Pre-holiday sale of Sonocaia and Dysfunctional Family wines

with a great discount only for subscribers

Enter discount code FF20 at check out for the Friends and Family 20% off all of our wines. Good only via this blog post.

Pick up at the winery or ship it to your address

Have a look below at the special and quite delicious wines we are featuring today. As most of you know, we are a small boutique winery at the intersection of Sonoma Valley and Carneros, just south of Gunlach-Bundshu and Scribe wineries. Our approach to both farming and winemaking is very hands on. We produce only between 150 to 200 cases of each wine. This equates to just 1-2 tons of each cuveé, allowing us to literally do everything carefully by hand, with our eyes and senses judiciously managing each lot every day all year long, from farming to harvest to barrel to bottle. The result are wines that each come with a great story, an interesting provenance, and are genuinely true to their terroir. And therefore fun to drink. Please dive in…

2022 Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino:

2022 Estate Reserve Sagrantino

Pre-release allocation only to blog post subscribers like you. This just-bottled 2022 vintage is a truly epic red wine; deep and dark in color, with ample tannins, a long finish and great acidity. We are very excited about this vintage. It is the result of literally years of effort in the vineyard and winery. Originating with the importation of Sagrantino grapevines from Montefalco Umbria in 2016. Aged two years on oak. This wine is made for dining on a cold winter night. It will cut through the meanest turkey gravy your momma ever made!

Click here to order: 2022 Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino

2021 Sonocaia Estate Reserve Sagrantino

2021 Estate Reserve Sagrantino

After years of carefully farming our estate Sagrantino, this inaugural 2021 vintage is rich and smooth and very food friendly, like Sagrantino should be. As it was the very first vintage, it is a bit softer and more approachable compared to the blockbuster 2022 we just bottled, above. This wine will go very well with baked turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie! Suggestion – try this in place of your go-to Thanksgiving Pinot Noir.

2021 Dysfunctional Family Winery “Double Buffalo” Red Blend

2021 Dysfunctional Family Winery “Double Buffalo” Red Blend

The “Double Buffalo” 2021 Dysfunctional Family ‘Red Blend’ was sourced as always from four of our friend’s special boutique organic vineyards around Sonoma Valley. This vintage is soft and fruity and really easy to drink, but carries some body and weight into a long finish. A terrific food-friendly wine, especially great with pizza, burgers, and BBQ. And, this is a great wine to match with Thanksgiving leftovers! Blend is 62% Syrah, 24% Zin, 8% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet.

2017 Dysfunctional Family Winery “Gran Reserva” Red Blend

2017 Dysfunctional Family Winery ‘Red Blend’, Library Selection

Driven primarily by structured hillside Cabernet Sauvignon and inky Petite Sirah, this wine is dark, rich, and weighty, and yet is also easy to drink  – owing to both perfect bottle age and the addition of small amounts of smooth Syrah and jammy Merlot. Aged 2 years on a mix of new and neutral oak, then aged an additional 5 years in bottle. It is perfect and ready to drink right now.

We are re-releasing this library wine just for the holidays. I recently snuck this bottle into a blind tasting with some very well known and expensive red wines. The team was a collection of local Sonoma growers and vintners who have tasted many delicious wines. And they were so moved that they each bought a case. Get yourself some while it lasts.

2020 Dysfunctional Family Winery Rosé

2020 Dysfunctional Family Winery Rosé

Just 7 cases left in the whole wine world! If you love Rosé for Thanksgiving, and many have that tradition…made in the ‘saigneé style’ – meaning ‘bleeding off’ the unfermented pink grape juice from the full tank of fresh grapes, then cold fermented in stainless steel and quickly racked back to neutral oak barrels for settling; all resulting in a wine that is dark pink in color, crisp, and fruit forward. Drink well chilled, and don’t be afraid to put an ice-cube right into your glass like we do. Chill and open this wine for your family and guests to set the perfect festive mood.

More holiday wines – find ’em all here

Part of the Sonocaia and Dysfunctional Family winery lineup. You and your family and your guests will enjoy having these wines on your holiday table.

Click here for more delicious holiday wines!

Enter discount code FF20 at check out for Friends and Family 20% off of all our wines. Good only via this blog post. Order today to receive by Thanksgiving.

News and flash backs:

November 2023 – just one year ago, the grand opening of Sonocaia estate winery

December 2023 – gathering with friends and colleagues over too many wines, in the private dining room at the Swiss Hotel on the Sonoma Plaza

Ken and Cynthia pouring Sonocaia at the 2024 Vintner’s Festival. This is one of the major events put on every year by the Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Association. The SVVGA has a great board of directors and staff. The team is superb at featuring the beautiful and authentic wines of Sonoma.

Some informative reading about Sagrantino, polyphenols, and tannins, just fancy words for color and flavor:

Next post coming in December – a trip back in time across 100 blog posts, and a chance to sit back and scroll through images and news from across the world of wine over the past few years.

A winter corporate event at our Redwood City winery, in 2003; one of the first urban wineries in the bay area, and the genesis of our entry into the wine business over 20 years ago.