Wine & Beverage Partners
Wineries, importers and sommeliers who have donated their incredible talents and product to our festival over the years. Not everyone in these pages will necessarily be present for this year’s festival but that doesn’t mean they aren’t forever appreciated by us. For more information on who may be at each event, please visit the festival event pages.
Sommeliers
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Mike Trupiano
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Jenna Congdon
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John Kiely
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Erin Herendeen-Hill
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Erick Cadena
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Bonnie Graves
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Chris Shackelford
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Beccy Breeze
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Rajat Parr
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Alicia Cuadra-Cutler
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Greg O'Byrne
Industry Partners
Chappellet
One of the Napa Valleys hidden treasures. Chappellet Winery sits in the eastern hills of the Napa Valley (an area called Pritchard Hill) and produces some of the world's most compelling Cabernet Sauvignons.
Laurent Perrier
Bernard de Nonancourt created the Laurent-Perrier style: freshness, elegance, purity. To achieve this, he used the traditional practices of Champagne, but also initiated and stimulated new technical approaches to winemaking. The result is a range of unique wines, each with its own history and style. Laurent-Perrier is renowned for its taste and the consistency of its quality, Cuvée after Cuvée.
Peay Vineyards
Vanessa Wong, Nick Peay, and Andy Peay are driven by the same passion. That is a good thing since they are in business together as well as in relation. They each discovered wine at different times in their lives, but it led to the same desire: To make wine that engages all of our senses and captures the unique character of a piece of land.
I Brand & Family
Ian Brand did not set out to make these wines. He discovered great vineyards at the edge of sensible farming and decided to bring them to light.
Kunin
Seth Kunin started Kunin Wines in 1998, focusing on Syrah, Zinfandel and Viognier. Over the years he added additional Rhone and Loire Valley varieties such as Grenache, Mourvedre, Rousanne, Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc and, more importantly, his wife and business partner Magan and their daughter Phoebe. Kunin continues to be a family concern, and is governed more by the passions and personalities of the Kunins than those of the critics or marketplace.
Lingua Franca
Lingua Franca was inspired by an extraordinary vineyard site in the Eola-Amity Hills of the Willamette Valley. The name represents a fine tradition of universal language, bringing people of different backgrounds to common ground – shared conversation
Michaud
Luli
Luli, the result of a partnership between a master sommelier, a distinguished vineyard manager and an expert winemaker, provides a particularly happy example of the way in which wine creates community, because Luli is itself a collective enterprise.
Roederer Estate
The California outpost of Champagne Louis Roederer, Roederer Estate has been producing sparkling wines in the Anderson Valley since 1982.
DNS Wines
DNS Wines was founded in 2013 after years spent developing relationships all over France’s most storied wine regions. The DNS name was born during a professional wine tasting when a young and confident winemaker from Burgundy announced that his wine was a DNS wine. As the attendees looked at him quizzically he explained it was a “Do Not Spit” wine, and thus they should forego the typical professional tasting protocols and instead drink this wine because it was so good.
What began as a small import venture has now become a lifestyle of tasting and sharing the literal fruits of labor from each of DNS’s winemakers.
DNS isconstantly searching for authenticity in both wine and people to build their portfolio. They specifically source and import wines from small, independent producers that utilize sustainable, organic, and/or biodynamic methods throughout their vineyards. DNS supports the farmers, the winemakers, and all of the individuals that care for the land we share.
Jolie-Laide
is a small art house winery based out of Sonoma County, California. The name Jolie-Laide translates loosely to Pretty-Ugly, a French term of endearment to describe something that is unconventionally beautiful.
Scott and Jenny both amassed years of critical working experience at many reputable wineries both in California and internationally and parlayed their expertise into their own project in 2010. The duo are co-owners, operators and co-winemakers and together do all things Jolie-Laide.
Considered avant garde for challenging the status quo of what California wine is known for. Respected as the vanguard of the “New California”- a movement to bring a more European sensibility of natural winemaking and championing unique yet classic varieties that are relatively unknown here in the United States.
Their winemaking ethos is simple: low intervention and naturally minded. Grapes are left whole cluster, foot crushed, and aged in neutral oak. Fruit is generally harvested early by California standards, preserving natural acidity, keeping the wines bright and fresh and in turn benefitting from lower alcohol levels. All ferments are done with native yeasts, for both primary and secondary fermentations (no inoculation), and the musts tend to be low pH/high acid, creating a healthier environment and allowing for lower added SO2 in finished wines for stability.
It is their unique ability to seek out spectacular vineyards- triangulating cooler sites, compelling soils and working with pioneering growers with whom they partner to diversify the viticulture landscape.
Their approach is a natural one, a less is more ethos. But their keen eye for finding great fruit from only sustainably and responsibly-farmed sites, coupled with an impressive natural talent, lead to consistently delicious wines. As Scott says, “The do-nothing approach isn’t new by any means; it’s just funny how far many have gotten away from it.”
One attribute to note – the labels change every year, featuring a different artist or art collective, and are always stunning and evocative. “Our wines are a celebration of the year and seasons in which they are made, always unique and different, no two bottlings are ever the same.”
Albatross Ridge
The Bowlus Family harvest their grapes at relatively modest Brix. In the winery, they ferment the vineyard’s different blocks and clones in very small lots. While Albatross Ridge harvests earlier, due to the vineyard’s unique conditions, which include one of the longest growing seasons in all of California, the grapes still taste beautifully ripe. Gently made with a minimalist approach, these sophisticated wines have quickly established themselves as cool-climate Central Coast benchmarks, recognized for their beautiful structure and pure varietal flavors.
Pisoni Vineyards
We approach winemaking as an art, a science, and a craft. As such, from planting to pruning to harvesting, we work by hand, in accordance both with Burgundian tradition and our own ongoing understanding of what will best sustain this land we love and respect.
Bernardus
The focus of Bernardus is to create wines that flatter the palate and stimulate the imagination. Founder Ben Pon appreciated wine as an art - a form of art that transcends the ordinary.
ROAR
Four generations of farming has given ROAR 100 years of experience working this terrain. Their tradition of meticulous farming has played a large part in elevating the region to the highest quality of wine California offers.
BIRICHINO
Alex Krause and John Locke founded Birichino in Santa Cruz in 2008. Drawing on a combined four decades making wine in California, France, Italy, and beyond, they are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness.
Kongsgaard
Fifth-generation Napa natives, Maggy and John began planting The Judge vineyard on the Kongsgaard family land near Napa in the 1970s. The inaugural Kongsgaard wines came in 1996. They now produce The Judge, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc and Albariño in an underground winery—a cave dug into the volcanic rock, high on the eastern rim of the Napa Valley These intensely farmed, shy-bearing vineyards and our traditional low-intervention winemaking produce powerful, graceful wines—vivid expressions of vineyard and variety.
Lady Of The Sunshine
Gina Giugni is a second generation biodynamic farmer and winemaker. Gina started Lady of the Sunshine in 2017, with a focus on regenerative, organic, and biodynamic farming in pursuit of making natural wines that reflect the purity of the place they come from. Gina also farms, full time, the 6.5 acre Chene Vineyard, located in the Edna Valley appellation. Since her takeover in 2018, the vineyard is now a Demeter certified biodynamic vineyard. Gina and her husband, Mikey, run Scar of the Sea and Lady of the Sunshine together out of their winery in San Luis Obispo, CA.
Firestone Walker Brewery
Born in a humble shed on the back-forty of the family vineyard, Firestone Walker is a California beer company like no other—founded by two brothers-in-law who simply wanted to make the perfect beer.
Pax
Established in 2000 by Pax and Pamela Mahle, Pax Wines focuses on Syrah and Gamay Noir from cool, coastal sites, as well as a selection of esoteric varieties that showcase the great diversity of California wine.
Scar Of The Sea
Scar of the Sea was established in 2012 and is owned & operated by Mikey & Gina Giugni in San Luis Obispo, California. The Central Coast offers us the opportunity to live, work, and play by the sea, who is influential to the vineyards we work with and how we spend our time. The ocean’s presence has shaped our way of life along with the climate, soils, and geology of the coastal vineyards we work with that fall under the spell of her fog each day.
