The 3rd annual Healdsburg Wine and Food Experience was a weekend-long celebration that featured the best of Sonoma County and world-renowned food and wines. This year's festival showcased the region's makers – farmers, growers, winemakers and chefs – alongside globally recognized wines, highlighting the vibrant culinary diversity, deep connection to agriculture, and sustainable farming practices of Sonoma County. HWFE is deeply involved in the Sonoma County community, making substantial donations from this year’s ticket sales and sponsorships to local organizations that make a meaningful difference in the lives of farmers and their families, including the Sonoma County Fundación de la Voz de los Viñedos. These funds will help support the Leadership Academy and workforce development for vineyard employees and their families, fostering future leaders in both the industry and the community. As well as being co-founders of HWFE, Sonoma County Winegro

Afternoon Brief, August 22nd

Sherry Lehmann’s Landlord Sues Iconic Wine Shop over $3.6 Million in Unpaid Rent: Sherry-Lehmann’s landlord is suing the iconic wine retailer as well as its former owners over $3.6 million in unpaid rent – and is demanding that its shuttered store on Park Avenue be cleared out immediately, according to a court filing...

Afternoon Brief, August 17th

New Sweet Spot for Direct Wine Sales: Consumers buying direct from wineries are trading up, but Napa is still too expensive for them...

  Posted by Laura Ness of Spirited Magazine | Mar 31, 2020 | Packaging, Equipment, Wine, Production    You have to be just slightly natters to engage in a livelihood that can literally blow up on you—and yet, the sisterhood (and brotherhood) of bubbles runs deep. That’s probably why it’s considered the ne plus ultra of winemaking. There are many ways to sparkle a beverage, but méthode Champenoise is considered the highest form of sparkling art. It’s a process that’s been painstakingly perfected, by hand, over the centuries. It requires two entirely separate fermentations, the second of which occurs in the bottle, which is where the magic happens. Says Todd Graff, winemaker and general manager at Frank Family Vineyards in Napa Valley, “The secondary fermentation in the bottle is the trickiest part, because however many bottles you’re making, each is an individual fermentation.” Méthode Champenoise is time consuming, filled with repetitive tedium, complicated (often by many months o