Year in review in Sonoma

November 14, 2025

Written by Ken Wornick

Backed by over 25 years of wine vintages, Ken is the author of these blog posts, and the founder and winemaker for his 11-acre Sonocaia Estate Winery which includes the Sagrantino vineyard, plus honey bees, chickens, vegetable gardens, olives, fruit orchards, composting, creek restoration, and many other farm and ranch projects.



0 Comments



Sagrantino, Sonocaia Winery, Sonoma, Sonoma lifestyle, Wine

#

Go back to the blog

CLICK ON THE LINK TO VIEW THE FULL BLOG POST

The year started like this:

Spring rolled in gently, with winter rains launching a great cover crop (left), and beautiful bunches of berries (right) filling the canopy.

Visitors

Many visitors joined us for farm tours and wine tastings as the summer weather kicked in

Ripening fruit

A long slow summer allowed the fruit to ripen perfectly

Predators

Bobcats (Lynx Rufus) and Coyotes (Canis Latrans) arrived right on schedule to take advantage of the summer boom in rabbits, squirrels, and other rodents

And yellow jackets thrived in the warm weather. We did our best to capture the queens in spring and the colonies all summer long.

Harvest

Harvest begin in mid-October and seemed to be over in flash. 2025 will be a vintage to remember – long slow easy growing conditions, with high quality and high quantity fruit.

Fermentation

We selected a very special yeast source, from Rioja Spain, for this year’s estate Sagrantino fermentation. Dry ice, stainless steel and conrete tanks, and oak barrels all played a roll.

yeast - Year in review in Sonoma

Fresh fruit to press

With superb pristine berries, we completed fermentation in the weeks that followed. And then with the help of many friends we broke out the Mori SS press for the final press step. The resulting deep purple (smoke on the water) grape skins pomace cake was a sight to behold. That cake, and all the stems from harvest, went back into our compost program.

Chicken Pox!

Oh no! Zero errors all year long. And then…on the last barrel…and the last inch of filling…I over-burped the valve to the dogleg and sprayed Dominic in the face with a nice fine mist of ‘Sagrantino chicken pox’.

The vintage concluded in a gorgeous Fall day and an incredible star-lit night.

New baby

A new handsome baby boy, Liam, greeted the 2025 vintage. A future Sagrantino fan in the making?

There’s no “I” in team

Ken and Dom salute the end of the season that was filled with wisdom, learning, sickness, health, the next vintage of wines, and the next generation of winemakers

ken dom - Year in review in Sonoma