Achieving a unique style for home and wardrobe is all about curation. But, with Instagram and big box stores generating viral kind of styles, it can be hard to pull off a look that feels personal and fresh.
Enter the small-batch makers of the Bay Area. Inspired by the beauty of the local landscape and with a commitment to craftsmanship and design, they are creating unique wares that can enliven a space and help define personal style. On October 12, a Bay Area pop-up marketplace for small, emerging brands—Head West—is coming to the Barlow in Sebastopol. The impressive roster of artisans with offerings from plant hangers to bespoke watches, will join the Barlow’s exquisite retail offerings for a truly unique shopping experience—click through the above gallery for information on sellers.
Head West Marketplace, Saturday, October 12, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., The Barlow, 6770 McKinley St., Sebastopol, headwestmarketplace.com
One of Sonoma County’s most iconic farm-to-table restaurants will close this month after 12 years of service. Lowell’s, once known as Peter Lowell’s, will serve its last meal on Oct. 14, according to owner Lowell Sheldon.
“It’s going to be a good evolution for my life,” said Sheldon. He said that he and his former partner Natalie Goble, looked at the businesses over the last year to see what kind of relevance it still held in the community and their lives.
“As the owner of the business, it has to reflect what’s going on in my life. With having two kids…the way this business worked it wasn’t possible given my current priorities. Sebastopol is changing and has different offerings,” said Sheldon.
With the opening of Handline in 2016 and Fernbar in late 2018, Sheldon’s plate has been full.
Lowell Sheldon with former partner Natalie Goble.
“Since Handline opened, we knew it would impact the business. We didn’t know how much or for how long, we didn’t know what it would look,” said Sheldon. With a family-friendly fast-casual concept, lower price point, modern design and sustainable focus, Handline has been wildly successful, while Lowell’s has seen a decline in diners over the last year.
It’s a bittersweet moment for Sheldon, who announced that he’s planning to turn over the space to Ramen Gaijin’s Matthew Williams and Moishe Hahn-Schuman. Williams confirmed that he’s looking into a new project but is not ready to speak publicly about it yet.
When it opened in 2007 Sebastopol’s Peter Lowell’s was radical even for Sonoma County. With a focus on produce grown on their own farm and a mostly vegetarian menu, it reflected a place and a time in West County. Over the years, that point of view evolved, launching Chef Daniel Kedan (now of Backyard) onto the local scene and including a variety of carefully-sourced meats and regional Italian cuisine.
Lowell and Chef Daniel Kedan. Heather Irwin/PD
Owner Lowell Sheldon bravely took on the idea of including a 20 percent service charge to offer employees a living wage, which was met with pushback despite it now becoming more common.
“After service on Monday, October 14th, we are ending what has been the fantastic journey of Lowell’s Restaurant. The fire in my heart burns bright with gratitude for the moments I have shared with each of you. It was at this restaurant that I learned what it means to combine of love for something with the work it takes to sustain it. It was at this restaurant that I met one of the great partners of my life, Natalie Goble, with whom I share two beautiful boys. It was at this restaurant that I learned what it means to fail, to wake up renewed, and to start once again with the belief that I may succeed,” said Lowell in an email to fans of the restaurant on Oct. 2.
Sheldon said that the current challenging in hiring restaurant workers hasn’t been an issue for the restaurant, though with increased minimum wages, it has been difficult.
With his young children chattering in the background as he talked by phone, Sheldon seems ready to move forward.
“There’s sadness in me, but I’ve worked through it and I’m excited,” he said.
Kashin strikes the Han (wooden block), which marks both the beginning and the end of Samu (work practice).
Inside the gate of Santa Rosa’s Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, a hillside tumbles down to a dirt road that cuts through drifting seas of dry leaves. There, under the canopy of live oaks speckled with lichens, sits a blue Ford F-250, a relic from the Nuns fire of 2017. As ribbons of flame moved south from Bennett Valley toward the mountain that October, the truck was essential to the rescue of this Buddhist sanctuary by its gutsy priests and practitioners. The fire that over three weeks consumed more than 50,000 acres, took three lives, and burned more than 1,300 structures came close but ultimately did not torch the Zen Center’s 81 acres.
“We made an off-the-grid brigade and fought the fire for 10 days,” says Nyoze Kwong, the charismatic youngest son and hands-on heir to the teaching legacy of Jakusho Kwong-roshi, who with his wife, Shinko, founded the idyllic haven for spiritual practice in 1973 after relocating from Mill Valley with their four boys. (Today, at 83, Jakusho serves as the Center’s abbot, chief storyteller, and convivial ambassador to the community at large.)
The main meditation hall at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center in rural Santa Rosa. (Rebecca Chotkowski)The sublime tranquility of this Buddha, seated in the underbrush of the sanctuary’s vegetable garden, captures one of the aims of the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center: to teach the practice of letting go of one’s worldly worries. (Rebecca Chotkowski)
Outfitted in flip-flops and loose-fitting work garments, 50-year-old Nyoze trudges toward the fire line through a fluffy groundcover of straw that shuffles under his feet. Periodically he points at tufts of poison oak for the benefit of his companions, among them his wife, Kashin, a nun and the center’s arts and aesthetics director, who is highly allergic to the ubiquitous plant.
“I wanted to save the Zen Center, save Sonoma Mountain,” he says, explaining that he and an intrepid band of Zen Center residents returned to the mountain just two days after evacuating and took up an ad hoc arsenal of axes, chainsaws, shovels, walkie-talkies, and hand-operated water pumps. Together they piled into the truck and zigzagged across the hillside in masks, checked on neighbors, chopped down trees, and slept in three-hour shifts.
“The whole mountain was on fire,” he says. “We saw sheets of ash and heard propane tanks blowing up. At that moment, I was not attached to anything. I was focused on putting out the fire.”
Kashin Kwong, left, who runs the center’s arts program; Nyoze Kwong, the vice abbot; and Jakusho Kwong, founder and abbot who established the sanctuary in 1973 when he moved to Sonoma with his wife, Shinko. and his four sons, including Nyoze, his youngest. (Rebecca Chotkowski)Nyoze Kwong, Zen Center vice abbot and head of operations, practices seated meditation. (Rebecca Chotkowski)
Ultimately, it was Kashin’s relentless pleas for help from Cal Fire — dialed in from her command post at a relative’s house in Palo Alto, where she’d sought refuge with her in-laws and 9-year-old son Ejo — that resulted in the arrival of a bulldozer from Santa Barbara. It plowed a trench around the perimeter and stanched the progress of the fire, saving two-thirds of the property, including the memorial garden, known as a stupa, to Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, a mentor to Nyoze’s father who is credited with bringing Zen Buddhism to the West. Also spared was the shrine to Tibetan teacher Karmapa, where at the height of the infernal battle Nyoze pried a priceless painting of a Tibetan deity, known as a thangka, off a wall.
But Nyoze’s 30-plus years of za-zen — seated meditation focused on letting go of earthly thoughts — served him well in the fight of his life.
It also spawned a rejuvenation of sorts for the nonprofit. New lodging for visiting guests, spare but cheery and calming, has been built in a motif that blends California barn style with that of a Japanese temple, bringing guest capacity to 50.
A new bath and toilet facility features a vaulted ceiling and sun-splashed interiors, and plans for a new meditation hall have received a permit, with a target completion date of 2023. The modernization of campus infrastructure includes new wells and water tanks, roads, parking lots, fire suppression, septic and electrical systems, plus ADA compliance. Floors are heated and all structures are built with fire-retardant materials.
The Suzuki stupa near the fire line. (Rebecca Chotkowski)
The improvements have required an investment of more than $2 million, much of it raised from gifts by undisclosed patrons and visitor donations, and overseen by a new board of directors. And, under the supervision of a resident green thumb named Susan Frey, the organic garden is abundant with asparagus, tomatoes, and red cabbage.
Three weeks after the fire, the Zen Center hosted a meeting for neighbors in its meditation hall, or zendo. Sharing both loss and gratitude, some cried, some laughed, some told stories.
“The fire pushed us all to come into contact with a common suffering and the impermanence of life. From this pressure, people came together,” says Nyoze.
Though his personal experience was “grueling,” the Zen master-in-the making says that the calm and focus the job required brought moments of freedom and joy.
“It’s like life: good and bad. But altogether there is richness.”
One of the most important areas on the property – a shrine the houses a priceless Tangka. Nyoze Kwong pried it off the wall to save it from the fires which came yards away. (Rebecca Chotkowski)
Visiting the Center
Whether devout or just curious, visitors can partake in a variety of programs. Saturday morning “drop-ins” feature meditation, informal conversation, and a vegetarian lunch prepared on the premises. The recommended donation is $10 and up. Temple stays, which cost $85, include meditation, a nature walk, a tea ceremony, two meals, and one night’s lodging. In addition, more formal practitioners can be granted guest residencies that enable them to study and meditate on the property — partaking in meals, interviews with Abbot Kwong-roshi, nature walks, and chanting for up to three months at a time for $65 a day. smzc.org
A vineyard off Eastside Road near Windsor shows the changing of the season, but also new grass growth from the recent rains, Friday Oct 21, 2016. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat) 2016
Fall in all its majesty, with its brilliant colors, its sublime flavors, its harvest rituals and rewards, gets all the glory. But this most exalted of seasons — especially here in Wine Country, where the grape is our signature crop — does not, in fact, deserve all the credit.
Consider winter, when the first frost and the end of leaf fall herald dormancy in the vineyard. Out come the shears and saws, used to train the vines and spur new growth. Then spring brings budbreak, shoot growth, and flowering, all of which mark the beginning of the annual lifecycle of the vine.
Veraison, the stage when the grapes start to ripen, arrives in summer, as the fruit begins to take the hue — red-black or yellow-green — of the wine it will become. In Sonoma, this is when the frenzy begins, with early-harvest grapes like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay often demanding to be picked in August.
The common thread through every season? Mother Nature is the boss, and she alone dictates the timing, at every stage, in this continuous round of hello and goodbye.
Fried chicken and waffles at Sax’s Joint in Petaluma. (Chris Hardy/for Sonoma Magazine)
There are cheap eats, and then there are great cheap eats. The former merely fills the hole, while the latter feeds the soul. Sure, you can get a hamburger for a buck at the nearest fast food drive-thru or a sweaty hot dog from that 7-Eleven roller-grill thingy, but all you’re likely to feel after you’ve eaten it is regret. For a little more cash, you can upgrade to real food, made with love (and often, local ingredients) at Petaluma’s neighborhood eateries. Here’s where to find some of the best cheap eats in town.
Tre’von Brown, 16, center, Lupe Lopez, 16, left, and Jess Herrera, 16, right, of the Santa Rosa HIgh School Latinos Unidos club show off their calaveras make-up during a Dia de los Muertos celebration at Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, California on Sunday, November 2, 2014. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)
There is a little window of time, Mexican tradition has it, during the last days of October and the first days of November when the partition between the living and the dead vanishes and loved ones return to feast, dance, and celebrate. To welcome them back during El Día de los Muertos, the living may construct elaborate altars, or ofrendas. You never know what you might find on a Day of the Dead altar: a favorite red comb missing a few teeth, a bowling trophy, a can of sardines, things that had significance and meaning to the deceased. It’s a ceremony that manages to be simultaneously playful and moving, and no place in the North Bay honors the ritual more wholeheartedly than Petaluma.
Starting in early October and continuing for almost an entire month, Petaluma is alive with Day of the Dead-themed altars, music, dance, poetry readings, food vendors, community gatherings, even sugar-skull-making workshops. Thanks to three enthusiastic coordinators — Abraham Solar, Gloria McCallister, and Margo Gallagher — as well as the efforts of some dedicated volunteers, the celebration is still going strong 19 years after it began. All events are free, though donations are welcome, and all are offered in Spanish and English. Says Gallagher: “Attendance and interest continue to grow stronger each year. We typically have up to 4,000 to 5,000 attendees at the traditional candlelight procession.”
This year’s theme is Love Transcends/El Amor Trasciende. Longtime volunteer and supporter Georgina Warmoth will be working with Gallagher to create an especially timely altar, displayed at the Petaluma Mail Depot, honoring those who have lost their lives while housed in detention centers, or who died trying to enter the U.S. Theirs will be one of several community altars, where the public is encouraged to leave a message, a picture, or a flower. Altars will also be on display in shop windows all over town.
Catrina figures, a parody of the Mexican upper class female with bouquet, are a prominent part of modern Day of the Dead observances. (John Burgess)Zinnias and Mexican artwork create a colorful display in the window at Frontburner Open Studio for the Dia de los Muertos celebration in Windsor, California on Sunday, October 9, 2011. (Beth Schlanker)
Witnessing these tributes, the viewer often leaves with a sense of having actually met the departed, if only briefly. And even with a full month of Day of the Dead commemorations, it’s hard to fit everything in. Says Gallagher, “We love what we do and are passionate about it. We want to celebrate the life and death of our loved ones and ancestors, through the arts and traditions of Latino culture.” And while the real party here is for the dead, these events do offer living participants explosions of color, skeletal spectacles, marigolds, and magic.
October 6, Opening Day, St. Vincent’s Church plaza, 35 Liberty St., 12-4 p.m. Featuring Aztec dancers, Ballet Folklorico Paquiyollotzin, food vendors, a health fair, and more.
October 12, Artist Reception, Petaluma Mail Depot, 40 Fourth St., 6-9 p.m. Featuring local artists, food vendors, and live music.
October 18, Poesia del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance, Connie Mahoney Reading Room, SRJC Petaluma campus, 680 Sonoma Mountain Parkway, 6-8 p.m. Featuring bilingual poets Jabez Churchill and Forrest Gander, recipient of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
October 19, LumaFest, SRJC Petaluma’s El Dia de Los Muertos Community Celebration SRJC Petaluma campus, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Another performance by Ballet Folklorico Paquiyollotzin, lectures, art, and information booths. lumafest.santarosa.edu
November 2, Candlelight Procession and Closing Event, 4-10 p.m. Procession takes place at the Petaluma Fairgrounds, where festivities will include Ballet Folklorico Paquiyollotzin, Aztec dancers, live music by Group Gitano, Danza Los Diablos Unidos, food and art vendors, and more.
John McReynolds, culinary director of Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma, is in his new larder, a temperature-controlled room where he stashes the precious preserved bounty of the organic farm.
The storage room is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves and Mason jars full of intriguing ingredients, labeled Tomato Conserva and Fermented Red Pepper Paste, Quince Mostarda and Fig and Fennel Pollen Jam.
“Right now, we have a shelf full of vinegars— huckleberry, red wine, apple cider vinegar, and of course, my favorite is the quince vinegar,” McReynolds says. “I love to do salads with that, especially in the fall, with some grilled radicchio. There’s so much flavor in it.”
Like the biodynamically farmed Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc, and Bordeaux blend wines made by the Stone Edge Farm Estate Vineyards & Winery, the preserved foods require a special environment to prolong their lifespan.
“The important thing is to keep it at a certain temperature, like 65 degrees,” McReynolds says. “It’s dark — I don’t think anything improves by the light.”
McReynolds and his staff weave the high-end wines and the labor-intensive larder into a delicious food program that encompasses lunches, dinners, and food-and-wine pairings at Edge, the winery’s private club located in downtown Sonoma. The restaurant is open to the public on special occasions, including every Thursday night for dinner.
“That’s where I spend all my time now,” McReynolds says of his office at Edge. “It’s become the culinary heart and soul of Stone Edge Farm.”
John McReynolds, culinary director of Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma, is trimming padron peppers for Charred Padron Peppers with Goat Cheese and Sage at Edge restaurant. (Chris Hardy)
With the help of Edge’s Executive Chef Fiorella Butron and Estate Chef Mike Emanuel, McReynolds recently shared recipes for the culinary team’s favorite preserved foods in his second cookbook, “Stone Edge Farm Kitchen Larder Cookbook” (Rizzoli, 2019), which hit bookshelves earlier this year.
In addition to providing recipes for interesting products like black garlic and wild fennel pollen dukkah, the three chefs also demonstrate how to transform the larder essentials into a tasty array of seasonal cocktails, appetizers, entrées, sides, and desserts.
“It just evolved and kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” McReynolds says of his kitchen larder. “And it became more and more important to our daily cooking.”
“People want to relegate 15 minutes to dinner, so obviously, I take a different approach. Open a bottle of wine, talk to your wife while you’re cooking. It’s not an activity to get through. It’s the main event.”
The book is an addendum to McReynolds’ award-winning “Stone Edge Farm Cookbook,” a 2013 tome whose mission was to showcase the winery founded in 2004 by Mac McQuown, an entrepreneur who grew up on a farm in the Midwest and launched several businesses in financial services before returning to his agricultural roots.
Since McQuown opened Edge five years ago in downtown Sonoma, McReynolds has seen both his staff and his larder grow, and he wanted to give them their own place in the sun with the new cookbook.
“Fiorella is from Peru, so she’s bringing a Peruvian slant – it’s the hottest culinary destination in the world,” he says. “Mike brought the lineage of chefs from Chez Panisse — he’s one of them —so he brings that body of knowledge.”
“It just evolved and kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it became more and more important to our daily cooking.”
Charred Padron Peppers with Goat Cheese and Sage at Edge in Sonoma. (Chris Hardy)
The old-school techniques of food preservation — pickling vegetables, toasting spices, and lacto-fermenting olives — are among the hottest trends for a new generation of chefs.
Both Butron and Emanuel share the fundamentals of fermentation in the book, while Estate Gardener Colby Eierman sprinkles in essays about the key crops that he grows.
“The larder, fermentation, and food preservation is pretty timely in food now,” McReynolds says. “We’re three cooks and a gardener … it’s fun to have a collaboration.”
One of McReynolds’ favorite fall larder item is Emanuel’s recipe for tomato conserva, a reduced sauce similar to tomato paste that bears little resemblance to the commercial version, even the imported stuff from Italy.
“It is the very essence of tomato in a super-concentrated form,” Emanuel writes in the book. “Just one spoonful of conserva will make a minestrone soup taste like an Italian grandmother stepped into your kitchen.”
To make the conserva, the chefs use a variety of tomatoes harvested from the farm and cook them Sonoma down on the stovetop, then puree and bake them in the oven for six more hours. The result is worth its weight in gold.
“We still have 12 jars from last year,” McReynolds says. “If you have it, you are going to use it because it tastes so good.”
Peppers are also a mainstay in the fall kitchen at Edge, whether pureed into a fermented red pepper paste or simply toasted into a chile spice mix.
As a fall appetizer, McReynolds likes to char up some Padrón peppers and fresh sage in a castiron pan on the wood-fired grill, then top the blistered chiles with goat cheese from the freezer that he grates over the top.
“I love goat cheese with chiles and peppers,” he says. “We utilize a lot of cheese in our food, because those full-flavored, harder cheeses go really well with our wine.”
As late summer gives way to the abundant shoulder season of fall, the apples and pears start ripening in the orchard, followed by the quinces and figs.
“If we’re going to make fruit leather, we do it then,” he says. “We like to dehydrate all the pears, apples and persimmons.”
One of McReynolds’ favorite appetizers in the book is a Provence-inspired recipe from Emanuel that he calls Fig Anchoiade.
“A staple in Provence, anchoiade is nothing more than anchovies, garlic, and olive oil worked together with a mortar and pestle into a puree,” Emanuel writes. “At Edge, we’ve added walnuts and ripe, earthy figs to create a bold, sweet, and savory spread for toasted slices of rustic country bread.”
McReynolds’ Quince Mostarda recipe is the perfect foil for fall cheese plates but is equally at home on toasted slices of country bread or nestled alongside a plate of his oak ember-grilled pork chops.
The grilled pork with mostarda is the kind of simple, autumnal dinner that McReynolds has grown to love as he’s gotten older. When you already have a larder stocked with the fruits of your labor, it’s not hard to make simple food delicious. Just relax and enjoy the journey.
“People want to relegate 15 minutes to dinner, so obviously, I take a different approach,” McReynolds says. “Open a bottle of wine, talk to your wife while you’re cooking. It’s not an activity to get through. It’s the main event.”
Jolie Devoto is the founder and owner of Golden State Cider.
(Christopher Chung/ The Press Democrat)
Over the past decade, cider makers have led the charge in rejuvenating local orchards and bringing back the apple — albeit in a liquid form. Thanks to the growing popularity of hard cider, it’s clear that they’re succeeding, and nowhere is that more evident than in Sonoma County. To celebrate the noble fruit and the wealth of spectacular cider makers in the region, here’s our list of local cideries worth noticing.
ACE Premium Craft Cider
ACE is a family-owned Sonoma County company that released its first cider in 1993. Through the years, ACE has continued to evolve and grow into a nationally known brand while hanging onto its Sonoma County roots.
Owner and founder Jeffrey House and his sons like to keep things fresh, adding new, unique flavors and seasonal offerings such as their recently released Hazy Hop cider, an unfiltered and dry-hopped cider, and their just-released seasonal pumpkin cider.
Despite its distribution across the country, ACE still operates a cider pub where locals can buy its fermented drinks directly. It’s open from 1 to 5 p.m. on Fridays, when you can stop by to grab a quick pint, fill up a growler, and enjoy some live music. If the cider is flowing and the pub is full, they may keep the doors open a little longer.
Tasting flights of all nine varieties of cider are $10. The pub is behind the company’s production facility.
Ned and Michelle Lawton bought their Sebastopol heirloom apple farm in 2016 and launched Ethic Ciders shortly thereafter.
Now in their second year of production, the couple makes some 2,000 cases of heirloom cider using 100 percent organically and ethically farmed fruit sourced from their own cider apple orchard and neighboring apple farmers. The Lawtons are strong proponents of regenerative farming and like to explore strategies that both heal the land and increase the quality of the apples grown at their orchard on Occidental Road.
“We hand-press many of our bittersweet apples from the home orchard, and they go into our ciders as blend components,” Lawton says. “We grow Nehou, Wickson’s, and Porters Perfection, to name a few that come from our home orchard.”
For the rest of the apples, the Lawtons use the commercial apple press at Rattzlaff Ranch in Sebastopol, then ferment and bottle the juice in Petaluma.
Ethic ciders are available in bottles at Oliver’s Markets, Whole Foods, Community Market, and Fircrest as well as on tap at Whole Foods Coddingtown, Community Market, and Bottle Barn.
The ciders — Montage (a blend of heirloom and bittersweet apples layered with wild harvest pears and crab apples), Gravitude (Gravenstein), Golden Rule (Golden Delicious), Scarlett (a pink cider made with boysenberries and raspberries), newly released Zest (a dry cider with blood orange, tangerine, and rosehips) and Warren Perry (a single varietal pear cider) —
can also be purchased on the company website.
Ethic Ciders owners Ned and Michelle Lawton, their son Kielson, 12, daughter Remi, 9, and puppy, Luna, stand next to an apple press at their apple farm in Sebastopol, California. (Beth Schlanker)
Goat Rock Cider
Good friends Paul Hawley (of the Hawley Winery family) and Trevor Zebulon (of Terrific Tours) decided to put their love for dry, crisp Sonoma County hard ciders to good use and start their own company a couple of years ago. The idea was hatched while they were hiking near one of their favorite Sonoma coast spots, Goat Rock State Beach, so the name seemed fitting.
With Hawley’s background in winemaking and Zebulon’s penchant for home wine, sake, and cider brewing they soon came up with what they thought to be the perfect dry cider recipe. They officially launched their first commercially available ciders at Cider Summit SF in April of this year. Their mission is to make clean, dry cider from organic apples and offer them at a reasonable price. This means not having employees and distributing their own ciders to save the margins they’d otherwise lose with wholesale sales.
Before their launch, Goat Rock had produced around 500 cases over 2017 and 2018. They say demand is driving an increase in production, estimated to hit about 2,500 cases by the end of 2019. The ciders are sourced from 100% organic Sonoma County apples, predominantly from Sebastopol. They are available locally at Bottle Barn and Wilibees Wine & Spirits in Santa Rosa, Oliver’s Markets (Windsor, Cotati, and the Stony Point Road store in east Santa Rosa), Shelton’s and Big John’s in Healdsburg, Andy’s Market in Sebastopol, and Pacific Markets in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa.
They are also available on tap at these local bars and taprooms: Lagunitas Taproom and Vine & Barrel in Petaluma; Rincon Valley Taproom, Local Barrel, and Walter Hansel Bistro in Santa Rosa; Barley & Bine Beer Cafe in Windsor; and Elephant in the Room and Goat Rock’s own tasting room (by appointment only) in Healdsburg.
The ciders — Gravenstein Blend (organic Sebastopol Gravenstein apples), Dry Hopped (organic Sebastopol apples fermented with plenty of hops), and Rosé (a bone-dry apple cider co-fermented with Hawaiian passion fruit) — can also be purchased (and picked up) directly. Orders are accepted by phone and email.
Jolie Devoto-Wade of Golden State Cider at Devoto Gardens and Orchards in Sebastopol. (Beth Schlanker)
Golden State Cider
The Devoto family has been farming apples since the late 1970s, when Stan and Susan Devoto planted themselves, along with 50 varieties of heirloom apple trees, in western Sonoma County.
Daughter Jolie Devoto-Wade, along with her husband, Hunter Wade, launched their own cider project in 2012 using the rare heirloom apple varieties that the Devotos had grown for decades. That cider project eventually developed into Golden State Cider, and last year, all Devoto ciders became part of the Golden State Cider brand.
In order to meet production demands and maintain a reasonable price, Golden State ciders now include apples sourced from regions outside of Sonoma County, primarily from the Pacific Northwest.
For those who prefer to drink local fruit, there’s a special Harvest Series that features ciders made only from organic Sonoma County apples. That series includes Save the Gravenstein, a heritage-style cider made exclusively from Gravenstein apples grown in the Sebastopol hills.
“It’s the largest program we’ve ever done with Gravensteins, which we’re very excited about,” says co-founder Devoto-Wade. “This year we pressed 100-plus tons of local Sonoma County apples.”
The Harvest Series also includes Fool’s Gold, an aromatic cider made from organic apple varieties grown on Gold Ridge Road in Sebastopol; and The Elder Tree, which features Newtown Pippin and Arkansas Black varieties. Elder Tree is available now; Fool’s Gold is currently sold out.
Golden State Ciders are now sold exclusively in cans and kegs and can be purchased online. Elder Tree can be found locally on draft and in bottles at Handline and Community Market in Sebastopol. BevMo’s across the state and Oliver’s Markets also carry the ciders.
This year, the Golden State team has some exciting plans in the works, including a new taproom at The Barlow in Sebastopol, which opened its doors this summer. The taproom serves hard ciders as well as nonalcoholic versions and offers a light menu with ingredients sourced from the Devoto farm and their west county neighbors.
Founded by brothers Bradley, Blake, and Scott Yarger in 2016 as a side project, it remains a small and slow-growing operation. Leaky Barrel produces some 200 cases a year, pressing the apples at Ratzlaff Ranch in Sebastopol and fermenting and bottling at Old World Winery in Fulton.
Thanks to Bradley’s experience in the distribution industry and Blake’s winemaker expertise, the ciders have been selling out quickly.
The brothers ferment Sonoma County apples using native yeasts then age the ciders in neutral French oak without any added sulfites. Since the ciders are made from whatever fruit is available every harvest season, they vary in taste each year.
Their farmhouse cider, The S.A.S.H. (single apple single hop), is made from local organic Gravensteins and is dry-hopped with organic, whole-cone Gargoyle hops from Hops-Meister farms in Lake County. Their new organic, sulfite-free, and oak-fermented cider, Alrighty Then, was canned over the summer, just in time for Sonoma County Cider Week in August.
Leaky Barrel ciders are sold at Sebastopol Community Market, Barley & Bine in Windsor, Oliver’s Markets, Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa, Willibees in Petaluma, Rincon Valley Tap Room, and Beercraft in Rohnert Park.
Dutton Estate hard cider paired with bites of Marin French brie on dried apple at Dutton Estate Winery in Sebastopol. (Alvin Jornada)
Dutton Estate Winery
The Dutton family has been farming apples at Dutton Ranch, their agricultural headquarters along a stretch of Graton Road, for more than 50 years. Today the ranch, now co-owned by brothers Joe and Steve Dutton, includes about 180 acres of organic apples in addition to more than 1,000 acres of grapes.
Dutton Estate Winery, helmed by Joe and wife Tracy, didn’t start producing its own commercial hard ciders until 2015. The winery currently offers two handcrafted ciders: one flagship cider, Dutton Estate Hard Apple Cider, made by blending estate Gravensteins with Golden Delicious, and a limited-production hard cider made from Fuji apples. They are barrel fermented and bottled in beer-sized 500-milliliter bottles.
Because the apples used in these ciders are harvested at different times, they typically sell out before the next vintage is bottled.
The Gravenstein/Golden Delicious cider, which blends the sweet and tart flavors of the two apples, and the Fuji cider are normally both available to taste and purchase at the family’s Sebastopol tasting room. However, the Fuji cider is currently sold out.
Dutton Estate Winery is open daily 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
8757 Green Valley Road, Sebastopol, 707-829-9463, duttonestate.com.
Horse and Plow winery owners and cidermakers Chris Condos and Suzanne Hagins with their son Dean Condos and family dog Pepita, at Horse and Plow winery in Sebastopol. (Alvin Jornada)
Horse & Plow
Horse & Plow’s cider-making business started as an experiment in 2013, when Chris Condos and Suzanne Hagins suddenly found themselves with an abundance
of apples on their Sebastopol property.
The two winemakers decided to make good use of the fruit by creating another fermented drink. Their elegant, blended ciders — fermented separately by varietal — soon garnered a following, and their cider-making business grew. Due to the high demand, they’ve doubled their production since 2013.
Horse & Plow currently produces some 1,200 cases of cider a year, and releases a new cider — using a different apple varietal and blend — at their Sebastopol tasting barn every couple of weeks. Varietals include Wickson, Jonathan, Swaar/Pippin blend, and Gravenstein.
They offer rotating ciders on tap in their tasting bar, including their Wickson (tart crab apple) or Gravenstein ciders, and new releases such as their 2018 Hops & Honey, a refreshing sparkling cider fermented with — but of course — hops and honey. They host a First Friday event every month in the tasting barn, with live music, food, and cider samples.
The tasting barn is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 1272 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol, 707-827-3486, horseandplow.com.
Scott Heath and Ellen Cavalli of Tilted Shed. (Christopher Chung)
Tilted Shed
Scott Heath and Ellen Cavalli launched Tilted Shed in 2011, and the business has been growing steadily ever since. There seems to be a constant and ever-increasing demand for their terroir-driven heirloom apple ciders, which are available across the state. The company’s Cider Club is currently at full capacity, with plans to expand soon.
Now in its eighth year, the cidery has eight different (while supplies last) ciders available at the Windsor taproom as well as for sale online at tiltedshed.vinespring.com.
When they aren’t busy apple-farming, making ciders, or assisting customers, Cavalli and Heath are pouring their energy into a variety of cider- and apple-related projects. The couple founded and managed the first Sonoma County Cider Week in August of 2018, and Cavalli presents at countrywide events such as Cider-Days in Massachusetts and the U.S Association of Cider Makers’ annual conference. They also launched their own cider-focused quarterly print magazine, Malus.
Tilted Shed Cidery & Tasting Room is open from noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and for special events. Tastings are $10, waived with a two-bottle purchase. Look for them at the annual Weekend Along the Farm Trails on October 12 (farmtrails.org). In past years they have offered cider-making demos and workshops.
The Mountain Cemetery in Sonoma holds the crypts of many of the merchant families from the last 150 years.
Cue the minor-chord organ music: it’s that time of year, when we give our inner paranormal detective permission to play, and the town of Sonoma is reportedly a place that many a ghost calls home. From Mountain Cemetery to the Sebastiani Theater, Sonoma has a number of haunted places, including several wineries where wine isn’t the only spirit to be found.
For those who want to delve deeper, two local tours stand out, one of them led by Carla Heine Mirsberger, author of “Sonoma Ghosts,” historian, and the city’s reigning poltergeist-laureate.
Heine has lived for half a century near Sonoma’s historic plaza, and has been interested in the paranormal since childhood. “I grew up in an adobe built for General Vallejo by Indian slaves. There were five murders in the house. We had eight ghosts. Dad said, ‘Live with it; the escrow’s closed.’”
Heine used to lead tours in her Phantom Limo, which has now gone to “limo heaven,” she says. These days, the curious can walk the actual footsteps of the ghosts she introduces, and she takes great care to research the locations, history, and background, often using electromagnetic resonators and dousing rods, to find out “who these people were, and why they haven’t moved on.”
A statue with a missing head tops the grave of the Ramacciotti family in the Mountain Cemetery in Sonoma. (John Burgess)
At the top of her list of five locations for spotting ghosts in Sonoma is the empty lot behind the Mission San Francisco Solano, at First and Spain streets. “There is an amazing opportunity to see the ghost of Sem-Yeto (Mighty Strong Arm.) He was the Pomo Chief of Chiefs of the Bear Cult sacrifices that took place at those times. The Bear Spirit has also been seen there after sunset on a regular basis over the last 150 years. If you go looking for him, aim high: he is about seventeen feet tall and neon blue.”
The whipping tree on First Street East, the carriage drive at Vallejo’s Home, the west side of City Hall, Depot Park, and the Sonoma Mountain Cemetery are also quite active.
“If you want to see a ghost, you have to go where they have been seen often, at the time they have been seen. In Sonoma that means twilight.” The witching hour.
Ellen MacFarlane, who leads the Sonoma Plaza Ghost Walks with her partner, Devin Sisk, has also felt drawn to the occult since early childhood.
“I come from a long line of mediums. I lost my mother suddenly at the age of 10, and soon after that, I began to try to reach out to the other side to find her.”
She and Sisk are also event producers, and last year hosted the largest paranormal conference in Northern California, with celebrity speakers, seances, tattoo artists, vendors, and even a bagpiper in a Freddie Kruger mask. The event sold out. Their local tours are part actual paranormal investigation, part history, and part personal experiences, with a bit of comedy thrown in.
MacFarlane concurs that Sonoma’s plaza is heavily haunted. “You can go there at any time of day and feel it. We have seen a Mexican soldier at the Mission, as well as a robed monk carrying two flaming lanterns up the barracks stairs. We also communicate with a little boy nearby, and one evening, when there were no children, and no breeze, he began to swing on the swing in the playground. It moved back and forth for quite some time, then it just stopped. Ghosts do as they please.” A “lady in white” has also been spotted in the dining room behind the Toscano Hotel.
But perhaps no place in Sonoma houses as many restless phantoms as the former music hall, now the Sebastiani Theater, where three female ghosts make regular appearances. Barbara, a stage manager who fell to her death while crossing a catwalk that was used for elevated scenery walks that catwalk still … from the beyond the grave. Washing your hands in the women’s restroom, you may encounter Trixie, a girl in a 1930s yellow dress reflected just over your shoulder in the mirror, appraising your outfit. And should you sit in the center of the front row of the theater, be prepared for the disgruntled countenance of a deceased elderly patron who still thinks of that as her seat.
Twilight Tours with Carla Heine Mirsberger take place around the Sonoma Plaza on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. 707-996-1600
Sonoma Valley Ghost Walking Tours take place year-round, Wednesdays and Fridays. 888-298-6124, napaghosts.com
