Nov 11, 2023 | Dysfunctional Family Winery, Hydeout Sonoma, Sagrantino, Sonocaia, Sonocaia Estate, Sonocaia Estate Vineyard, Sonocaia grand opening
Three days of launch parties
With thanks to you, our loyal band of blog post readers, customers and fans, the 3-day launch of the Sonocaia winery sold out quickly. And went off without a hitch. See photos below for a glance at the various events. More carefully curated events are being placed on the calendar now – winemaker dinners, ranch tours, etc. We look forward to seeing you here soon:
Friday – the raucous crowd was ready to start their weekend
Saturday – this group had excellent probing questions about clones and rootstocks and farming and winemaking
Sunday matinee – this was a very fun crowd enjoying their Sunday afternoon after the clocks were turned back for daylight savings time
Preparations for the 3-day event involved the careful selection of five wines – one rosé wine and four reds – a saigneé provenćal rosé, the double-buffalo 2021 red blend, the inaugural preview of the 100% Sonocaia estate 2021 Sagrantino, the black label 2019 reserve, and one library wine, a robust 2017 Cab-centric blend.
During the 3-day event, we revealed the inaugural release of the Sonocaia Estate Reserve 100% Sagrantino label. And the newly designed Dysfunctional Family Winery iconic “double buffalo” label:
Customers studied the wine menu notes carefully, offered helpful comments, and purchased their favorites
A selection of curated charcuterie was served table side
Sagrantino harvest 2023
Just prior to the Sonocaia grand opening, we completed the 2023 harvest, crush, and winemaking. This was a long cool growing season, with much needed rain last winter, a mild spring, and a long summer with very few heat spikes. Some of the colder spots around Sonoma had the latest harvest date in years. Our estate Sagrantino, below, did finally ripen to perfection; the resulting taste and technical lab numbers were nearly perfect. The 2023 now rests in barrels and will certainly be the boldest and most varietally accurate of our 5 harvests.
Freshly harvested 1/2 ton bins of Sagrantino fruit awaiting handling at the winery
A view of the estate Sagrantino vineyard looking south from the Sonocaia winery. Fall weather arrived just in time to complete the 2023 winemaking and get the winery open.
Composting
We’re doing our best to manage all of the food and beverage waste cycles here at the ranch. One project is our substantial composting operation – where nearly all brown and green organic material is recycled into the massive compost pile – including chicken manure, garden waste, tree trimmings, and below, post-fermentation grape skins.
Acorns
One of my very favorite annual projects is the collecting of oak acorns. During my wanderings around Sonoma, I have identified a few “mother” trees which are huge 100+ years old behemoth oaks that produce incredible acorns almost every year. I think we can all agree that an acorn is a marvel of the living world! An impenetrable hard shell protects the inner meat and seed from the harsh sun and animals. After soaking on the ground in the cold rain all winter long, the root emerges and immediately digs a deep tap root. It takes years for the tree to reach 4-5 feet above ground. But in successive years after it establishes itself, it quickly rockets to the sky becoming a huge and gorgeous canopy offering shade, food, water retention, carbon sequestration, and visual joy.
Others topics:
The olive harvest is the next task on the horizon. This year, anecdotal data suggests a very large crop significantly devoid of the usual destructive olive fruit fly.
Hot air balloons are a very common site here at the ranch. They depart at dawn just north of us from mid-valley, and as the sun rises the air briefly moves toward the bay blowing the balloons south and right over our backyard, and then exactly on cue the wind shifts north and off they go headed to Carneros and Napa for their landing.
See you at our next event. Warmly. Ken Wornick, Sonocaia owner/winemaker
Jul 8, 2023 | Sagrantino, Sonocaia, Sonocaia Estate, Sonocaia Estate Vineyard, Sonocaia Winery, Sonoma Farming, 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.
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:
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:
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.
Ten baby chicks under the warmth of the heat lamp
Our adorable neighborhood chicken whisperer
