#sustainable-winemaking

#sustainable-winemaking

Healdsburg's wine cred is matched only by its culinary one, with an influx of new energy from big names and cult favorites enhancing the local scene.

The more you use a good quality olive oil, the better your food will taste. Spring is the time to seek out the newest extra virgin olive oils—the current harvest from olives picked and milled in the previous fall and early winter.

I've visited California wine country several times over the past couple of years, including many trips to the iconic Napa Valley. And although I definitely recommend a trip to Napa, there's another nearby wine region that I find myself returning to even more often: Sonoma. More than just the city of Sonoma, the entire county feels like its own world. With rolling vineyards, rugged beaches, and redwood forests, it offers so much more than wine alone. Here's why this region stole my heart.

the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) rules, set by the USDA, declared that importers-that's right, the firms that typically handle sales and logistics, not just the winemakers- also need to be certified organic in order for the wines to retain the label. According to a spokesperson from the USDA, the regulations are an effort to "better protect organic businesses and consumers" and "keep fraud out of the market."

"Five to ten years ago, sustainability was often limited to buzzwords or isolated practices," he says. "Today, it is holistic, intentional, and deeply embedded into every aspect of the visitor experience."

Jesse Hall can't remember a time he wasn't inseparable from the sea. Born and raised in Sonoma County, Hall spent his youth surfing the Marin coast and sailing San Francisco Bay. By his early 20s, he was shaping surfboards in San Diego, where he rode the mellow waves of Pacific Beach. "Winemaking is similar to surfing in that you're living moment by moment," said Hall, founder of Seawolf Wines in Mendocino County's Yorkville Highlands.

Jesse Hall can't remember a time he wasn't inseparable from the sea. Born and raised in Sonoma County, Hall spent his youth surfing the Marin coast and sailing San Francisco Bay. By his early 20s, he was shaping surfboards in San Diego, where he rode the mellow waves of Pacific Beach. Winemaking is similar to surfing in that you're living moment by moment, said Hall, founder of Seawolf Wines in Mendocino County's Yorkville Highlands.

According to Mike Zolnikov, who tends a couple of acres of Pinot Noir and an acre of Chardonnay on a flat, slightly soggy patch of the central Willamette Valley, in Oregon, it had been a once-in-a-decade growing season. "Not too hot, not too wet," he recalled, wistfully. "It would have been a really great year." A few hundred miles south, in California's Napa Valley, the winemaker Ashley Egelhoff, of Honig Vineyard and Winery, was feeling similarly about her Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc.

In 2025, legacy Oregon craft brewery Rogue Ales & Spirits filed for bankruptcy and shuttered operations, California uprooted 38,134 acres of wine grapes (in order to cope with overproduction and stymie future excess crops), and Jim Beam announced it would cease production of bourbon at its main distillery for the duration of 2026. An increasing push toward sobriety has flooded the market with nonalcoholic alternatives to traditional tipples.

Romance and renewal are on the menu now and through February. It's a time to recharge and get moving on shaping a successful 2026. But that doesn't mean you can't slow down and enjoy an evening sip after a long day, or crack open a bottle with a loved one and celebrate the moment. These unique California reds offer an opportunity to relax and toast to finding joy in the new year.

As an editor and writer who regularly covers the world of nonalcoholic drinks, I have tasted more than my fair share of booze-free wines. Much like with regular wine, the results have been mixed some are bitter or super sour, or even worse, smell like nothing. But I've also had the pleasure of drinking alcohol-free wines that scratched the same itch as a top-notch riesling or champagne.

Only eight miles long by three miles wide, the small wine region established its AVA (American Viticultural Area) in 1982, just one year after Napa Valley. It's only one-tenth the size of its famous neighbor, yet the diversity in tasting rooms is impressive. You can travel from a blue Victorian house to gorgeous gardens, a vintage gas station-turned-tasting room, and even an award-winning modern architectural masterpiece all within minutes.

Founded in 1992 by Miguel Torres and Robert Drouhin to promote the exchange of ideas, its members include Domaine Clarence Dillon (Château Haut-Brion), Famille Perrin (Chateau de Beaucastel) and Alsace's Famille Hugel, as well as Sassicaia makers Tenuta San Guido, the Douro's Symington family, Riesling specialists Egon Müller and Tuscany's 26 th-generation winemakers Marchesi Antinori. Earlier this week, all 12 descended on the Paris's Grand Palais for the launch of the PFV Generations Case, an ultra-limited-edition case of 12 wines - one from each family. Treats in the coffret include a 2016 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a 2004 Vega Sicilia Unico, and a Champagne Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2002 (which the house's 6 th-generation ambassador Bastien Collard de Billy was pouring on the night, and I can report tasted absolutely stellar). To sweeten the deal, each case also includes a VIP visit to every estate, some of which aren't open to the public. The case is priced at €32,000 and only a dozen have been created.

Starbucks' Reserve Roasteries sell whiskey barrel-aged cold brew, some beer is aged in bourbon barrels, and wine is an obvious beneficiary of this method too. Though the practice of aging wine in bourbon barrels is contested by some consumers - naysayers say the process diminishes the flavors that come from thoughtfully growing and sourcing the grapes, thus undermining the farmers - others are staunch fans of the finished product.