A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

In case you missed this post, it is a fun review of the holiday season in Sonoma Valley and the Sonocaia winery. Give yourself 10 minutes to catch up with wine country. Warmly, Ken Wornick

Join us for a year-end wine country photo journey in our final Sonocaia blog post of 2023:

Locals tasting event

With the help of some very wonderful friends, we sold out another ‘grand opening’ winery event – mainly for locals that missed the initial launch of Sonocaia estate winery.

I presented a story of ‘wine in context’ – when tasting wine it is important to know “why” this wine was produced. In our case, we started almost twenty five years ago in the Santa Cruz Mountains developing vineyards for private clients. A decade later we had more than 40 vineyards built and were making a lot of personalized wine for those clients in our urban winery in Redwood City. Some of those wines won Gold and Double-Gold from the SF Chronicle wine competition. We sold the vineyard development and winery businesses to an investor. See this link for more. Over the next ten years, we built a second client-based vineyard development and wine making business, this time in Sonoma Valley. And sold that business in 2023. See this link for more.

Our newest project is the Sonocaia estate winery  – focussed exclusively on Sagrantino, a rare red variety of very high repute from Montefalco Umbria Italy. Meanwhile, our second brand, Dysfunctional Family Winery, still lives on with the motto “serious wine, irreverent style” offering fun blends for all taste preferences and budgets. See link here.

A sold-out crowd enjoyed the stories, wines, food, and conversation…

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Working our way through the wine lineup

Opening 4b - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Answering a question about the unique clonal history of the Sonocaia Sagrantino grapevines

Opening 4a - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

New friends being made all around the table

Opening 4c - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

The tasting continues deep into the library wines

Sonocaia cars - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

At the end of the tasting, a couple of wild local yahoos in their ridiculous jacked-up sport cars hit the gas and ripped up our nice new parking lot! Nah, not really, just kidding NF and GM.

But wait, there’s more…

A large, warm, and wonderful family from all over the U.S. (and three generations!) spent an afternoon with us the day after Thanksgiving ’23. We had a ball tasting through many wines, having lots of technical questions and answers about growing grapes and making wine, and generally having some great laughs. The toddler played with my guitar and beat a wine barrel with the drum sticks. Thank you Ginny and Larry.

guest family tasting thanksgiving - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Sonocaia in the Sonoma Index-Tribune newspaper

Our local Sonoma newspaper took an interest in our new Sonocaia winery project. Find the full article here.The author, Emma Malloy, did a great job detailing the history of our winery project. They lead with this headline: More than a winery: Sonocaia, and agricultural gem.

KSVY 91.3FM Community radio

Our local radio station KSVY 91.3FM has great wall-to-wall programming including talk, music, news, food, politics, and so much more. Not everyone is aware of the quality of the programming, yet. I’ve been a frequent guest on station manager and KSVY Exec Director Bob Taylor’s “Morning Show” many times. If you are a Sonoma local, it is well worth tuning in and supporting. They recently launched a new transmission antenna and expanded their reach from Sonoma, now reaching into Petaluma, Novato, and Napa. And last month, KSVY held a very unusual fund raiser. At the vaunted and historic Sebastiani Theatre, built in 1933, five great bands played country and western music all afternoon to the hoots and hollers of a large crowd. Learn more about KSVY here.

Sebastiani and KSVY - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

The crowd begins to gather at the Sebastiani Theatre

Bob - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Bob Taylor, Executive Director of Sonoma community radio KSVY 91.3 (and lead guitarist of ACDC cover band “Illegitimate AC/DC”)

Roger - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Patrons Diana Bugg and Leslie Carlson; and Roger Rhoten, widely beloved manager for over 30 years of the Sebastiani Theatre

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Sonoma Valley Museum of Art

SVMA, our treasured Sonoma art museum, situated on Broadway very close to the Sonoma Plaza, held a very fun ‘poetry, food, and wine’ event in the museum’s gallery. Sold out weeks in advance, the poetry was provocative, warm, and hilarious. A far cry from the sleepy prose that I recall from English class in 7th grade. I poured Sonocaia and Dysfunctional Family wines at the event. See more here. Carole Copelan poured her Owl’s Perch and Harpsichord wines. And Chef Kyle Kuklewski served some delicious bites which paired beautifully with the wines and the poetry. The art in the background in some of the images below are from Richard Mayhew and the exhibition is called Inner Terrain.

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Sonoma International Film Festival

Named “One of the 25 Coolest Festivals” by MovieMaker Magazine and one of “America’s Top Ten Destination Film Festivals” by USA Today, and coming up on March 20th – 24th, 2024; all passes to the Sonoma International Film Festival are on sale right now. It is a fully park-and-walk festival with great venues, truly excellent films, delicious food, and first class wine. You don’t want to miss it!

The staff and board of the film festival gathered for our holiday party. Many of Sonoma’s non-profits were also represented. And as always, the event was hosted by Kevin and Rosemary McKneely, our most important and generous patrons.

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SIFF party 2 - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

In the center, film festival board members Lisa Mango and Patty Elkus

SIFF party - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Film festival patrons

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Kevin McNeely, Executive Director Emeritus of the Sonoma Valley International Film Festival, hoists a giant Methuselah of 2018 Dysfunctional Family Winery ‘Red Blend’, equal to 6 liters or 8 bottles. The SIFF film festival and Dysfunctional have teamed up several times for outdoor movie nights on the lawn, and we’ll return to that program someday soon.

SIFF leadership - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Sonoma International Film Festival – Kevin McNeely (Emeritus Creative Director), Bob Berg (Board Chair), John Curry (Emeritus Board Chair), and me, Ken Wornick (Board Vice-Chair)

Community Hanukkah

Supporting the Jewish community in their time of extreme stress, and for the right of Israel to exist, we attended a Hanukkah holiday event at the local Shir Shalom temple, then we cooked traditional potato latkes (don’t tell the cardiologists) and joined the larger Sonoma community for a public inter-faith community-wide menorah lighting and some street dancing too, on the last day of Hanukkah. The local Sonoma police and the County Sheriff’s offices blocked off a portion of Spain Street near the Plaza and provided a watchful vigil during the ceremonies, for which all attendees were quite grateful.

Below, winery client Patty Elkus submitted this beautiful image she titled “Lil Vignette of Santa and his Rosé” for the holidays. Seemed like just the right image for us to include with the Hanukkah story!

Dear Santa - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Bees and wax candle making

We put our Hydeout farm bee hives to bed for the winter, allowing the bees to build a seal around every crack and crevice of their hives, thus sheltering themselves from wind and rain and cold during the winter. Before that, we did the necessary hive work and collected some of the extra wax for various projects, seen here. I want to particularly thank Nic Freedman of Bees Rock Ranch and Chere Pafford, a renowned holistic bee keeper, both of whom acted as my mentors during this entire season.

Olives and oil

We harvested over a ton of Hydeout olives this year. Like everything on the farm, our approach is 100% organic. Due to last winters excellent rain, and the light crop in 2022, the 2023 crop was not only large, but nearly completely free of olive fruit flies. All in all a great olive harvest yielding deeply unctuous green oil.

Fall harvest – our final harvest of fruits and veggies from mid-December here at the farm
Fall vegetables - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

The very last of the tomatoes, persimmons, and figs picked just before the first rain (with a few peppers and some fresh eggs too).

What’s next for 2024?

The 2022 and 2023 vintages of Sagrantino are resting in barrels for the winter. The wild grasses and mustard are pushing up through the wet dirt from the recent three inches of rain. The winter solstice arrived on December 21st. Now the days get longer once again. We’ll prune the grape vines, mow the cover crop, and start in on another vintage. The 2024 vintage will be my 25th vintage.

Wishing all of you a wonderful New Year.

And when the holidays are done and things have returned to normal, we’ll still be here  – ready to supply you with delicious wine. You can always order wine and pick it up at the winery. And we can ship too. Just click on this link!  https://www.sonocaia.com

Happy new year everyone! – Ken

Ken in a Barrel - A year-end wine country lifestyle photo journey

Sonocaia – your invitation to the newest estate winery in Sonoma Valley

Sonocaia – your invitation to the newest estate winery in Sonoma Valley

Sonocaia Logo - Sonocaia - your invitation to the newest estate winery in Sonoma Valley

Coming soon – your invitation to the newest boutique winery in the Sonoma Valley

You are currently a subscriber to our about-to-launch Sonocaia Winery (you’ve known us for years as Hydeout Sonoma and Dysfunctional Family)

And you are first in line for an invitation! Keep an eye out for subsequent emails like this for your invitation.

If you are seeing this in an email directly from Ken or in social media, you are likely NOT on our list. Please click this link: Sonocaia and scroll to the bottom of that page and provide your email address. You’ll be added automatically to the invitation list.

Seven years in the making – the Sagrantino estate vineyard and the Sonocaia Winery:

Do you love a dark red wine that you can enjoy all the way through an entire meal, from the cheese plate to burgers to tiramisu?

If yes, then our Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino is for you. Our Sagrantino targets the middle of the famed enticing wine triangle:

  • Pinot Noir (smooth and easy to drink but often without much body or length)
  • Cabernet (jammy and full bodied, but often hot and tiresome after a glass or two)
  • Petite Sirah (inky dark and spicy, but often rough and tannic).

We’re one of just a few Sagrantino growers in the entire country, and our rare Estate Reserve Sagrantino sits squarely in the middle of the triangle – offering great juiciness and body and tannins, and yet is somehow easy to enjoy over the course of an entire meal. Especially when cellar-aged for a few years!

How do you pronounce Sonocaia Sagrantino?

Say it out loud:  So-No-Kai-Yah  Sag-Ran-Teen-Oh

Sagrantino is capable of producing wines of awesome power and grace, yet was on the verge of extinction just 30 years ago. Even now, less than 2500 acres of Sagrantino exist worldwide!

A small group of elite growers in Montefalco, Umbria, Italy realized what they had and brought Sagrantino forward to the modern wine world. And the world took notice. In 2018, Worth Magazine noted that Sagrantino was poised for “a huge breakout in the wine world.” Last October, the “World of Fine Wine” wrote about the miracle of Montefalco Sagrantino. Wine Spectator raved about Sagrantiono saying this: Wine Spectator. And SF Chronicle Wine Competition issued eight medals to Sagrantino in 2022.

What started the Sonocaia project? Our fascination with Sagrantino began twenty years ago. Like so many great wine memories, ours began over a spectacular Italian dinner in San Francisco in 2003 where this famed Paolo Bea Sagrantino Pagliaro was served. 

Paolo Bea - Sonocaia - your invitation to the newest estate winery in Sonoma Valley

The wine was dark and juicy and bold, and yet fit beautifully with food and was easy to drink glass after glass. We committed to someday grow this variety and build a following around it. Thus began our very passionate inquiry into Sagrantino and what ultimately lead us to dedicate ourselves to this extraordinary variety in Sonoma!

  • Sonocaia planted 2 acres of estate Sagrantino vines in 2016. The vines travelled from Italy to UC Davis to the nursery and finally to us. We also inter-planted tiny fractions of Cabernet, Petite Sarah, Primitivo, and Tannat in order to lengthen and smooth Sagrantino’s famed bold tannins.
  • The vineyard has been farmed by hand, 100% organically, with year-long careful attention to detail.
  • During the first two years of purposefully light yields in 2018 and 2019, we harvested some small amounts of the Sagrantino fruit and blended it with other red varieties from neighboring vineyards under the Dysfunctional Family Winery ‘black label’ brand. Want to be an early adopter of these wines? For sale now on the website, 85 cases of the 2019, and 38 cases of the 2018 remain, click here to shop for the 2018 and 2019 Dysfunctional Family Estate Reserve ‘black label’ wines. We can ship to you. Or you can pick up at the winery. Use this code at checkout for an instant 20% discount: FF20
  • 2020 was a wildfire year, no Estate Reserve Sagrantino was produced. Instead we harvested early and produced 28 cases of saignee’ rose’ (also under the Dysfunctional label). Click here to shop for the rose’. We can ship to you. Or you can pick up at the winery. Use this code at checkout for an instant 20% discount: FF20
  • The Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino yielded spectacular fruit in 2021 and 2022. Those first two full vintages of Estate Reserve Sagrantino are now aging beautifully in barrels in the new winery. Vintage 2021 to be released next year to mailing list members and wine club members only.
  • With the return of winter rains, the 2023 crop is also looking over-the-top exciting (see photo below)..
  • And after four years, winery construction is now complete and we are very close to opening!

We’ll be holding a series of small tasting visits soon for you, our subscribers. Come be a part of the fun. You get the first shot at reservations. Keep an eye out for subsequent emails for your invitation:

Where is Sonocaia:

We like to call it the “Far East” of Sonoma town. We’re a few minutes east of the Sonoma Plaza, and less than a minute east of the Vineburg Deli (which is at the corner 8th Street East and Napa Road). We’re in the Hyde-Burndale neighborhood just south across Napa Road from Gundlach-Bundshu and Scribe wineries:

Sonocaia vineyard map sonoma - Sonocaia - your invitation to the newest estate winery in Sonoma Valley

This week at Sonocaia. The summer flowers are hitting their peak. Please enjoy:

Final note – new chicks arriving in the hen house

Even in a protected setting like our hen house, apex predators manage to eat a chicken on occasion. So they must be replaced. A wonderful neighborhood kid is hatching her own chicks and selling them to neighbors. We picked up 10 new chicks last week and have them growing in their separate screened cattle trough – until they are big enough to introduce to the main population.

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Ten baby chicks under the warmth of the heat lamp

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Our adorable neighborhood chicken whisperer

Projects and day trips from Hydeout Sonoma (Part 2)

Projects and day trips from Hydeout Sonoma (Part 2)

Part 2 of farming and wine life in the Sonoma Valley…

Honey Bees and a National Park Ranger Talk on the Light Spectrum

Honey bees being a constant topic here at the Hydeout, what a great surprise to find a recent national park ranger talk on the color perception of bees! Turns out, honey bees see further out than humans on the light spectrum – which is why they can more easily find nectar in flowers. And why they don’t really like the color black.

Honey bees (cont’d)

Here are some more images of our work last week in the honey bees hives: 

American Graffiti in Petaluma

This year marked the 50th year since George Lucas’ coming-of-age movie American Graffiti was released on the silver screen. Cruisin’ the Boulevard showcased hundreds of American model cars 1972 or older who joined in the annual parade of classic American cars cruising through the streets of downtown Petaluma where most of the movie was filmed in the summer of 1972. The best place to watch was along Petaluma Boulevard, south of B Street to D Street.

Fire

Sad to say we’ve had two fires already in our lovely Hyde-Burndale neighborhood. The first was a grass fire from some untimely afternoon high grass mowing. Our local neighbors with a water truck beat the firefighters to the scene (due to a faulty address) and had the fire out quickly.

The second, was a structure fire right across the street from us. The awesome and very local Schell-Vista Fire Dept arrived, followed closely by Cal-Fire, and that fire was also put out quickly. Hopefully the last of this fire business for the year.

Meal Fit for a King

Hosted by noted Napa vintner John Boich of Boich Cellars, we enjoyed an incredible food and wine event at their Wall Road vineyard (where we are farming Cabernet and Syrah for Boich). Check out the menu below for each of these incredible dishes:

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Yours truly, Ken Wornick, with chef extraordinaire Landon Schoenfeld of Oak and Acorn Luxury In-home Dining

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The Boich Cellars menu from Oak and Acorn Luxury In-Home Dining. Find them at 612-618-5909,

oa***************@gm***.com











Wildlife

After a very wet winter, wildlife activity is booming around Sonoma and at the Hydeout. These images, shot by professional photographer Michael Hodgson, Sony Pro photographer & travel journalist, at www.michaelhodgsonphoto.com and

mi*****@hi***********.com











Snake!

This is first time ever finding a snake at the Hydeout. Snakes, especially rattle snakes are super common up in the hills around Sonoma. Down here in the almost-flats, we have very few to zero rattlers. This snake however is actually a common gopher snake that was leisurely crossing the driveway. I grabbed it, put it in a bucket, and took it straight out the vineyard where it very quickly disappeared down a gopher hole – to my very great delight!

snake - Projects and day trips from Hydeout Sonoma (Part 2)

Cork from Ganau, it’s Italian for cork

Our primary supplier of cork is Ganau, a local Sonoma company run by terrific people. In this video, you can see a natural product, cork, being naturally branded by fire. Click here to watch a 30-second video of cork being fire-branded at the Ganau plant

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Fire branded and ink branded corks

Final thought…

Fun night at the Big Easy in Petaluma seeing Illegitimate AC/DC. Fronted by my buddies Bob Taylor (as Angus, center, guitar) and James Marshall Berry (right, on bass). They rocked hard all night long. Bob and James are also an integral part of KSVY Sonoma, our local radio station. I was a guest on Bob’s The Morning Show last week – check it out here: listen to Ken Wornick on the KSVY Morning Show

ACDC image - Projects and day trips from Hydeout Sonoma (Part 2)

Next up – watch for a big announcement!

moto in vineyard - Projects and day trips from Hydeout Sonoma (Part 2)

My trusty 2007 BMW R1200RT gets me around to all the vineyard sites we farm.

Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Olives, honey bees, chickens, bats, owls, farmer’s market, and wine…the list of farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma is growing every day. I think you’ll enjoy following along:

Olives and the dreaded fruit fly

The olive fruit fly is ubiquitous now in wine country. Perhaps due to the sheer number of olive trees, or the years of drought, and/or so many olive trees in residential yards that receive zero pest management. But there are several 100% organic and cost effective methods to control the olive fruit fly. See the photo captions:

Honey bee project

We currently have three honey bee hives here at the Hydeout – one hive from a captured wild swarm, one hive from Bee Kind bees in Sebastopol, and one hive from Mann Lake bees.

Cherie with drone bee rotated 1 - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Chere Pafford, the acknowledged expert and queen bee of many bee hives in the Sonoma Hyde-Burndale neighborhood, here displays a large drone bee (no stinger!)

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Here, some hive comb that the bees were building in the ‘wrong place’ in the hive. Had to remove it before they got to far. It is important to guide them to build comb only in the frames – where we can later expand or contract the hive as needed when food becomes short and cold weather sets in.

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This comb will soon become a beeswax candle – with guidance from great friend and bee expert Nic Freedman of Bees Rock Ranch in Petaluma

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The miracle of perfect geometry in the world of honey bees.

Chickens

chickens - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

The Hydeout Sonoma chickens are shifting their energy to egg production as the summer sun warms their environment. Contact Cynthia if you’re interested in eggs.

Fritatta - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

…and this fresh egg frittata is the result!

Tuesday Farmer’s Market on Sonoma Plaza

Neighbor and friend Lori Murray of Lola Sonoma Farms is an expert in pasture-raised 100% organic heritage “Kune Kune” pork resulting in very clean healthy meat. And a great sense of humor too.

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Lori carefully not blocking traffic at the Tuesday Night Farmer’s Market on Sonoma Plaza and showing off her tasty organic pork treat which was widely shared with all within reach.

Bats

Bats are one of the most important and totally misunderstood animals. We are crazy for bats and are encouraging their place here at the Hydeout. Bats are a critical interstitial species (see this link: more about bats). And are a crucial and fully organic living tool in wine country integrated pest management. Bats can eat 1,000 or more mosquitos and insects per night! It is so great that we finally had a very wet winter. But pools of standing of water have created a haven for insects of all kinds. And bats help keep things under control.

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Placing the bat boxes in just the right location will assure it’s success.

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This paddle cactus is providing an incredible place for birds to find water, but is also growing mosquito larvae.

Grape Vines

Weather, gophers, rabbits, water – the pressure on vineyards and grapevines is painfully constant. Even in a small vineyard of just a few acres, it is not unusual to lose 30 or 40 vines per year. Like everything else in farming, it is important to constantly replace the losses with new vines, so that the vineyard is always maintained at peek performance.

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New grapevines from the nursery which have been fully acclimated and are ready to be planted.

Sonocaia – our new winery here at Hydeout Sonoma

Many of you are aware of our multi-year project to launch our “estate reserve” Sagrantino wine. The new name associated with our Sagrantino based wine is “Sonocaia” (pronounced So-No-Kaī-Yah). 

Coming this spring with the first invitations going to our blog post readers like you – the grand release of our first Sonocaia (So-No-Kī-Yah) Estate Reserve Sagrantino. Never heard of the Sagrantino grape? It produces a deep dark delicious red wine, originally from Monte Falco, Umbria…and now from the Sonoma Valley c/o Hydeout Sonoma. More on this soon with a new winery, label, website, and more.

See this chart for some astounding information on this little-known grape variety:

Sagrantino - Farm projects at Hydeout Sonoma

Wine tasting with clients

Faith Armstrong and I routinely meet with our Forward Vines and Wines clients – to taste wine from barrels and bottle samples. We taste not only the wine we’ve made for our clients, but often many other local wines – as a guide to client preferences, i.e. color, acidity, tannin, alcohol, blending, etc. Here we are in the Sonoma Mountain AVA tasting several local Chardonnays.

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Mowing the fence line

What could be better than a Sunday afternoon on the tractor mowing the fence line? For a walking path, a dog run, and especially access and fire prevention, mowing the fence line should be done early and often.

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Moonrise at the Hydeout

A rising full moon at the Hydeout, or anywhere in Sonoma Valley, the “Valley of the Moon,” is a wonderful and heartwarming event.

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Sonoma after the grape harvest

Sonoma after the grape harvest

What happens in Sonoma when the harvest is done?

The very last tank of grapes has finished fermenting. The tank is drained of wine and placed in barrels (that liquid is called the “free run”). Then the remaining fermented grapes in the tank are moved into the press and gently squeezed (and the result is called the “press fraction”). And what’s removed from the press after pressing (called the “pomace”) is either sold as animal feed or recycled into green waste or sent to our distiller and turned into Grappa, Brandy, and Cognac; and the seeds are further pressed into grapeseed oil. And that really marks the end of the harvest season.

Pomace - Sonoma after the grape harvest

This is what 2 tons of dense Syrah grape pomace looks like when it comes out of the press. It’s dark purple and bone dry. The very last cuveé of wine has been barreled.

There still remain some chores to manage over the winter: the newly filled wine barrels will be carefully monitored as the secondary Malo-Lactic fermentation is monitored and managed (and where the tart Malic acid, think green apple, is slowly fermented into Lactic acid, with potential health benefits including improved gut health, immune system support, and antioxidant effects). Barrels must be topped off due to evaporation. And as the wine settles we need to taste every wine to assure things are coming along to our liking. And, we start thinking about which of the older wines need to be prepared for bottling this spring. Last, now is the time for the winery to be thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom. And only then will it be time for everyone to have a much needed rest.

A brief note about the 2022 season: It started off with a really hard freeze right as many grape varieties were just budding out. There was some damage to some vineyards resulting in crop loss as much as 50%. Then after a normal but very dry summer, the record heat wave struck, 5 days over 100F and 5 nights in the 80F’s putting extreme stress on ripening fruit. And then adding insult to injury, 2 inches of rain. It was one of the most confounding and complicated growing seasons ever. More on that when the 2022’s are ready for release in 2024.

Halloween

Halloween is usually the first sign that the wonderful long slog that is harvest and winemaking is about to wrap up. When bright orange pumpkins start appearing all over town, we know the harvest season is almost over.

Chickens

As the cold weather settles in at the Hydeout, the chicken egg production starts to fall off as the chickens shift their energy from egg production to winter feather production. And in our case, they also start flying the coop and hiding their eggs in hilarious hard-to-find places.

Final garden harvest

As is the tradition in the Fall, it’s time to harvest the last of the garden produce, clean it up, and pickle it all in bell jars.

Wood slab table – restarting an old project

In 2020, St Helena in Napa Valley was surrounded by the Glass fire. Acres of gorgeous oak forest was lost. With help from friends, I located and set aside one of the fallen oaks and had one of the fire department crews mill it into oak slabs for me. The new table from this project will go into the new winery barn here at the Hydeout.

Oak slabs - Sonoma after the grape harvest

Two oak slabs, about 10 feet long and 18 inches wide, will be joined along the inside edges to form a new table. The outer live-edges still show the burn scars from the fire. It is a stark reminder of how the fires damaged lives and property.

Margaritas

By the time of the Thanksgiving holiday in late November, winemaking has truly concluded, and our Prickly Pear Cactus flowers are ripe. And that means it’s time for the whole family to get involved in producing our Prickly Pear Agave Nectar. And our tart, sweet, smoky, mezcal Margaritas!

Recipe: Click here!

Living art at the Hydeout

Dear friend, character, bon vivant, and Sonoma artist Jock McDonald, with assistance from his wife Sherry McDowell, set up a photo shoot for a new project Jock is developing called “TRASH.” I can’t say any more at this time as the final form of this new work is on its way to Art Basel in Miami, Florida right now! These are preliminary images only and in no way depict the final art form that Jock has developed. To learn more, click here.

FAMILY

This is the time of year we all gather as family and enjoy another wonderful year of life, trials, tribulations, health and happiness. Here is the entire Hydeout team:

Family - Sonoma after the grape harvest

Happy holidays from the entire Wornick family – Ken, Dennis, Sophia, Cynthia, Harry, with Elyse, Jessica, and Tony the dog

Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

Setting up for a blind tasting of Sagrantino

Wine is to be enjoyed. Everyone gets to decide exactly what they like. Wine labels, the setting, the food, the mood; everything influences how we feel about a particular wine.

A genuinely blind tasting is the closest we can get to objectively measure one wine against another. And even then, the order of favorites can change – if the tasting is done before lunch or at dinner time, on weeknights or weekends, even the mood of the group, or just one small whispered remark, can re-order the evaluation and the results. Still, it is educational to taste wines blind, as we did here with these Sagrantino wines:

table setting - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

In this windowless cave under a spectacular private estate in Sonoma, we set up a blind tasting of Sagrantino wines.

Sag blind tasting bags - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The wines were bagged and numbered for complete anonymity.

table tasting 2 - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

Then, to assure strict adherence, all of the wines are poured in careful numbered order into wine glasses in advance, before the tasting panel entered the room

tasting note panel - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The panel was seated. And the hard work began. We tasted the wines one by one, making scrupulous notes along the way. It takes concentration and focus to really evaluate each wine carefully. The wines were judged on the basis of color, aroma, viscosity and mouthfeel, tannin structure, and finish.

tasting panel members - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The participants: When we were done tasting and making notes, the data was collected and tallied and force-ranked. Then, we revealed all the wines and had a free-wheeling discussion over the results. The professionals were quick, efficient, and showed great certainty.

From left to right, clockwise:

  1. Liz Thatch, Master of Wine and Distinguished Professor of Wine – click: Liz Thatch
  2. Graham Smith, CEO and wine collector – click: Graham Smith
  3. Anne Mieling, French-born wine expert – click: Anne Mieling
  4. Ingrid Reyes, CEO, M&A Creative Agency – click: Ingrid Reyes on LinkedIn
  5. Jennifer Arie, Director of Customer Success, Comm7 eCommerce platform – click: https://commerce7.com/about/
  6. Ken Wornick, winemaker, Sonocaia Sagrantino and Dysfunctional Family Winery – click: https://www.sonocaia.com
  7. Don Sebastiani, Sr., our host  – click: http://donsebastianiandsons.com
  8. Steve Bush, former bio-med devices CEO, restauranteur, wine collector – click: Steve Bush
  9. Jon Curry, owner of Landers Curry, former board chair of Sonoma’s Int’l Film Festival – click: https://www.landerscurry.com/home
  10. Kelly Nice, CEO/Founder, Nice and Co. Ad Agency – click: https://www.niceandcompany.com
  11. Keith Casale, local Sonoma CFO – click: Keith Casale
  12. Cynthia Wornick, Dir. of Marketing, Sonocaia and DysfunctionalFamily Winery – click: Cynthia Wornick

Note: our host for this event was Don Sebastiani, Sr. (#7 above). A true gentleman, host extraordinaire, smoker of fine cigars, lover of fine wine and food, fluent speaker of at least five languages, a true Sonoma native, and so modest you’d never know any of this about Don unless someone else told you.

A total of eight wines were evaluated – seven pure Sagrantinos from Umbria, Italy, and our 2020 Sonocaia (just-bottled estate reserve Sagrantino from Dysfunctional Family Winery at the Hydeout Ranch here in Sonoma).

Wines revealed – here are the 8 wines revealed after the blind tasting:

I was floored that our inaugural, very young, and not-yet-released 2020 Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino earned a strong third place, especially against these world-renowned Umbrian all-stars.

First through third place were tightly bunched, the next wine was a very distant fourth.

  1. Arnoldo Caprai 2003 Collepiano Sagrantino di Montefalco (99 pts)
  2. Arnold Caprai, 2016 Montefalco Sagrantino, 25th anniversary edition (97 pts)
  3. Sonocaia, 2020, Sonoma Valley, Sagrantino, Estate Reserve (94 pts)
Sagrasntino bottles - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The full lineup of Sagrantino wines – seven from Umbria and one from Sonoma

lunchh menu OSO - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

After the tasting, the panel retired outdoors to the patio for discussion and a perfectly curated lunch hosted by Don Sebastiani Sr. and prepared and served by renowned Chef David Bush from Oso Restaurant in downtown Sonoma. If you have not yet visited OSO, please do; it is a wonderful, locally-operated delicious family-owned restaurant.

Chef David Bush OSO - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

Chef David Bush has a storied track record of amazing stops on the culinary trail, but certainly his restaurant Oso in downtown Sonoma is his crowning jewel, so far! Find it here: OSO Restaurant in Sonoma

vineyard sunset - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The “Sonocaia” estate Sagrantino vineyard during a particularly lovely sunset in early September. Harvest is not expected until mid-October.

But wait, there’s more, another blind wine tasting event: Hydeout Consulting client “Quail Run 2020 Estate Cabernet”, just bottled, competes with older Cabernet wine country legends and comes out a winner!

We are the consulting winemakers for the Quail Run estate Cabernet. Just a couple of weeks ago, we delivered the 2020 vintage to the client. The wine was bottled after 23 months of oak aging. The client organized an inaugural blind tasting and invited a knowledgeable group of friends and neighbors to participate. I admit I was a bit nervous knowing this newly bottled inaugural vintage (and possibly my career) was about to go head-to-head against some of the finest Cabernet’s in my client’s formidable wine cellar!

Quail Run 2020 was tasted against Stone Edge Farm 2014, Repris 2018, and Stag’s Leap 2019…

Screen Shot 2022 10 14 at 10.02.27 AM - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

The contestants in this blind wine tasting event.

Keatings - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

At the winery, Quail Run estate Cabernet clients Jan and Patrick (right) tasting their developing 2020 estate Cabernet in August 2022 just prior to bottling.

IMG 1431 - Sagrantino tasting panel with industry pros and collectors in Sonoma

And fresh off the bottling line, the Quail Run estate Cabernet, Sonoma Valley.

A good friend of the client, Austin Texas expert wine educator Jim Bushee, wrote a blog post about the Quail Run blind tasting. To see the results, read here: Click here to read Jim Bushee’s blog post

The client also wrote a blog post about her version of the tasting: Quail Run estate Cabernet blind tasting blog post