Wine Spectator

Wine Spectator rates over 15,000 wines per year, in every price range, to fit every occasion. Read about the world's great wineries and winemakers and visit restaurants with outstanding wine lists. Plus, each issue features delicious recipes and pairs them with the perfect wines.

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Welcome to Sonoma Wine Country

Wine Spectator

FEEDBACK

Napa Valley Vs. Napa Valley

Former Vietti Owners Establish New Barolo Winery

Alan Dreeben

Patz & Hall Co-Founder James Hall Reacquires His Winery

Uni at Home

The Art of Aging

TASTING THE RIPENER’S ART

Winemaking as Metronome • How California vintner Greg Brewer’s wines come to be

SAVVY SHOPPER

SPECTATOR SELECTIONS

DRC 2021: Purity and Transparency

Home Sweet, Huh?

HEALDSBURG’S BIG MOMENT • Small-town America meets wine country luxury in this vibrant village in Sonoma County

PETE SEGHESIO • The Seghesio family has grown grapes and made wine in northern Sonoma County since 1895. The Italian immigrant families of that era are the backbone of communities like Healdsburg generations later. Pete Seghesio, the former CEO of the family winery that sold in 2011, is an active community leader. At age 59, he continues to grow grapes for his wine labels: Journeyman and San Lorenzo. With his wife, Cathy, he also owns Journeyman Meat Co., an artisan butcher and retail shop.

DUSTIN VALETTE • Chef Dustin Valette, 43, was born and raised in the Healdsburg area, and his family has roots in the community that go back nearly a century. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and worked in top kitchens around the country before returning home. He was executive chef of Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen before opening his first restaurant, Valette, in 2015. He followed that in 2021 with the Matheson.

TASTING ROOMS

RESTAURANTS

SONOMA COUNTY WINE SPECTATOR RESTAURANT AWARD WINNERS

PROVISIONS

BARBARA BANKE • Barbara Banke is the chairman of the board and proprietor of Sonoma County–based Jackson Family Wines, which owns 39 wine brands around the world. Banke and her late husband, Jess Jackson, moved from nearby Marin County to the Healdsburg area in 1990.

HOTELS

ALEXANDER VALLEY • Discovering Sonoma County’s Cabernet Country

DRY CREEK VALLEY • Where the Past Is Still Present

LOU PRESTON • Longtime resident Lou Preston, founder of Preston Farm and Winery, got to know Healdsburg as a young person, spending weekends and summers on his family’s dairy and farm on East Side Road south of town. But it wasn’t until after time in the military that he returned with a question: What do I do now? “I knew almost nothing about viticulture, but it was clearly the future for this area,” recalls Preston. Preston audited some viticulture and winemaking classes at the University of California, Davis, and began looking for a place to plant grapes. In the early 1970s, he found a patch of land in a quiet northwest corner of Dry Creek Valley, and that was the beginning of what would become a nearly 50-year-old, 125-acre organic farm and winery.

RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY • The Pinot Noir and Chardonnay Center of Sonoma

SPARKLING ABUNDANCE • This wide array of bubblies from around the world includes great options at every price

$25 or Less

$26 to $50

$51 and Up

APERITIVO RENAISSANCE • Fueled by the spritz and a growing diversity of delicious Italian red bitters, la dolce vita is spreading across the United States

RED HANDED • More bartenders are slipping red aperitivi into cocktails, playing with the bitter flavor but still keeping it light and breezy. These three cocktails from Wine Spectator Restaurant Award...