Hydeout Sonoma in documentary at Sonoma International Film Festival

March 16, 2019

Written by Ken Wornick

Backed by 20+ vintages and many dozens of wines produced, Ken is a Sonoma-based wine consultant and founder of Sonocaia Estate Vineyeards, Dysfunctional Family Winery and Hydeout Sonoma.
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Very excited to make this ‘world premier’ announcement…for almost a year, famed documentary filmmaker Joe Daniel followed over a dozen Sonoma hobby grape growers and home winemakers through the 2018 season. The resulting film “Tiny Vineyards” is premiering at the Sonoma International Film Festival on Saturday evening, March 30th at 7:30pm in Veterans Hall Theatre #I.

Tiny vineyard poster

Several Hydeout Sonoma clients, as well as our home-ranch Dysfunctional Family Red Blend project, appear in the film. I have not yet seen the film – but the process of being followed around day and night with microphones and cameras and drones was harder and more disconcerting than I ever expected.

Everyone is warmly invited to join us for the premier. And we’ll be tasting many of the local Sonoma wines featured in the film immediately after the screening, including our “Dysfunctional Family” Red Blend 2016.

Please scroll down for ticket ordering instructions. Apologies in advance – it looks like the on-line system for the premier Saturday screening might already be sold out. The festival office may re-open ticket sales, or schedule a second screening time. Please check back on-line regularly to see if tickets are available or if a second screening has been scheduled. And get in line early for a good seat.

One of the hobby winemakers…

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Purchase Movie Tickets:
  1. Click on this link: http://www.sonomafilmfest.org/film-festival-guide.html
  2. Select purple “film guide” (not “schedule”)
  3. In the search bar, type the word “Tiny”
  4. Below the search bar should appear the “Tiny Vineyards” image, click on the image
  5. Then choose “select a showing’ (on the right side in purple)
  6. Then choose the date option – Sat March 30th
  7. Then click on “order tickets”
  8. A “checkout” screen will appear that will allow you to select the number of tickets
  9. Then enter your email address and hit ‘continue’
  10. You will continue with the checkout process – by entering your name and desired password.
  11. Then, enter payment information (credit card info , etc)
  12. Then, click on the purple ‘submit payment information’ button
  13. Then, click on the purple “buy” button
If you’ve done it right, this screen should appear.
Then, you’ll receive an email – with a PDF at the very bottom.
Click on the PDF and each purchased ticket will be viewable with a unique bar code on a separate page.
Another Sagrantino vintage:
This will be the fourth ‘leaf’ and the first full harvest of our Sagrantino grapes. Of the tiny 2000 acres of Sagrantino in the world, their are less than 15 in the United States. But it is a variety very much worthy of attention -especially for red wine lovers that enjoy cellar aging their wines until they form amazing perfumed aromas. Here, the vineyard floor has been freshly mowed to warm up the soil, and we are about to start pruning the vines:
Sagrantino
In other winemaking news:
Winter is over and with it malo-lactic fermentation (often called ‘secondary fermentation’) has completed for some of our client’s 2018 red wines. Those wines, which have been resting in barrels, need to be “racked and returned” – meaning the clean wine is removed from the barrels into a tank, the normal sediment is cleaned from the bottom of the barrels, and then the clean wine is returned to the barrels to age for many more months and years. This process takes a couple of days as every barrel is carefully scrutinized and tasted and lab analysis is conducted. Here we’ve pulled some of the barrels down from the warehouse onto the crush pad floor, and the tanks in the back have been sanitized, as we get ready for ‘racking’:
barrels 3
barrels 2
Generally speaking, after primary sugar-to-alcohol fermentation is complete (Sugar + Yeast = Alcohol + CO2 + Heat), oxygen becomes the enemy of wine. It is best to minimize the wine’s exposure to oxygen by minimizing handling, moving, pumping, and so on. Excess exposure to oxygen, and the resulting “VA” (known as volatile acidity or vinegar!) must be closely monitored. Some winemakers consider a tiny fraction of VA to add spice and interest, others take great care to minimize it. Either way, here is a brief video of the lab enologist starting the ‘VA through distillation’ process:
Hope to see you at the “Tiny Vineyards” premier.
Warmly – Ken Wornick, Hydeout Sonoma

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Hydeout Sonoma farms grapes, olives, chickens, fruit trees, and bee hives, and is home to owls, bats, rabbits.

2 Comments

  1. Fabia Butler

    Seriously hoping for a second screening! Gotta see this!

    Reply
  2. Dan Swanson

    All, Just went on the sonomafilmfest.org site as was able to get 2 tickets to the Tiny Vineyards premier on the 30th. You might give it another try. – Good Luck!

    Reply

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