Almos waits as long as five years for salvaged and recycled woods to properly dry and age. Only then will he craft his designs. (Erik Castro/for Sonoma Magazine)
To an untrained eye, the stacks of wood from 19th century old-growth redwood wine tanks in Jesse Almos’s Rincon Valley workshop might look like something you’d take to the landfill, or put on the curb, hoping someone might haul it away.
But to Almos, the owner of Sonoma Woodworks, these stacks are as good as gold. His workshop is piled high with slabs of walnut and oak, often salvaged after wildfire, each one awaiting a magical transformation into a custom dining table, bench, or cutting board. Many of the trees might otherwise have been left to rot or die in place—or even cut up for firewood.
In many ways, Almos is like a rescue organization for local trees. He almost never sources the wood for his projects from freshly cut trees or from purchased sources. Instead, he reclaims his material from trees left behind due to wildfires, disuse, abandonment, or neglect. He’ll take what is left behind, mill it on-site, then patiently wait until the wood is properly dried and aged, often as long as five years. Only then, sometimes years later, will he begin to craft the material into beautiful pieces destined for forever homes.
Jesse Almos of Sonoma Woodworks at his workshop in the Rincon Valley neighborhood of Santa Rosa. (Erik Castro/for Sonoma Magazine)
A native of Santa Rosa with a deep connection to craft, Almos started working with wood at a young age. When he was 5 years old, his parents separated, and his father told him that he would need to be “the man of the house.” It was an old-fashioned message, but one Almos took to heart, crafting simple benches and other small household items—even a fort for his friends. By the time he was 12, he was making and selling skimboards: flat, oval-shaped boards used for gliding across small waves as they break across the sands. “Everyone in my neighborhood had my skimboard,” Almos recalls, smiling.
A years-long childhood friendship led to the growth of Almos’s skills. Growing up, Almos’s best friend was the grandson of Henry Trione, a key figure in Sonoma history who preserved much of what is now Trione-Annadel State Park. Almos and his friend spent many hours camping and exploring the Trione family’s sprawling Mendocino County ranch.
Much of the old-growth redwood Almos uses today comes from the Trione Winery’s abandoned redwood wine tanks in Geyserville. He still visits the ranch, and harvests wind-fallen trees for his craft. “I’m blessed to be able to get these old wine tanks from the Trione family and build beautiful furniture from it,” he says.
“All that old-growth redwood was once wine tank wood that was basically going to be discarded,” Almos says. “It was sitting out in the vineyards, and their vineyard manager says, ‘Do you want it? I’m going to burn it if you don’t take it.’ And it’s like the most beautiful wood ever. That wood is California history.”
Woodworker Jesse Almos shows impressive attention to detail, from carving minute chiseled designs to sorting through massive recycled slabs of redwood, oak, and walnut. (Erik Castro/for Sonoma Magazine)The former heavy-equipment operator started working on wood projects as a child, starting with simple tables and moving on to carved skimboards for his friends. He started selling his designs at farmers markets in 2011. (Erik Castro/for Sonoma Magazine)
For two decades, Almos worked as a foreman at a heavy equipment operator. Woodworking was a side gig, and he occasionally sold small pieces at farmers markets or craft fairs. “I had built some furniture, including chairs, bistro sets, and lazy Susans, and then went to the farmers market to ask if I could set up a booth,” he remembers. “That first day I sold everything, and it really showed me what I was supposed to be doing.”
In 2011, he took a leap and founded his one-man company, with the goal of selling his furniture and working on larger pieces by commission. At first, he operated out of his home. Three years later, he relocated to a much larger workshop with more room to store scavenged and found materials. While he remains a one-man show, he occasionally has some help from his mom and his 9-year-old son.
Almos keeps a library of wood along one wall of his workshop, with slabs of upcycled walnut, old-growth redwood, red gum eucalyptus, maple, cedar, madrone, oak, and rare Monterey cypress. “Most people would use this wood for firewood, but I turn it into tables,” he says. Almost all the wood he works with is from Sonoma County. Almos often receives calls from homeowners or builders looking to clear land for new developments. Burnt trees from the devastating 2017 Tubbs fire provided a valuable addition to his collection.
“Most people would use this wood for firewood—but I turn it into tables,” says Almos. (Erik Castro/for Sonoma Magazine)
After a lifetime around wood, Jesse sticks to a simple message, modestly playing down his role as a rescuer of rare local wood. On his Facebook page, he shares stories of majestic Sonoma County redwood trees felled to build cities, infrastructure, bridges, and schools alongside 1880s-era photos of loggers standing tiny among the towering. He says he develops a deep attachment to much of the material he acquires. Walnut is his favorite—a wood he says can appear dull brown and unremarkable at first glance, but a great deal of patience, not to mention hours of sanding, oiling, and staining, is transformed into highly individual pieces, each with a story to tell.
These trees, this wood, from these hills holds a special, almost mythical place in Almos’s heart.
“They have a third life, I call it,” he explains. “First, they were massive trees, then big wine tanks, and now they become tables where people sit around and tell stories.”
A Red-tailed Hawk soars over the Jenner Headlands. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Forget canaries in the coal mine. For Larry Broderick, the real indicator species are raptors soaring high overhead, hunting along Sonoma’s rich marshlands, or nesting in our native trees. “They’re a biological bellwether,” says the Santa Rosa-based leader of the Jenner Headlands Raptor Migration Project and West County HawkWatch. “When things are going wrong with them, it often means that things can go wrong with us.”
Citizen scientists like Broderick consider fall and winter the best time of year to observe these adaptable hunters. That’s when migratory harriers, hawks, kites, kestrels, merlins, eagles, and osprey from farther north join year-round residents countywide in search of “little furry things” to eat.
Visiting birds move freely among Sonoma’s wildlands in search of a good meal. “There are like all these restaurants throughout the area, and [the birds] are gonna go to which ones are serving the food based upon prey availability,” says Broderick. Even so, individual birds have been observed to return year after year to the same overwintering location, like a vacation home. Others are only passing through.
After three decades of observing raptors, Broderick has noted population declines in several species. The timing of local migrations has also changed, moving back about two weeks since the early 1990s, an outcome Broderick thinks is at least partially due to climate change. “It’s a good way to gauge how healthy the environment is,” he says, “by checking out your top-of-the-food-chain predators.”
Where to observe raptors
It’s no coincidence that some of the best places to spot raptors are along hiking trails at some of Sonoma’s most treasured public lands. Each destination shows off early winter’s quiet beauty.
The Butcher Burger with house American, cheddar and jack cheese, iceberg lettuce, smoked ‘n’ grilled onions and pickles from the Butcher Crown Roadhouse in Petaluma. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
This year, Sonoma County lost more than a dozen well-known restaurants — far fewer than in previous years, but heartbreaking nonetheless. Whether staffing shortages, financial woes or other reasons forced the closures, we will miss the meals we enjoyed at each of them. Click through the above gallery to see which restaurants closed in 2023.
The four leaders of Breathless Wines in Healdsburg. The winery’s méthode traditionnelle sparklers are fresh and lively, with three new wines introduced in 2021: two single-vineyard blancs de noir from the Robledo Vineyard in Sonoma and a blanc de blancs from the McMinn Vineyard in Russian River Valley. (Courtesy of Breathless Wines)
As Sonomans and visitors find more reasons to enjoy sparkling wine, producers are responding to the increased demand by using old-is-new-again ways to put bubbles into the bottle quicker, at lower prices and in more diverse and interesting styles.
A number of Sonoma wineries long ago mastered the time-consuming techniques for making sparklers that mirror the quality and depth of true Champagne, which relies on chardonnay and pinot noir for the base wines and a secondary fermentation in the bottle, called méthode champenoise.
In the 1980s, Gloria Ferrer Caves & Vineyards, Iron Horse Vineyards, J Vineyards & Winery and Piper Sonoma joined Korbel Champagne Cellars (established 100 years earlier) as power players in the sparkling wine scene in Sonoma, turning sunny California fruit into wines with brioche and toasty aromas and flavors, a fine bead of tiny bubbles and crackling acidity.
Yet wines made with less-intensive methods, and using nontraditional grape varieties, have burst upon the scene.
There are pétillant naturels, or pét-nats for short, which are bottled while still undergoing a first fermentation and closed with a crown cap instead of a cork. The French call this process méthode ancestral, with the yeast staying in contact with the wine until the cap is removed. Out gushes a fruity, slightly creamy and easy-to-drink sparkler that lacks the complexity of Champagne-like wines, yet is crowd-pleasing in its simplicity.
Some wineries are applying the charmat method to carbonate their wines in large steel tanks, adding carbon dioxide to create the bubbles. Like pét-nats, these fizzies are all about the fruit, nonfussy yet satisfying, ready to enjoy soon after bottling and typically costing half as much as méthode champenoise sparkling wines. (In deference to Champagne houses’ demands that the term champenoise be used only for Champagne, many U.S. producers now label their sparkling wines as méthode traditionnelle.) Grapes including zinfandel, syrah, malbec and gewürztraminer are showing up in Sonoma wines made with méthode traditionnelle, thus expanding the aromas and flavors of sparklers beyond the characteristics of chardonnay and pinot noir.
Lucas Meeker, winemaker for his family’s Meeker Vineyards in Healdsburg, is one of Sonoma’s “mad professors” experimenting with the various ways bubbly can be made.
“Pét-nats are definitely trendy right now,” he said. “First, the bottle-soon-drink-soon nature of pét-nat goes hand in hand with the rise of natural wine. It’s also a method that can heighten less-explored grapes and regions that might struggle to get the tannin, ripeness or climate necessary to make more traditional wines.
“I think the reason people are drinking pét-nat is the same reason why I ended up making it after years of eyeing up traditional method. Traditional sparkling wine is expensive to make and drink. When you bring the investment cost down from a production side, winemakers like me are excited to start pushing the boundaries and doing new things, like sparkling verdelho, or even twists on old things, like our sparkling Russian River Valley pinot noir. It makes for an influx of new, exciting options of sparkling wines at accessible prices, which are not designed to age but instead reward drinkers who embrace the new, the exciting or the ephemeral.”
Meeker currently offers two pét-nats, Pop Punk #1 and Pop Punk #2. The grapes are pressed, fermented in a tank, then bottled so the residual sugar in the fruit interacts with the yeast, creating carbon dioxide (bubbles) and alcohol.
“The primary goal with the Pop Punk series is to make sparkling wine accessible, fun and straightforward — both for the consumer and for us,” Meeker said. “One of the biggest cost buckets in sparkling wine is riddling and disgorging. By skipping that step and asking consumers … to save them and us money by accepting some cloudiness (in the wine) seems to be a much easier ask now than it used to be.”
Meeker is not alone in this quest to create sparkling wines without the equipment, time investment and expense of méthode traditionnelle bottlings, which are admittedly more complex and age-worthy than pét-nats and charmat-produced bubblies. Others are turning dark-red grapes into fine sparklers using Champagne methods.
Here are a handful of unusual-suspect wineries leaving tradition behind in the pursuit of more diverse and delicious sparkling wines.
Amista Vineyards
Amista owners Mike and Vicky Farrow had their hearts set on producing sparkling wine when they bought what is now called Morningsong Vineyards in 1999. They added syrah to the chardonnay vines, purchased cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel grapes from others and released their first wines in 2005. Three years later, they launched their sparkling syrah, a relatively bold move in Sonoma yet a long-established tradition in Australia, where they turn syrah grapes into sparkling shiraz. So besotted with sparkling wine were the Farrows that they created the Amista Sparkling Friends wine club in 2014.
Winemaker Ashley Herzberg bottles a wide array of méthode traditionnelle wines for this Dry Creek Valley winery, in addition to still (table) wines. Grenache, chardonnay (called blanc de blancs), syrah, mourvèdre (labeled as mataro) and a blend called Fusion (chardonnay, grenache and syrah) are fizzes with fine depth and precision. They sell for approximately $46 a bottle.
The Farrows converted many of their 20 vineyard acres to Rhone Valley varieties, including grenache and mourvèdre; those grapes go into Herzberg’s sparkling, still and dessert wines, showing off the versatility of red grapes in making a range of styles.
A sabered bottle of bubbly from Breathless Wines in Healdsburg. (Jeremy Portje)
Breathless Wines
Rack & Riddle co-founder Rebecca Faust and her sisters, Cynthia Faust and Sharon Cohn, created Breathless Wines to honor their mother, Martha Jane Faust, who died of a rare respiratory condition — but not before teaching her daughters the joy of each breath taken. Unofficial fourth sister, Penny Gadd-Coster, is their winemaker, as an offshoot of her duties as director of winemaking at Rack & Riddle.
The Breathless méthode champenoise sparklers are fresh and lively with rich fruit flavors balanced by crisp acidity. My favorite, the Breathless NV Sonoma County Brut ($27), is an excellent value: a beautifully balanced blend of chardonnay and pinot noir with red berry, citrus and tropical fruit notes and a subtle yeastiness. There is also a blanc de noir and sparkling rosé, each fruity yet refined.
A fledgling brand, created in 2012, Breathless is making rapid strides in the quality of its wines and also in its range. Three sparklers debuted in 2021: single-vineyard designates from the Robledo Vineyard in Sonoma (two blanc de noirs) and the McMinn Vineyard in Russian River Valley (blanc de blancs). Each is $39.
Michael Cruse and his family moved from San Francisco to Petaluma when Michael was 10. He studied biochemistry at UC Berkeley, got a lab job at Sutter Home in Napa Valley and worked in the cellar at Starmont in Carneros before starting his own Cruse Wine Co. in a Petaluma industrial space.
Cruse’s Ultramarine méthode traditionnelle sparkling wines made a big splash with younger and adventurous drinkers. They are iconoclastic, scarce and made by hand in every step. Prices have soared beyond $100, thanks to the “cult” status Ultramarine has achieved. Cruse looks to single vineyards, such as the Charles Heintz Vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, to showcase site personality rather than regional blends, which are the foundations of most Champagnes and California sparkling wines.
Cruse expanded his bubbly lineup to include pét-nats such as Ricci Vineyard Carneros Sparkling St. Laurent ($32) and Deming Vineyard Napa Valley Sparkling Valdiguié ($35). They are exuberantly fruity with a chalky texture and mouth-filling generosity. The cool kids embrace them.
“I got into (sparkling wine production) because it is difficult to do and I appreciated the challenge,” Cruse said. “But as I learned the craft, I realized that it was an exceptional way to tell the story of terroir and that, in California, we haven’t been particularly good at it. Or put a different way, most of the sparkling wine in California has been built on the Champagne large-house models and not the grower model of expressing one little plot of land. So that’s where my interest lies.”
Randy Pitts’ family has grown wine grapes in the Russian River Valley since 1976. In 2000, he assumed the farming responsibilities at the 9-acre ranch and began making zinfandel from the ranch. Pitts’ sparkling wine program began in 2003 with gewürztraminer, the lone white grape grown on the estate.
Over the next decade, Harvest Moon added small lots of sparkling pinot noir rosé, chardonnay, zinfandel and a red sparkling blend made from pinot noir and zinfandel. The gewürztraminer is the shining star: racy, spicy and dry on the palate, with hints of apple and honeysuckle. The sparkling wines, produced by the traditional method, range in price from $48 to $50. Nearly all the grapes are grown on the estate on Olivet Road, in the Russian River Valley. For still-wine fans, there are several zinfandels, gewürztraminers and pinot noirs.
Charlie Meeker, who died earlier this year, and his wife, Molly, founded Meeker Vineyard in 1977 in Dry Creek Valley. They launched their wine brand in 1984 with zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay as their chief varietals. Charlie was in the movie business at the time, working as an attorney, film producer and eventually president of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After retirement, he immersed himself in grapegrowing and winemaking, with Molly as captain of the ship.
Their son Lucas joined the winery full-time in 2007 and has, since then, added an experimental excitement to the brand. He’s become a master grenache maker and blender of Rhone Valley red grape varieties, introduced a white verdelho from Contra Costa County and numerous rosés and continued his father’s efforts in making zinfandel and merlot. Pop Punk, the two pét-nats he produces — a rosé ($34) and a verdelho ($29) — add a youthful vibe to this Dry Creek Valley winery, which has one foot in traditional winemaking and another in sky’s-the-limit thinking.
Meeker recently moved its tasting room to its winery in Healdsburg, after earthquake retrofitting construction at its former Geyserville space made continuing there impossible.
Ned Hill, proprietor of La Prenda Vineyard Management, farms multiple sites within Sonoma Valley. A few years ago, he began producing wines from his clients’ grapes and selling them under the Sonoma Collection and La Prenda labels. In March, he released the Sonoma Collection 2020 Carneros Pétillant-Naturel sparkling wine ($28), a blend of chardonnay grapes from the Hi Vista Vineyard and pinot noir from La Prenda’s Vineburg Ranch. Winemaker Mike Cox, formerly of Schug Winery, made the 2020 pét-nat, which is dry and refreshing, with low alcohol yet with a robust character from the yeast that comes alive when the crown cap is removed.
“The pét-nat 2020 came about sitting around with Ned Hill and Guido Murnig, our sales director,” Cox said. “We had played about with sparkling wines and wanted to produce something fun to mark the end of 2020. Ned has always been very encouraging, and so I ran with it. We actually ended up splitting the lot and are going to produce a méthode traditionnelle as well from this.”
There is also a charmat-method La Prenda 2019 Sonoma Coast Brut Rosé ($20) of pinot noir, a generously fruity, fizzy wine with less yeast character — and at half the price — of méthode traditionnelle sparklers.
Hill’s wines can be purchased online and at several local markets and wine shops. According to Cox, the pét-nat is sold at Broadway Market and Sonoma’s Best, both in Sonoma.
Click through the above gallery for our editor’s picks for Sonoma County’s best hikes, with hallmark views of vineyards, oak woodlands and stunning coastal bluffs.
Auro has its own farm and grows vegetables, herbs and flowers for the restaurant, which serves a $175 prix fixe tasting menu. (Auro)
Auro restaurant at the Four Seasons Resort and Residences in Calistoga has been named one of Esquire magazine’s Best New Restaurants in America, 2023. Authors of the Nov. 28 article noted 50 restaurants across the country for their “radical authenticity” and “raw honesty.”
“While there’s no shortage of places in Wine Country that will give you the luxe tasting-menu treatment, Auro, helmed by chef Rogelio Garcia, does so with precision and California ease,” wrote Kevin Sintumuang, one of four writers contributing to the article. Two hundred restaurants were tested by the authors from coast to coast.
Auro won its first Michelin star in July, and Garcia, 37, is truly Napa Valley’s phenom of the moment. He’s garnered accolades for his fresh versions of hyperlocal Wine Country cuisine. The restaurant has been featured in the Robb Report, Forbes Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and The Press Democrat in recent months.
Garcia is no newcomer to fine dining. He’s a Napa native who started his culinary journey at age 15 as a dishwasher and moved up through the ranks of Cyrus, the French Laundry, the now-closed Commissary in San Francisco and others. He is also executive chef of Truss, the Four Seasons’ upscale casual restaurant.
Raised in a Mexican-American family, Rogelio is returning to his roots with a forthcoming cookbook, “Convivir: Modern Mexican Cooking in California’s Wine Country,” due to be released in November 2024.
Sippin Santa’s Christmas on Ice cocktail at The Flamingo’s Lazeaway Club in Santa Rosa. (Randy Schmidt)
Hold on to your Santa hat! Miracle, the bedazzling cocktail pop-up at Brewster’s Beer Garden in Petaluma, is back with a bevy of new drinks to satisfy even the grumpiest elf.
Also returning is Sippin’ Santa, a cheeky Tiki-inspired cocktail pop-up at the Flamingo Resort’s Lazeaway Club in Santa Rosa.
Launched in 2014, Miracle was dreamed up by New York bar owner Greg Boehm, with Sippin’ Santa introduced the following year. Together, the pop-ups partner with nearly 200 locations around the world to bring kitschy holiday cheer to the masses.
While Boehm and his hospitality company, Cocktail Kingdom, provide the holiday-themed cocktail recipes and general guidelines, each participating location is responsible for the decorations and setup.
Miracle’s Jingle Balls Nog at Brewster’s Beer Garden in Petaluma. (Melissa Horn)Miracle’s Christmas Cricket cocktail at Brewster’s Beer Garden in Petaluma. (Melissa Horn)
This year, it took the Brewster’s team about three weeks to transform the beer garden into a glittering wonderland, resplendent with twinkly lights, a life-size gingerbread house, a towering Christmas tree and a gift shop selling cocktails to-go and limited-edition glassware.
“This year, we added a ton more lights and expanded the decorations, so I definitely think it’s our best year yet,” said Mike Goebel, owner of Brewster’s, who’s hosting Miracle for the fifth time. “I love seeing the excitement on people’s faces when they enter the space. The energy and magic is infectious and such a joy to be around.”
This year, Miracle at Brewster’s is offering an array of new cocktails, including Rudolph’s Replacement, The Krampus, and Marshmallows & Unicorns. Several fan favorites will also return, like the Christmapolitan and Christmas Cricket.
“Lots of extended families and friends choose to gather with us for their holiday celebrations, which is very gratifying to see,” Goebel said. “Everywhere I look people are smiling, laughing and making memories. It’s truly amazing.”
Joann Spiegel, cocktail developer and vice president of Miracle, said the company solicits feedback from bartenders who poured last year’s cocktails to improve the menu each year.
“Typically, we roll over some of the bestsellers, then balance the menu with new recipes inspired by Christmas traditions from around the world,” Spiegel said. “As our partner list grows, it allows us to dive into the traditions of new states and countries. It’s a well of inspiration that will never run dry.”
This year, Spiegel’s favorite cocktail is the new Carol Barrel, a tropical-inspired sipper with Irish whiskey, banana liqueur, rum, Guinness punch, lime and chocolate bitters.
“Think Irish whiskey kissed with the flavors of a tropical Christmas,” Spiegel said. “As it mellows out over the ice, it gets better with every sip. I could drink it all night long.”
Sippin Santa’s Yule Tide cocktail at The Flamingo’s Lazeaway Club in Santa Rosa. (Melissa Horn)The Sippin Santa cocktail at The Flamingo’s Lazeaway Club in Santa Rosa. (Melissa Horn)
At the Flamingo Resort’s Lazeaway Club, Sippin’ Santa is making its second annual appearance with its own share of kitsch and 10 Tiki-inspired cocktails.
Benson Wang, managing partner at the Flamingo and co-founder/CEO of Palm House Hospitality, said the laid-back vibe of Sippin’ Santa aligns perfectly with the Lazeaway Club’s escapism ethos.
“The tropical-holiday theme is a great fit for the Lazeaway because we’re all about relaxation and recharging,” Wang said. “Sippin’ Santa is a great way for people to be festive, let loose and have fun. You don’t need to plan — you just show up. We need that more than ever in our lives right now with all going on in the world.”
Wang said it took his team about two weeks to transform the space into a twinkling Tiki wonderland with “miles of lights,” while the overall vision was planned months in advance.
A special pupu (appetizer) and cocktail-pairing menu will be available, along with six new cocktails and four returning favorites.
The Santa Suite at Flamingo Resort in Santa Rosa. (Flamingo Resort)The Santa Suite at Flamingo Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa. (Flamingo Resort)
If you really want to jingle all the way, book an overnight stay in the Flamingo’s Santa Suite ($750/night), a festive hotel suite complete with crackling fireplace, twinkly lights, a Christmas tree, priority reservations at Sippin’ Santa and more.
“The whole idea behind the Flamingo is about transporting you to a different space so you can escape and relax,” Wang said. “We want people to come to Sippin’ Santa to celebrate and have fun. There’s a lot of healing and value in just that.”
Miracle at Brewsters Beer Garden: 229 Water St., Petaluma, 707-981-8330, brewstersbeergarden.com. Through Jan. 2.
Sippin’ Santa at Lazeaway Club, Flamingo Resort: 2777 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, 707-545-8530, flamingoresort.com. Through Jan. 8.
Visitors enjoy a glass of champagne at Korbel Winery in Guerneville, the oldest continually operating sparkling wine house in North America, established in 1882. That history gives Korbel the legal right to use the term “California Champagne” on its labels, even though the wines are not from Champagne, France. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
A visit to Sonoma Wine Country doesn’t have to break the bank. You can fill your belly at inexpensive restaurants, spend the night at chic and affordable hotels and, perhaps most importantly, enjoy free or cheap wine tastings.
From quaint small town tasting rooms to sprawling wine gardens, Sonoma County offers wine sipping opportunities that will please your palate as well as your pocketbook. Click through the above gallery to discover wineries where you can taste wine for free or cheap ($20 and less).
Tina Caputo, Sarah Doyle and Linda Murphy contributed to this article.
Co-owners from left, Ryan Knowles, Jade Hufford, and Evan Hufford, toast together inside Maison Wine Bar in Healdsburg, Friday, June 23, 2023. (Darryl Bush / For The Press Democrat)
Given Healdsburg’s status as the epicenter of Sonoma County’s swankiest food and drink, Evan and Jade Hufford, along with their business partner Ryan Knowles, were surprised the town didn’t have a wine bar. There were plenty of wine tasting rooms, innovative cocktail bars, a live music-fueled pub, and multiple beer gardens. But a wine bar? Not since Bergamot Alley closed in 2018.
“Guests would frequently ask us if there was a wine bar in town, somewhere they could go for a late-night glass of Champagne,” says Evan Hufford, the former wine director at three-Michelin starred SingleThread. “For a long time, the answer was ‘no.’ To be honest, we wanted a wine bar, too, a place we could go to enjoy a glass after work. So we decided to open one ourselves.”
At Maison Healdsburg wine bar. (Sarah Davis)At Maison Healdsburg wine bar. (Sarah Davis)At Maison Healdsburg wine bar. (Sarah Davis)
Maison is open until 2 a.m. Friday to Tuesday and caters to a broad range of wine lovers. Old World selections focus on the Champagne and Burgundy regions of France, Germany, and Austria, and appear alongside elegant, nuanced favorites from the California coast. There is also a selection of old-vintage California wines, sourced at auction and from private collectors and sold by the ounce, an approach that gives more people the chance to experience these rare wines.
There’s also a strong selection of sake by the bottle and glass, including several paired with cheese—an unlikely but surprisingly delicious accompaniment. Doralice Handal, formely of the Cheese Shop of Healdsburg, is sourcing cheeses for Maison. Other accompaniments include caviar with potato crisps and crème fraîche, smoked oysters, and salumi.
Evan Hufford acknowledges it will take a little time to fill Maison’s cellar with the 800 to 1,000 wines they hope to carry. For now, the owners are happy to finally welcome guests through the door, especially those in the hospitality industry looking for a post-shift glass of wine. “There are some great bars in town, but none have the wine-forward vibe we were looking for,” Evan says. “We’re excited for Maison to fill that niche.”
Mushroom Cubano with a pinot noir from Bloom Carneros, formerly Kivelstadt Cellars and Winegarten, in Sonoma. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Many Sonoma County wineries are doing double duty these days, serving food alongside their fine wines. It’s a delicious trend that allows visitors to more fully savor the wines’ versatility with everything from potato chips to salmon en croûte dotted with fresh basil butter.
While wineries can’t serve full meals or let visitors choose which dishes to eat (due to regulations), some pull out all the stops, offering an experience that is pretty close to the real restaurant deal. When you’re feasting on food this good, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Here are a five wineries that go all-out with great dishes to accompany their wines.
Jordan Vineyard & Winery
For much of Jordan’s history, dining has been a members-only affair at the winery’s posh Healdsburg chateau. But with the arrival of new Executive Chef Daniel Beal, everyone can now enjoy a sumptuous meal. It remains an exclusive experience — a recent preview dinner was limited to 18 guests and priced at a whopping $395 per person.
But then, Beal is a big deal; he’s a former sous chef of Chicago’s renowned Alinea and San Francisco’s three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn. And his recent five-course French-modernist menu at Jordan was theatrical, paired with wines that included library selections like a 1976 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon (the inaugural vintage).
The winery is now in the process of planning upcoming dining experiences, starting with special dinners such as a Starlight Supper on July 22, and a series of Parisian Pop-Up Dinners in August.
The menu changes with each theme (check the website for details). But the preview dinner offered an idea of what to expect with elaborate dishes like grilled Wagyu with black lentils and smoked aubergine, and golden mushroom risotto with beurre noisette, pine nuts and fresh shaved white truffle. French onion soup was a performance, really, poured tableside in a pottery bowl set with fluttering onion skin leaves.
1474 Alexander Valley Road, Healdsburg, 707-431-5250, jordanwinery.com
Duck and prosciutto paring prepared by Chef Daniel Beal at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg. (Matt Armendariz)The dining room at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg. (Jose Manuel Alorda)Food pairing prepared by Chef Daniel Beal at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg. (Matt Armendariz)
Gary Farrell Winery
If you’re lucky enough to score a seat at one of this luxury property’s special dinners, you’re in for a memorable experience.
A newly redesigned dining room captures spectacular vineyard views, and the wines from director of winemaking Theresa Heredia are top-notch (Russian River Valley pinot noir in all its finery, from legendary vineyards such as Rochioli, Rochioli-Allen, Bacigalupi, Hallberg and Olivet Lane).
A recent menu featured fancy dishes, including Maine lobster with fennel, San Francisco halibut in brown butter with red kuri squash and comfy-cozy boeuf bourguignon.
This beautiful, garden-centric destination on Highway 12 is the stuff of Sonoma County dreams: a hip roadhouse setting, good wines on tap, craft cocktails and a creative, expertly crafted menu. Plus, it is so dog-friendly that canines get their own food choices, too, of basmati rice with seasonal veggies and optional toppings like Skuna Bay salmon or Petaluma chicken.
Humans can dig into pleasing, full-flavored plates like smoked and glazed pork belly with grilled hen of the woods mushrooms, pistachio pesto, burrata, radicchio salsa verde and pretty nasturtium flowers; or a delightful fried hand pie stuffed with sweet potato, cremini mushrooms, carrots, potato and butternut squash in housemade butter pastry.
Sushi Grade Ahi Tuna with avocado, kewpie and served with chips from served with Twice Removed Rosé from the taps at Kivelstadt Cellars and WineGarten in Sonoma. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)Mushroom Cubano with a pinot noir from Kivelstadt Cellars and WineGarten in Sonoma, (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)
Three Sticks
The 1842 Vallejo-Castenada Adobe, a breathtakingly beautiful hacienda-turned-tasting salon, has been painstakingly renovated. It glows with tile floors, hand-painted murals and antique porcelain pieces found on the site.
A new food and wine tasting experience, launched last fall, is equally impressive. Chefs James Nobel and Abri Chavira create a lavish platter to go with fine wines; a recent feast included tomato plum gazpacho of green tomato, green plum, cucumber and pickled peppers, followed by a salad of Liberty Duck prosciutto, creamy La Tur cheese, figs, pomegranate and Marcona almonds. Then it was on to a tart of pâte brisée topped in leek custard and foraged wild mushrooms, and a scoop of kibbeh nayeh (Lebanese nayah) of grass-fed chateaubriand, endive, black garlic aioli and pine nuts.
Note that this is a strictly by-appointment experience ($110), and it helps to call at least a week in advance.
A seating area at Three Sticks Wines in Sonoma. (Three Sticks Wines)Paring at Lynmar Estate in Sebastopol. (Lynmar Estate)Paring at Lynmar Estate in Sebastopol. (Lynmar Estate
Lynmar Estate
The 100-acre Sebastopol property is gorgeous, with lavish gardens, quaint barns and views of the Russian River Valley and Laguna de Santa Rosa. Reserve the Lynmar Estate’s Collectors Lunch Pairing ($200) and feast on estate-grown ingredients like fruits, vegetables, herbs and eggs, to complement the cool-climate chardonnay and pinot noir.
Bites from Chef David Frakes feature seasonal signatures such as warm popcorn drizzled in estate olive oil and a flurry of bliss raspberry-viola salt; followed by sandia con tajin or chile-Persian lime dusted watermelon with blistered stone fruit slaw, wonton crisp, shiso vinaigrette and coriander oil. The next course might be grilled garden toast of Nightingale seeded sourdough, herbed chevre, fresh-plucked vegetables and black garlic-date vinaigrette.
To finish: An exquisite chocolate cake garnished with bright magenta, sweet-nutty flavored amaranth plant; or a slab of warm mountain honey tea cake decorated with olive oil ice cream, pistachio dukkah and candied nagano lumquat.
