up for cooking. The flavor is typically described as “medicinal,” with notes of orange, anise, oregano and mint. In this dish, it gives the ruby-red mole a soft citrus note.
Tamales de pollo en salsa verde (Chicken tamales in green salsa): Tart tomatillos are the base for this piquant green sauce that’s made daily. Rather than smothering the tamale in richness, salsa verde lets the rich, earthy flavor of the corn stand on its own.
Tamales de rajas con queso y epazote (Cheese tamales with epazote): This meat-free tamale has strips of chewy cheese and tomatoes inside. Topped with salsa verde (you can get whatever sauce you’d like), it’s a lighter, brighter tamale that won’t weigh you down.
La Guajolota Oaxaquena (Tamale sandwich): A carb-loaded street food that’s a staple in Mexico city, it’s literally a tamale stuffed into a soft roll and then slathered with sauce. Trying to eat one is an adventure in itself. You’ll likely need a roll of paper towels and a stain stick for your shirt, but you won’t walk away hungry.
Tamales de elote (Sweet corn tamales): For novice tamale-eaters, sweet tamales are an easy entry point. Studded with fresh pineapple and topped with crema (or not), they’re more dessert than dinner.
Tamales Oaxaquenos is open 4-10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 665 Sebastopol Road, Santa Rosa, in the Mitote Food Park.
A pandemic won’t impede the opening of Montage Healdsburg, a new Wine Country luxury resort. The five-star property, set to open this winter, is now accepting reservations after Dec. 19.
Tucked in the hills north of Healdsburg’s Parkland Farms neighborhood, the resort, which is still under construction, is set on 258 acres of oak woodland and vineyards. Once completed, it will feature a main lodge and 130 bungalow-style rooms and suites. Room rates are expected to start around $695 per night.
This is the first Montage property in Northern California — the luxury hotel and resort company manages five hotels in the United States (2 in California, 1 each in Utah, Hawaii, and South Carolina).
Most guest rooms at Montage Healdsburg will be approximately 650 square feet. Art work from local artists will be displayed on the walls and rooms will be stocked with snacks from local purveyors. The largest accommodation, The Guest House, will be 4,600 square feet and boast three bedrooms, a private patio, and a private hot tub.
General Manager Allen Highfield said he is “very excited” for the resort to open, and noted that it will bring “a long-awaited ultra-luxury Wine Country resort to the region.”
Highfield also mentioned the aesthetics of the property: Montage wanted to build a resort that would resonate with the surrounding landscape. The result is a design that blends with and shows off the scenic beauty of Sonoma County.
In the main lodge, guests will be able to dine at Hazel Hill, a “terroir-to-table” restaurant that overlooks a vineyard to the east. One wall of the restaurant will have windows that fold away to let the outside in. Another section of the restaurant—a private dining area—will be cantilevered out into an old oak tree.
Guests will be able to enjoy similarly spectacular views from the zero-edge pool at the 11,500-square-foot spa, which was on track to be completed before the rest of the resort. At the center of the property, there will be a wedding pavilion, in the middle of the vineyard. The idea is that brides and grooms will walk to the pavilion through the vineyards, creating an “only-in-Wine-Country” experience.
There won’t be any car traffic at the resort. Instead, guests will park vehicles near the main building and be shuttled around on golf carts.
“We see this as the kind of place you can completely disconnect—if you want to,” said Highfield.
While disconnecting from the outside world, guests at Montage Healdsburg will have ample opportunity to live the good life.
Star winemaker Jesse Katz of Aperture Estate in Healdsburg designed the hotel’s vineyard and will use grapes from the property to make estate wines only available on site (and, potentially, at other Montage properties). Katz has been consulting on the project for years, and said the opportunity to grow grapes on 14 acres in the middle of the Alexander Valley is unique.
“There aren’t a lot of projects of this size that would let me go no-holds-barred on quality and attention to detail and let me do what I want from viticulture to winemaking,” he said, noting that some blocks of vineyard are planted so densely that crews will have to pick the vines by hand, instead of with a tractor. “Montage has a great attention to detail, and it shows,” he added.
The resort also has partnered with Sonoma County Bee Company and will run an onsite apiary program for honey to serve in restaurants and wax for the spa.
At last check, Montage was running a special offer on room reservations at the Healdsburg property. Dubbed the “Spirit of Now,” guests booking this deal would enjoy a free upgrade at the time of check-in, no deposit required at booking and waived cancellation fees up to 48 hours prior to arrival. Additionally, depending on the room category booked, guests will receive up to a $200 daily resort credit for use toward dining, treatments at Spa Montage, recreational experiences throughout the property and more.
The art of home decorating and interior design requires more than just the skillful mixing of different elements. Like cooking, it comes down to using the best ingredients. Handmade ceramic tiles, modernist custom shelving and embroidered linens are all things that can enhance a space. You can now view these items, made by three Sonoma artisans, at the 43rd annual San Francisco Decorator Showcase.
Benefitting the financial aid program at University High School, this year’s showcase is housed in a 1930s Mediterranean-style home in San Francisco’s West Clay Park neighborhood. The home has been renovated, room by room, by over 20 top West Coast designers and, for the first time ever, the house tour will be presented virtually due to the pandemic. Here’s a peek at some of the Sonoma-made items featured in this year’s showcase.
In the showcase’s Wine Room and Wet Bar, you will find illuminated acrylic wine racks, designed by Blake Miremont, owner of Architectural Plastics, Inc. in Petaluma.
San Francisco designer Eugene Nahemow has created this elegant space, with wine cellar walls covered in dark Shou Sugi Ban wood slabs, a charred wood which originated in 18th-century Japan as a flame-resistant solution during a time when fires plagued the country.
Nahemow wanted to create an effect of “floating” wine bottles, so he chose steel-lined acrylic cellars, creating a lightweight counterpoint to the deep and dramatic tone of the wood.
The acrylic wine racks are a regular offering of Architectural Plastics, which was founded in 1977 by Miremont’s father, Pierre. The company’s design and fabrication work appears in homes and wineries across the country. Even Hollywood has gotten wind of these luminous wonders—Miremont just finished lucite wine shelves to serve as semi-see-through partitions in Paris Hilton’s new home.
Architectural Plastics also creates museum and retail displays, and more recently, protective barriers due to the pandemic: within a week and a half of the shelter-in-place order, the Petaluma team designed, manufactured and delivered 20,000 reusable polyurethane face shields to Kaiser Permanente.
Another made-in-Sonoma element starring in this year’s showcase is a handmade tile by Sonoma Tilemakers that sets the tone for the Azure Bathroom, designed by Barbra Bright.
Sculptural waves of blue suggest the Meditteranean Sea by reflecting light and adding fluid dimension, creating a bathroom that’s both luxe and inviting. The bathroom also features black and white tile made by Da Vinci Marble in San Carlos.
Sonoma Tilemakers creates intricate designs, using quality clays and unique glazes. Their range of exquisite styles can be found in various dealers throughout the U.S. Each tile is handmade in a Windsor studio.
Healdsburg designer Julia Berger’s swoon-worthy linens are featured in the wonderfully playful yet elegant No Drama Llama bathroom.
A Dina Bandman design, the “Jack and Jill bathroom” embraces maximalist style—mosaic tile in rainbow animal patterns, fanciful lampshades, a high-gloss red cabinet and red tile accents. Bandman anchors all the fun in classic style and tops the beauty off with scalloped-edge towels by Julia B Handmade for Life. Embroidered monogram lettering echoes the bamboo-style trim of the cabinet.
Bandman intends for the beauty of the Jack and Jill bathroom to ward off conflict that can occur between siblings, hence the name of this whimsical triumph. With all the beauty to take in at the 2020 showcase, things can be “no drama llama indeed” — at least while we’re watching.
The work of these Sonoma County artisans and others can be viewed at the 2020 Showcase Virtual Tour. Tickets are $25. For more information, visit: decoratorshowcase.org/virtual.
Editor’s Note: Travel, dining and shopping might be complicated right now, but use our inspirational ideas to plan ahead for your next outing.
What’s two blocks long, nestled in redwoods and punctuated by good food options?
The Occidental shopping scene!
If you’re stopping by this west Sonoma County town to take in some nature — perhaps even embarking on a ziplining adventure — or to dine out at the historic Negri’s or the Union Hotel, you want to make time to hit up the boutiques. From longstanding favorite Hand Goods to newcomer the Altamont General Store, there’s quite the retail density given the size of this tiny town.
Click through the above gallery for details. Pro Tip: Check store hours before making the long, gorgeous trip into town. And stop for bread and scones at Wild Flour Bread in Freestone.
Letitia Hanke is no stranger to the spotlight.
Earlier this summer, she appeared via Zoom on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” a talk show hosted by the pop music singer that airs on NBC affiliates. Now, the Santa Rosa businesswoman and trailblazer in the local construction industry is the star of the latest episode of “Returning the Favor,” a new show hosted by Mike Rowe. Within the first 24 hours after going live this Tuesday, the episode had garnered 2.5 million views.
Hanke, who won a 2020 North Bay Spirit Award this June, said she was delighted to appear on the show. She added that she was very surprised when Rowe, who became famous as the host of the Discovery Channel series “Dirty Jobs,” showed up at a construction site where she was working.
“All they told me was that they were filming a documentary about women in the trades, so when (Rowe) introduced himself, I was in shock,” she said, describing a moment caught on video in the first five minutes of the show.
“Returning the Favor” is an original series from video on-demand service Facebook Watch and highlights “remarkable people making a difference in their communities.”
As part of her involvement in the show, Hanke received recognition for her work with the LIME Foundation, a nonprofit that supports an apprenticeship program called the Next Gen Trades Academy. Hanke founded the academy in 2015 to help young adults launch careers in the trades. The LIME foundation also received gifts totaling $100,000 on the show, including more than $60,000 worth of tools for the academy and $35,000 to hire a new teacher
In the episode, Rowe and his team spent a day with Hanke on the job. The team visited in late February—before the coronavirus pandemic—so cameras capture Rowe and Hanke hugging. None of the people who appear on camera wear face coverings. Nobody worries about social distancing.
The program begins in Healdsburg, where Rowe and his crew surprises Hanke on a site being serviced by her company, ARS Roofing, Gutters & Solar, Inc.
After chatting with Hanke about how a Black woman from Lake County became the CEO of a roofing company, Rowe climbs up to the top of a roof and interviews Alex Wirtz, one of Hanke’s employees and an alumnus of the Next Gen Trades Academy.
Later in the show, Rowe and Hanke visit Nicole Humber, CEO of Bravo Restoration & Construction, a Windsor company that participates in the Academy’s apprenticeship program.
After a lunch scene with several other local contractors at Piner Café in Santa Rosa, the show concludes at Calvary Chapel of Rohnert Park. Here, in the show’s signature “reveal scene,” Rowe and his crew surprise Hanke with the aforementioned gifts and a $5,000 Yamaha electric drum set for her to play in her church band.
Rowe, who started mikeroweWORKS.org in 2008 to reverse a decline in blue collar trades, told Hanke he was happy to celebrate her accomplishments because her story resonated with him.
“Letitia’s foundation and mikeroweWORKS are on the same mission: To help make a more persuasive case for millions of jobs that suffer from bad (public relations) because the skills gap is real and it’s affecting the entire country,” Rowe said on the show.
Later, when seated with Hanke and Humber, Rowe quipped: “It’s one thing to talk about the opportunities for women in the trades, it’s something else to see them unfold first-hand.”
According to Hanke, one of her goals with the foundation and academy is to raise awareness about opportunities awaiting young people who want to work in the trades so that they might start considering these jobs a viable career alternative.
“Part of the reason this exists is because I know a lot of young people don’t want to go to college,” she said. “We’re introducing trades to young people who had no clue they could have a lucrative career in this industry.”
Since 2017, Next Gen Trades Academy has offered three or four classes a year and has served about 130 students overall. The academy trains young people in solar installation, HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, and roofing, among other skills. Following graduation, the LIME Foundation works to get alumni into apprenticeship programs and full-time jobs. Every year, more than 80 percent of participants get hired full-time.
For Hanke, the gig is a labor of love. As she explained to Rowe on the show, she was bullied as a child and sees the LIME Foundation as her chance to make good out of something bad.
“I hope to be a light in a way and show people that you can go through something terrible and still turn out to do something good not only for yourself but also for others,” she said. “I keep telling (my students), ‘If I did it, so can you.’”
Here’s a big old smorgasbord of tasty news!
Former Starks chef, Eric Foster, will be opening a modern Italian eatery in Windsor this fall with his wife, Christina. The couple says they’ll be doing appetizers, salads, pasta and some larger plates, along with “adult” low-ABV Italian sodas in the former Chinois space near the Town Green. Christina says it will be a fun place for families, dates, and “gal pals” to hang out.
After more than two years of sitting empty, the 10,000-square foot SHED location in Healdsburg may finally have a buyer.
The nonprofit Little Saint is slated to open later this fall in the hulking “modern grange” once owned by Doug Lipton and Cindy Daniel, according to a press release sent by San Francisco’s Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, an uber-chic arts incubator imagined by designer Ken Fulk.
Though the owners have not been named, Little Saint is launching as a nonprofit arm of the Saint Joseph’s Art Foundation. Little Saint will be open to the public daily for all-day dining, retail and ticketed events. Acknowledging the vision of Lipton and Daniel, the new project will foster at least some of the ideals of its former owners by creating a space to talk about sustainability and support the local community. Plus some really cool art and music.
“Little Saint will continue the legacy of SHED by offering delicious food, unique retail and intriguing programming with an added focus on music and art,” according to the press release.
We’re super sad to hear that this cozy little bistro on the Healdsburg Plaza is another casualty of the pandemic, along with its entire staff. The sister restaurant to Chalkboard at Hotel Les Mars (a Bill Foley-owned project) closed temporarily in March, reopened briefly in May, then closed again, with much of the staff moving over to Chalkboard as a stop-gap through the summer. Insiders say the staff was let go on August 4 and the restaurant is now permanently shuttered. Brass Rabbit, which opened in 2017, was a special project for its former chef Shane McAnnelly, who featured fresh pasta and other signature dishes, but the small size and lack of any real patio seating seem to have been its death knell. McAnnelly is now at Bricoleur Vineyards. Before becoming Brass Rabbit, the space hosted longtime Healdsburg favorite Bistro Ralph.
There’s a reason that Sebastopol’s Barlow has been one of the biggest scenes to be seen lately — and I’m calling it choose-your-own-adventure dining. Taprooms and tasting rooms are pairing up with nearby eateries to offer al fresco dining wherever you choose. So, say you’re up for sushi with your Seismic? Yup. Golden State Cider with a slice? Yes, please. But what I’m feeling extra excited about is Fernbar’s pairing with Region, a new wine tasting room with — breathe — self-serve machines that feature 50 unique wines from 14 appellations. Choose from $1 to $4 single ounce “tastes” to larger pours or full bottles. It’s like a classy vending machine for top-shelf wines. Sit at their outdoor patio and have Fernbar’s Chicken Liver Mousse, Smash burger, fried chicken sando or my fave — the umami bomb with veggies, sticky rice and roasted mushrooms.
Food For Thought, a local non-profit that provides healing food and nutrition to Sonoma County residents with serious illnesses, is holding a drive-thru food drive at Santa Rosa Plaza on Sept. 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the corner of 2nd and B St. Canned tuna, olive oil and hearty soups are especially needed. And here’s my special request to you: Please don’t just clean out your cupboard and offload expired food. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and energy and ultimately goes into the garbage. Think about what you’d appreciate eating, and donate that. Or consider donating money to FFTfoodbank.org.
On Thursday, Sept. 17, join us for the first episode of our free three-part virtual series, Women in Conversation at Home, featuring amazing local women from around the county talking about finding their calling and following their passions.
Emmy-winning host Amy Gutierrez delves into the success stories of inspiring Sonoma County chefs, entrepreneurs, artists, writers and speakers who’ve pivoted their careers or followed their passion to find their true calling.
Sit back and join the conversation as we go virtual this year, talking about how remarkable women live their best life. Here are the women you will meet in the first episode of the series, called “Be Your Sustainable Self.” Click through the above gallery to meet the hosts and speakers.
A small city of handmade structures — just the right size for chickens — dot Tania Soderman’s Sonoma farm, which she’s named Sonoma Chicks. Tania, who spent her childhood between Norway, Kenya and Botswana, left fast-paced city life in San Francisco to enjoy a more rural existence, treating her 30 breeds of chickens to some seriously spiffy accommodations. Expect some fowl language in her talk about finding a purpose in poultry.
A wildly popular chef who’s been on Food Network and named the U.S. Queen of Pork, Duskie Estes recently pivoted from chef whites to overalls as head of a local gleaning organization, Farm to Pantry. You’ll get to see her amazing new chef garden and hear what she’s doing in the community to give everyone access to the perfect peach.
Is a simple coffee break a recipe for inner peace? For Swedes like writer Sofia Englund, taking small moments of joy in each day helps achieve a work-life balance they call “lagom.” Roughly translated as “just the right amount,” she’ll explain how this simple principle of moderation in everything — from busy workdays to indulgences — can benefit your life.
There’s nothing that can’t benefit from a little hot sauce, according to this local entrepreneur. A native of Mexico, Deb Rock is the mind behind Sonoma Hot Sauce, a spicy (but not too spicy) sauce that uses local peppers. Hear her inspiring story and learn how her sauce is made.
Apples are at hot commodity everywhere in Sonoma County this time of year. A booming cider industry has brought Sonoma’s apple industry back to the forefront after years of orchards being plowed under for more profitable plants. Head to a local apple farm as Chef Mimo Ahmed talks about her favorite fall recipes with this of-the-moment fruit.
Since its inception in 2016, The Press Democrat’s “Women in Conversation” event has become a popular annual happening in Sonoma County. Over the years, the event has featured a series of inspiring women speakers, including Ayesha Curry, Geena Davis, Ashley Judd, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Lesley Stahl. This year, the event will take place online.
Register and read more about this free, three-part virtual series here: pressdemocrat.com/article/multimedia/wic-2020.
Compliment the first episode of Women in Conversation at Home with wine and food! See Specials
Breathless Wines in Healdsburg, known for its refreshing sparkling wines, has been named “Winery of the Year” in LuxeSF’s Rising Wine Star Awards for 2020.
The awards are given annually by LuxeSF, formerly known as The Luxury Marketing Council of San Francisco, with the help of a panel of industry leaders.
The “Winery of the Year” award was established in 2017 and is given to an industry leader that is innovating and experimenting with new trends and generating excitement in the industry, according to a press release.
Breathless Wines is a female-led winery that specializes in sparkling wines created in the traditional French method. The winery was started by three sisters, Sharon Cohn, Cynthia Faust and Rebecca Faust, as a tribute to their mother. Winemaker Penny Gadd-Coster is the fourth “sister,” who brings with her years of wine experience and expertise.
“We are humbled by this tremendous recognition,” said Sharon Cohn, co-founder of Breathless Wines, in a press release. “In what has been a very tumultuous year, we are so grateful for our loyal, inspiriting supporters and are honored to be the recipients of this award.”
Breathless Wines is now offering tastings on its outdoor patio and garden by reservation only. For more information, visit its website here.
