Announcing two new Sonoma cinematic events with music, food, and wine…
Two terrific Sonoma movie events for your calendar: On Sept 20th at 6:30pm at the Hydeout Sonoma ranch, benefiting the Sonoma Int'l Film Festival, enjoy an outdoor under-the-stars showing of Jonathan Demme's "Stop Making Sense". Bring lawn chairs and blankets. Carpool...
Before harvest, let’s bottle some wine…
As the clock clicks down to another harvest, it's time to make some room in the winery. Here are a series of short videos and time lapses of our most recent bottling of Dysfunctional Family 2017 "Red Blend". Starting with some barrels full of the wine: Seven short...
You’re interrupting my Sonoma summer…for this?
I will soon be sharing images of the re-construction of an iconic Cabernet vineyard in the next blog post. But while we wait for the newly planted vines to grow, please enjoy this short sampling... This is the project we've been working on all summer, with old vine...
Ganau…it’s Italian for cork!
For over 20 vintages, I have been a loyal customer of Ganau America, a cork company based in Italy, with natural cork sourced from Sardinia and Portugal. Join me on a pictorial journey through their impressive Sonoma processing facility... The cork arrives in bundles...
2019 wine grape season is (almost) a nightmare so far…
Update - May 29th, 2019 - Republishing this blog post with more current information - the rain is over, the sun has arrived, and the vineyards have dried out enough to rush labor and tractors into the vineyards. As of today, it looks like we avoided most of the...
Hydeout Sonoma in documentary at Sonoma International Film Festival
Very excited to make this 'world premier' announcement...for almost a year, famed documentary filmmaker Joe Daniel followed over a dozen Sonoma hobby grape growers and home winemakers through the 2018 season. The resulting film "Tiny Vineyards" is premiering at the...
Celebrating 20 vintages from the Santa Cruz Mtns. to the Sonoma Valley
As I happily enter my 20th wine vintage (1999-2019), please join me for a quick look back... What started in 1999 as a small vineyard development company (Post and Trellis Vineyards in Burlingame, Ca.) grew in 2003 to include a winery (La Honda Winery in Redwood City,...
Hope for the future of wine and food
From my view on the Advisory Board of the Sonoma Valley High School Agri-Tech Academy, I get a first-row seat to watch some of our best and brightest explore their love of farming and plan for their (and our) wine and food futures. Pictures are worth a thousand words,...
Sonoma Harvest 2018 – Part 2 “The Day”
Sonoma Harvest, Part 1, "The Night" featured some harvests at night. As the sun rose and fruit was loaded onto the trucks, here are some daytime images of a few of our client's harvests. And check out the winery videos and fermentation chemistry at the end. In all of...
Sonoma Harvest 2018 – Part 1 “The Night”
Here is your Sunday Morning just before brunch wine podcast. While you were sleeping, Sonoma Valley was hard at work harvesting wine grapes at night. You might ask, "hey Ken, what's it like to prepare for a night harvest?" I'll tell you...Are the grapes ready?, where...
Dysfunctional Family Winery grand debut…
On a gorgeous Sonoma evening, Dysfunctional Family Winery made its official and exceptionally grand public debut. The town mayor sang the star bangled banner (no, she did not). The Wine Spectator immediately awarded 100-points and declared it the 'wine of the century'...
Vacation rentals are a fixture of wine country
Focusing on vacation rentals is a bit afield from our usual topic - Sonoma grapes and wine. It's all well and good to grow great grapes, make delicious wine, and build beautiful wineries. But we'd better have customers to enjoy it all. Many growers and winemakers rely...
New York wine client “Sovare” visits Sonoma…
Hydeout Sonoma has many wonderful clients. Our New York-based clients, owners of the Sovare label, came into town to taste their 2017 vintage. Sovare is an estate hillside vineyard near Sonoma Mountain comprising equal percentages of Cabernet, Sangiovese, and...
Farming Sonoma vineyards organically
Farming Sonoma vineyards organically is expensive and time consuming. And it makes the wine more expensive too. Why? One of the biggest risks to vineyards around the globe is mold and mildew. Mildew spores over-winter in dormant cane buds and under bark. For...
Fun with Wine Science…
You love wine. But maybe you never gave much thought to the science of wine? Here is a post that reveals some science behind wine... The preeminent magazine for wine professionals is Wine Business Monthly, headquartered in Sonoma. Last week, I attended their...
Wine Business Monthly’s “Innovation and Quality” Forum at Silverado Resort next week…
On May 23rd and 24th, Wine Business Monthly will be hosting their one-of-a-kind forum for ultra premium wineries focused on Innovations that Advance Wine Quality. Located at the Silverado Resort, the industry's foremost wineries and researchers will be gathering to...
Sonoma “Bee Hive Dive” at Nick’s Ranch
My motorcycle buddy and all-around renaissance man, Nicholas Freedman, hosted a very special lunch and 'bee hive dive' at his east-Petaluma ranch, benefiting the Sonoma Academy. Many bee experts, aficionados, interested parties, and Sonoma Academy supporters enjoyed a...
A winery on the Equator? Yes! (and a coffee plantation too)
On our motorcycle tour through the central Andes of Columbia, we discovered this winery, the Marques de Villa De Leyva... This is the road with a first glimpse of grapevines as we approached the ranch. Could be anywhere in wine country, right? And yet here we are on...