Columns

  Things, they are a-changing over at Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery. Following an investment by Bill Foley of Foley Family Wines and other enterprises, Crushpad will move its headquarters and operations from Napa to part of Sebastiani Winery on Fourth Street East in Sonoma by April 30. Napa clients will still be able to make [...]

Late breaking: Heidi Geffen of Tiddle E. Winks on East Napa Street says a tiny mention of her Fizzie tablets in Rachel Ray’s March magazine, under “Easter Baskets for Grown-ups,” has orders “rolling in.” Check out the chocolate or strawberry flavored straws while you’re there. H H H Margie Tosch-Brooke achieved one of her dreams [...]

Thale and Steve MacRostie and kids, Kendall and Michaela, just quietly sold their fine and hugely respected 20,000-case winery to Lion Nathan Wine, a division of Lion Nathan National Foods of Australia, which boasts specializing in dairy, juice, soy and alcoholic products. While most of Lion Nathan’s food brands are unknown to Americans, many of [...]

Perhaps you were as shocked and awed as I was this week to find out in national media that some parents punish their children by pouring hot sauce into their mouths and down their throats. Have these parents done the same to themselves? Or did their parents to that to them? HHH Sunflower Caffé will [...]

Late breaking: Giant Constellation Brands will close its Blackstone Winery facility in Kenwood March 1. Blackstone’s reserve wine production has relocated to Ravenswood Winery, which Constellation bought previously from Joel Peterson. According to a North Bay Business Journal story, forwarded by Lewis Perdue of wineindustryinsight.com, most employees have relocated to other Constellation properties. Most of [...]

Oh my gosh! It’s tonight. New Years Eve, that is. Some people call it “amateur night” and stay home, perhaps cooking a good steak or Portobello mushroom and “watching the ball drop” on television. Others see an opportunity to go out and frivol, dine on a special meal, drink better wines than usual, and generally [...]

A few good Sonoma Valley wines made the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Wines 2010″ list released on Sunday in the Chronicle’s magazine. One loud and clear message in the list is that our “Wine Country” notion that all good American wines come from Sonoma and Napa counties seems to have been debunked, at least [...]

Sonoma resident Dean Biersch, of Gordon Biersch beer and pub fame and success, has totally remodeled and redefined the old funeral home at Andrieux Street and Broadway in Sonoma.  Once Blanche Wagner’s quiet private home, and then the even quieter home of Bates, Evans and Fehrensen funeral parlor, the site subsequently housed not-so-quiet Dorothy and [...]

Now this is a first. Sonoma Valley Health District board member-elect Kevin Carruth is a big man, in many ways. Big in ideas, big in experience of building public buildings, and generally a big guy in stature. He has run big massive state projects and, guess what, he cooks. After Carruth’s election night triumph, his [...]