The Healdsburg Map: A Thank You Speech

Thank you Circe Sher of Hotel Healdsburg for initiating the idea of creating a map which would showcase our local diversity.

Thank you Tod Brilliant of many diverse and creative projects, one of them being: The Creative Job Agency.

Thank you Justice Brilliant for your 5-year-old perspective. It was so obvious!

Thank you Richard Miller of Calyx Design for working with me PATIENTLY to create the printed version.

Thank you Stephen Boyle of StephenBoylePhotography.com for your support, attention to too many details, and your fabulous photo editing skills.

A specific shout out to Mitch Lewis of ClimbingAndRunning.com for his words of encouragement around the end of October, “Don’t give up now. Imagine what you’ll feel like when you see somebody walking down the street using the map.”

Thank you to Andrew at ChromaGraphics for pushing us up in the 2008 printing queue. And for your personal delivery services.

And finally, thank you local merchants of Healdsburg for sponsoring the first edition of this project.

Happy New Year Healdsburg. Let’s get going!

Healdsburg: THE MAP

Well, it’s here! It’s December 31st. I’m on my way to a New Year’s Party, but I wanted to post that The Healdsburg Map is finally here!  I will be distributing them to my sponsors early next week.

We had a Map Release party at the Hotel Healdsburg last Monday.  Thank you everybody for coming. We had a fabulous after party at Mateo’s last Missing Link dinner of 2008.  THEN, believe it or not, we continued to the B&B to finish up the evening.

I have a few stories I’d like to post on creating the map and I am working to get  HealdsburgMap.com online (a current work-in-progress) and  alas, I have no more time this evening.  Now that the MAP is created and printed and that’s one big thing off my list.  On to my next project:  A map of Small Wineries of Sonoma County.

Here’s to 2009 Healdsburg. Let’s get it started!

Spend Some Time in Dry Creek Valley

A few nights ago, I went out for After Hours at the Ravenous Restaurant here in Healdsburg. That is, I went just to hang out and get a bit of conversation and meet some interesting people before I turned in myself. Ravenous is a local restaurant in an old house on Center Street. The entire backyard is the backyard patio and bar. It’s a pretty cool atmosphere. I like showing up later–you meet more locals (everybody who’s getting off of their shifts from somewhere else).

I ended up talking to two out-of-town gentlemen who’d met one another at law school in London, England. One was living in Hong Kong now, the other–still in London. They were both here on holiday getting a bit of the California sun.

You couldn’t ask for a better outdoor evening than that night. It was warm enough to sit outside in sleeveless tops. (And I know you’re thinking: “Well it is California after all!”), but we often get fog here late at night, and it cools everything off and adds some humidity to the air–so bare arms are often chilly late at night. But, that night was a perfectly warm summer evening.

I said hello to KC Mosso, the bartender, and talked to him about sending me the listings for his events he books over there. And once I’m seated at the bar, I turned around and started talking to these two gentlemen.

They’d made it to Healdsburg after a few days in San Francisco. They were a bit tired, but they did ask where I could recommend they should go visit the next day. I asked KC for a piece of paper and a pen. He handed me an extra menu from behind the bar and took a pen from his pocket. Thanks KC!

They were only planning half a day or so in the area before they headed over to Carneros. I gave them a full day itinerary–just in case. There really is a lot to see here and it’s better to enjoy an entire day than just rush in and out. Anyway, I thought I would write up the route I gave them and post it here. It’s pretty useful information if you don’t really have much time to spend in the area and it’s got a bit of variety.

BREAKFAST and MORNING

Start early. It’s important to have breakfast. There’s a number of places you can have breakfast in town, it all depends on what you’d like to eat. If you’re on a time line, like these guys were, you probably want to grab a breakfast sandwich (or something). I know that the Costeaux Bakery Cafe and the Palette-Art Cafe both offer breakfast sandwiches. You can usually just ask for a recommendation at the counter. The servers really do know best.

Take your breakfast to go and head on up to Lake Sonoma. Lake Sonoma’s about 20 minutes from the town of Healdsburg (at the top end of Dry Creek Road) and you don’t want your breakfast to get cold.

Find the lookout and enjoy your breakfast in the fresh air. Depending on how much time you have, you can hike around up there or just take goofy pictures of you and your friends.

BY THIS TIME, IT MIGHT BE 11AM OR SO

On the way back down, you can visit any winery that’s open along the way. Here’s a link to an interactive map. But, there are a few I like to note from my own preference and experiences. My friend Shana Ray, who helped promote the Day-in-the-Life event last month and also contributes articles to this magazine works at Kokomo on Fridays. You could always stop in and say hello to her. If you twitter, let her know you are coming: @ShaRayRay.

One day this winter, I had the fortune to try Papapietro Perry’s 2005 Pinot Noir and it made and impression on me. I don’t know much about wine, but I do know what I like. And I liked their 2005 Pinot enough for me to recommend trying their other tastings.

There are a few other wineries clustered in and about Kokomo and Papapietro Perry: Amphora, Collier Falls, Forth, and Peterson. I’ve never tried any of these wines (but I’m sure I will–eventually). You could always try them and comment below. That would be great.

A bit further south and across the road from this cluster is a vineyard and tasting room called UNTI. They weren’t even on my radar until one day I started talking to Mick Unti himself (at an After Hours at the Ravenous). He was full of opinions about life, the universe, and everything. And it’s just refreshing to meet somebody local who has a few interesting things to say.

Also, I like the back label on the 2006 UNTI rose. It’s not listed on their website, so I guess you can’t get it anymore, but it was a story–about rose. I like stories. I like to connect with people over stories. That’s just the way I am. Actually, I like the rose too. So there. I guess I tried the 2007 though. It’s refreshing on a hot summer afternoon. Mick is going to admonish me for publishing all this, if he ever finds out. But–whatever, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. You can just go in and try the wines yourself and see if you like them. That’s the best way.

BY THIS TIME, IT MIGHT BE 1:30 or 2:00PM

You’ll probably be hungry so stop for lunch out at the Dry Creek General Store (at the turn off for Lambert Bridge Road). Since Dry Creek Road and the Skaggs Springs Road are two of the most popular roads in the county for motorcycling, you’ll often see a gaggle of bikers stopped there too. Or–a gaggle of cyclists. And–most probably, a gaggle of other wine tasters. Stop and compare notes. It’s all about you experience. After lunch you can head across Lambert Bridge Road to West Dry Creek.

It’s probably best if you go on up to the north end of the road. You can wind your way back through any of the wineries. Everybody has an experience. Everybody has an opinion. You decide which ones you like.

Although, if you are out in Dry Creek, and it is a Friday afternoon, stop by Michel Schlumberger Winery or or Wilson Winery. They have a series of live music on Fridays. On Sunday afternoons, C. Donatiello Winery has music too. It’s nice just to hang out in the gardens and enjoy the afternoon. (Check the What’s Happening Healdsburg calendar for more details).

When you finally make your way back into Healdsburg and ask a local where they’d recommend you for dinner. AND don’t forget to ask what they like on the menu. There is a reason we live here. And we know what we like. And we’re definitely full of opinions!

An Introduction to the History of Wine in Sonoma County

[Originally published by the Sonoma County Wine Library in 2002. Contributed by Bo Simons, Wine Librarian]

Not Without A Sense of Humor

Sonoma County grows serious grapes and makes serious world class wine, but it does not take itself too seriously. The county has over 56,000 acres of vineyards and crushes nearly 200,000 tons of grapes. Sonoma County wines stand proudly among the best in the world, yet a spirit of playfulness exists. Pat Paulsen and the Smothers Brothers were not the only comedians among Sonoma County vintners. Joel Peterson at Ravenswood poses himself and his wine crew naked inside wine barrels to advertise his wine and his message: “No Wimpy Wines.”

Sonoma County Wine Weekend produced some outrageous auctions, including the 2008 60s takeoff and the “Take Me to Your Liter” UFO craziness of years past. Sonoma vintners boarded the Napa Valley Wine Train dressed as Wild West train robbers to pour Sonoma wines to surprised passengers. After being turned down by the BATF for a label featuring a tasteful nude reclining in a vineyard, Kenwood Vineyards submitted a label featuring the same vineyard scene with a skeleton instead. Sonoma’s rich wine heritage has seasoned it, made it comfortable enough with itself to laugh at the some of the pretensions associated with wine.

From Russia with Grapes

Sonoma stands as the one county in California where the Spanish were not the first to plant the vine and make wine. They were beaten by the Russians who started their outpost at Fort Ross in 1812 to supply food for their fur trading operations in Alaska. The Russians planted orchards and vines near Fort Ross and further south in the Coleman Valley area.

“A historical question arises here as to the first European vines planted in what we today call the North Coast winegrowing region of California. Should the Spanish at San Rafael or the Russians near Fort Ross receive the credit? It is a very close call, but it is likely that both plantations went in during the dormant season of 1817-1818.” - Historian Charles Sullivan (Napa Wine. San Francisco: Wine Appreciation Guild, 1994. Page 5.)

While it may be a dispute for the North Coast, it is clear that the Russians beat the Spanish in Sonoma County, where the mission was not built until 1823. The Russian presence in Northern California may have spurred the Spanish into action, but it was the missionary zeal of Father Jose Altimira that got the Sonoma Mission established.

This last of the Spanish Franciscan missions, Mission San Francisco de Solano, was founded in 1823, in Sonoma Valley. Father Altimira, a dedicated Franciscan, dismayed by the apathy and lack of progress at the San Francisco mission, and anxious to bring more Indians into the church, exceeded the orders of his superiors to build this last mission on the El Camino Real and the only one founded by the Mexican government rather than the Spanish.

Mexico had just shaken off Spanish rule in 1821. Altimira scouted sites from Petaluma to Napa, and picked an area near the base of the Sonoma Valley. One of the points in the Sonoma site’s favor was that it looked like a good place to grow vines. “We see good land for planting vines,” Padre Altimira noted in his journal. By 1824 the Sonoma mission was a burgeoning operation, with over 600 neophytes, several buildings and 1,000 vines in place, propagated from cuttings from Mission San Jose. But the thriving Mission was doomed. The new government in Mexico was strongly anti-clerical, and in August 1833, it ordered the Missions secularized. In 1834, Mexican California Governor Jose Figueroa started the process of parceling out the mission lands.

The Sonoma mission had legal rights to over 700 square miles of land. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo got control of much of that land. Vallejo was born and raised in Mexican California, and he considered himself a Californio, rather than a Spaniard or Mexican. This outlook helps explain why he so readily adapted and flourished as California changed from a Mexican province to an American state. Vallejo took over the Mission vineyard, and replanted the vines. He laid out the town of Sonoma, and planted his own vineyard. He had been ordered to protect the northern frontier of California from the Russians, and he parceled out land to relatives.

Maria Carrillo, his mother-in-law, started a rancho in Santa Rosa. She planted the first grapes in the Santa Rosa area, becoming, perhaps, the first woman vintner in California. Henry Fitch got the huge Sotoyome Rancho, and he in turn gave part of that to his rancho manager, Cyrus Alexander, in the valley that would bear his name. Vallejo remained a power in Sonoma even after the Bear Flag revolt, and became a further link in the area’s viticultural history by selling some property to Agoston Haraszthy, the man who would transform California wine.

Agoston Haraszthy: Larger than Life

Agoston Haraszthy, made of the stuff of legends, had gained and lost several fortunes by 1856 when he bought several hundred acres from Vallejo in Sonoma and turned his considerable attention and energies to making and promoting wine. At this time the California wine industry was centered in Southern California, and while grapes were planted and wine was made in Northern California, the major production remained in the South.

Colonel or Count Haraszthy (take your pick, both titles are self-bestowed) began tireless promoting of wine, wrote a treatise for the State Agricultural Society, sold thousands of cuttings and rooted vines, started Buena Vista (a winery which still exists today), which included a grandiose Pompeiian villa, a stone winery and extensive caves, entered his wine in competitions, lobbied the California legislature, traveled to Europe to survey winemaking practices and brought back 100,000 cuttings of over 300 varieties, called for the establishment of a state agricultural school, and experimented with Redwood cooperage.

He overextended himself, was forced out of Buena Vista by investors in 1866, and went off to Nicaragua, where, legend has it, he was devoured by alligators. He is not, as some have claimed, the “Father of California Wine,” but he is a major factor in its history. Due to his efforts the California wine became nationally known and the focus shifted from the area around Los Angeles to Northern California.

The Contributions of Immigrants

As immigrants continued to settle in Sonoma County throughout the Nineteenth Century. They brought with them their grape growing and winemaking skills and traditions. Although mainly in the Sonoma Valley, grape growing flourished throughout the county as French, Germans and Italians (lots of Italians) came to Sonoma County and set out their vineyards on the hillsides and in the valleys. Their traditions and some of their wineries remain. Gundlach-Bundschu, Korbel, Simi, Foppiano, Seghesio are all Sonoma County wineries that date back to the Nineteenth Century and this time of expansion.

A lot of Zinfandel, the mystery grape with no pinpointed European ancestor, did wonderfully well here and became the basis of much of the red wine. Just as the Sonoma wine industry was getting going, the scourge of Phylloxera dealt it a major blow. In the 1870s for the first time more grapes and wine were produced in Northern California than in the southern part of the state. In 1873 Phylloxera, a small yellow root-feeding aphid, was first discovered on Sonoma County vines.

It has probably done more damage to wine production than any other vine pest. The Phylloxera feeds on the roots of vines, and opens the root systems to attack by bacteria and fungi. The French first detected the effects of this bug native to American wild vines in 1863. Phylloxera had caused widespread devastation in Europe, but had been largely ignored in this country.

By 1880 California was feeling the effects to the extent that the California legislature established a State Board of Viticultural Commissioners to try to find a way to stop the dreaded pest. It took cooperation between France and America to come to a solution. The pest is native to East Coast American wild vines. These vines have developed a resistence to it. So using rootstock from these resistant vines with a vine top of vitis vinifera, the European grape species that makes decent wine grapes, grafted on, became the basis of the solution.

The wine industry conquered phylloxera in the late 1880s using various species of grafted rootstock, although one type, AXR1, promoted by the University of California proved to be to be not so resistant to a new form of Phylloxera which emerged in the 1980s. The county’s vineyards shrank from 23,000 acres in 1892 to a low of 6,000 acres a few years later, but then rebounded to 15,000 by 1901.

Three other 19th Century wineries deserve mention: DeTurk, Fountaingrove, and Italian Swiss Colony. Isaac DeTurk’s Santa Rosa winery was the largest of its time with a capacity of a million gallons by 1888, and DeTurk was a leader in the industry, serving on the Viticultural Commission. At Fountaingrove near Santa Rosa in the 1870s Thomas Lake Harris founded a utopian cult, the Brotherhood of the New Life, that made wine with supposed mystical properties.

When Harris was run out of town for supposed sexual improprieties in 1892, Kanaye Nagasawa, Harris’ manager, an intelligent noble Japanese who spoke with a Scottish accent, took over and became “the Japanese Baron of Santa Rosa,” managing and then owning the property until his death in 1934. Italian Swiss Colony started in 1881 as an experiment to give poor Italian immigrants a chance to own property by working the land.

The experiment failed, but Italian Swiss Colony became a leading producer of wine both before and after Prohibition. As Sonoma County wine boomed and busted in the 1880’s and 1890’s, a major power emerged: The California Wine Association. This great conglomerate was the dominant force in California wine from its start until Prohibition. Formed initially by seven wineries banding together to save themselves from a national depression in 1894, CWA became the force in California wine until Prohibition, eventually owning Italian Swiss Colony and many other wineries, and using cutthroat business practices to insure its dominance.

Prohibition to Present

Prohibition changed the face of Sonoma’s wine industry. Acreage increased from 17,000 in 1920 to 21,000 in 1930 as demand for grapes for home wine grew. A “head of household” could legally make up to 200 gallons of wine, and market for grapes boomed. The quality grapevines, the cabernets and chardonnays, were ripped out and tough red grapes like Alicante Brouchet, which could survive a rail tank car journey across the country and still be crushed and make wine, were planted.

Some wineries survived making either legal wine for medicinal or sacramental purposes or by making and selling unreported wine during this period. The quality part of Sonoma wine was wiped out by Prohibition. After repeal many Sonoma wineries were small affairs, many operated by Italian American families, making bulk wine. The years from repeal through the 1960s were lean tough years, acreage declining from 21,000 to 11,000 between 1930 and 1961.

The wine revolution that began in the mid-1960s turned that around, as renewed interest in better wines infused new energy into the wine industry, and quantity and quality returned to Sonoma County. Several older wineries, including Sebastiani, Seghesio, Foppiano and Pedroncelli, established brands that gained a national reputation.

Optimistic, energetic, newcomers took over Buena Vista and Simi, started up Hanzell, Dry Creek, Clos Du Bois, Kenwood, Windsor, Haywood, Landmark, Davis Bynum, Hop Kiln, Preston, Alexander Valley Vineyards, and a score of others. Vine acreage doubled, from 12,000 to 24,000 between 1968 and 1975. The wine-consuming public learned to like and demand better wine, and Sonoma County grape growers and wineries both cultivated and supplied that demand.

Grapes replaced prunes and apples, and in 1987 grapes became the leading agricultural crop in the county, surging ahead of milk production. A reappearance of phylloxera in the 1980s hurt, but it did not slow down Sonoma’s wine industry. While corporations have bought a number of Sonoma wineries, including Simi, Glen Ellen, Chateau St. Jean, Chateau Souverain and Geyser Peak, the corporations have largely respected the special nature of the wineries they own and the vineyards they control. Although corporations own more than a few Sonoma wineries, the two biggest operations in Sonoma County, Gallo and Kendall Jackson, remain family run businesses not public corporations.

The Special Natures of the Many Sonomas

While in just about any temperate climate grapes can be grown, only in a few places in the world can grapes attain that special richness and complexity that make world class wine. You need a special combination of warm days and cool nights during the growing season, the right soils and topography to allow grape sugars to ripen slowly and flavors from the earth to develop in the clusters that will yield a wine capable of gaining further complexity through aging. “Heat Summation,” a system of measuring climate derived from the length of days and the average daily temperature during the growing season, provides a valuable clue, but it does not tell the whole story. Not just the “degree days” that Heat Summation measures are important. When and for how long it is hot or cool, and spikes in temperature are important as well. So are soils, slope, humidity, fog, cloud cover, wind and the way sunlight hits a vineyard. Sonoma County has that rare combination of factors that make it one of the world’s great wine areas. In fact in Sonoma, we are blessed with many areas. The great strength of Sonoma County wine and grapes lies in its diversity. Within its borders Sonoma County comprises eleven separate appellations, or, more correctly, American Viticultural Areas (AVA). Each of these districts has a distinct climate, geography, soils and history, and each produces distinctive wines.

• Los Carneros in the south cooled by San Pablo Bay, comprises flatlands and rolling hills and produces Burgundian varietals, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
• Sonoma Valley, where the North Coast wine industry originated, enjoys some of the same cooling fogs of Carneros, but gets warmer up valley. In addition to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Sonoma Valley has a reputation for its Merlot, Riesling, Cabernet and Zinfandel.
• Sonoma Mountain west of Glen Ellen in the highlands lies totally within the Sonoma Valley area and is known for its high quality mountain Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel.
• The Russian River area, one of Sonoma County’s largest, covers about 150 square miles between Healdsburg and Sebastopol. Much of the Russian River AVA has a cool climate with marine influence and valley fogs and produces great Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.
• Green Valley, a smaller area within Russian River, has an even cooler climate than its surroundings and produces some very fine sparkling wines from the same Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.
• Chalk Hill, another small viticultural area within the Russian River area, boasts volcanic ash soils and a slightly warmer climate, produces some great Chardonnay.
• Sonoma Coast and Northern Sonoma are two large areas that comprise other areas. Sonoma Coast has cooling influences and tends towards Burgundian varietals while Northern Sonoma with its drier inland valleys and ridges favors Bordeaux varietals and Zinfandel.
• Dry Creek Valley northwest of Healdsburg is within the Northern Sonoma designation and its hot days and cool nights make for great Zinfandel.
• Alexander Valley, northeast of Healdsburg, displays some of the same warmer climate characteristics and makes some great Zinfandels but also Cabernets and Chardonnays and Merlots.
• Knight’s Valley in northeast Sonoma County comprises a small upland valley separating Alexander Valley from Napa Valley. Beringer Vineyards owns most of the vineyards in Knight’s Valley, and the warmth and relative lack of fog make for great Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs.

Sonoma County grapes have a proud history, but perhaps the best is yet come. The diverse soils and climates allow Sonoma County growers to produce among the world’s best of many different varietals. Our fascinating and complicated wine history, only hinted at this account and yet to be fully recorded, shows that although there are cycles of boom and bust, the direction over the long haul is towards progress, increased quality and overall quantity. Right now there are plans afoot to put more vineyards in along the ridges in the northwest part of the county, and in the area west of Sebastopol, and in the south near Petaluma. Wine making and grape growing are very competitive businesses, but a spirit of cooperation pervades Sonoma County. There are technical groups both among the wine makers and grape growers that meet regularly and exchange ideas. The Sonoma County Wine Library is a cooperatively financed joint venture with the wine and grape industry which since it opened its doors in 1988 has provided business and technical information to the all sizes of growers and wineries. This cooperative spirit has allowed the industry to grow tremendously in size and stature and continues to influence our destiny as we face the new millennium.

2008 Update: More wineries pop up, growers plant more vineyard acres and play and the players in the industry becomes more complex. A record harvest in 2005 broke records with tonnage and dollars. Francis Ford Coppola bought the property that housed Chateau Souverain. Kendall Jackson bought Murphy-Goode. Global warming threatens the whole winegrowing area of the North Coast. Sonoma wine keeps earning respect and keeping green with biodynamics and sustainable methods, and, beyond that, discerning any trends is a fool’s errand.

Stark Wine at Divine Affair — Saturday, 25 Oct 2008

[Submitted by Jennifer Stark of Stark Wine]

Stark Wine is the kind of thing that can happen when two artists follow a shared dream of creating, bringing people together and building something larger than themselves.

In 2003, we made one small lot of Dry Creek Valley Syrah. Since then, Stark Wine has grown to reflect our passion for family, community, art and sustainability.

We produce and sell ultra-premium wine made with grapes grown by reputable farmers with proven track records for growing exceptional quality fruit. The wines are handcrafted with tremendous care using traditional methods and modern equipment. They are full-bodied, elegant wines created to be enjoyed with food and friends.

This Saturday, October 25th at 6:30 pm we will share the table with friends and family for a delicious meal created by our friends at A Divine Affair in downtown Healdsburg.

Here is the menu - we hope you will join us…

Passed appetizers
2007 Stark Viognier, Damiano Vineyard
Seared scallop, white corn griddle cake with carrot & cardamom
Spiced roasted baby beets with persimmon carpaccio & greens

2005 Stark Syrah, Teldeschi & Unti Vineyards, Dry Creek Valley
Chestnut soup with duck prosciutto

2005 Stark Syrah, Sonoma County
Braised beef cheeks with baby turnips, creamy polenta & Dry Vella jack

2004 Stark Syrah, Teldeschi & Unti Vineyards, Dry Creek Valley
Gorgonzola Dulce cheesecake with black mission figs & Syrah

Please reserve your place at the table by calling (707) 433-1035 by Friday, October 24th.

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