Home winemakers to gather in Sonoma

On Sept. 17, they’ll be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis.|

Unbottled ?enthusiasts

Sonoma Home Winemakers will be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis, on Sunday, Sept. 17. The event is from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Sonoma Veterans Hall, and the $40 ticket includes access to food and wine pairings, live music by Sean Carscadden, and a large silent auction featuring travel packages, spa and beauty services, collectible art, and more.

Sonoma Home Winemakers will be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis, on Sunday, Sept. 17. The event is from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Sonoma Veterans Hall, and the $40 ticket includes access to food and wine pairings, live music by Sean Carscadden, and a large silent auction featuring travel packages, spa and beauty services, collectible art, and more. For tickets, visit https://sonomauncorked.eventbrite.com.

When it comes to the backyard, there are two types of people: those who fancy wide swaths of lawn ringed with ornamental plants, and those who prefer a more utilitarian landscape. John Randazzo, co-president of the Sonoma Home Winemakers, is a practical man. He didn’t need his backyard to look like Versailles. So he planted his Glen Ellen property – despite objection from the wife – with cabernet and chardonnay grapevines.

“It’s quite a divide,” Randazzo said of his family’s floricultural debate, framing the discussion in present tense. Despite owning the Glen Ellen property for 13 years, and producing wine from the grapes grown there for 11, one senses that the groundskeeping conversation between the Randazzo’s may yet be unfinished.

Randazzo is co-president of the Sonoma Home Winemakers, a dues-paying collective of oenophiles and wine hobbyists. Its members meet on the second Thursday of every month, sharing notes, trading secrets, and commiserating on viticulture’s steep learning curve. “Sometimes they bring a good bottle of wine that they’re proud of, and sometimes they bring a bad bottle of wine and pass it around,” Randazzo said. “A couple of guys in this club have been around for a long time, and they’ll taste it and go, ‘Well, you screwed it up. What can I say?’”

There are 75 people on the club’s mailing list, and about 30 bona fide members. “The dues are $35 a year. They’re outrageous!” Randazzo joked. “If you can afford a Starbuck’s latte, you can afford our meeting.”

The Sonoma Home Winemakers are fairly thirsty by type, but even they can’t dispense with their deep cache of wine. To that end, the club proffers itself to various philanthropic organizations, offering to pour free wine at events.

On Sept. 17 they’ll be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis, organizations that support local children. The event is from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building, and the $40 ticket includes access to food and wine pairings, live music by Sean Carscadden, and a large silent auction featuring travel packages, spa and beauty services, collectible art, and more. Additionally, a maximum of 200 raffle tickets will be sold, the winner of which will take home 52 bottles of premium wine and a snazzy wine refrigerator to store them all in.

Making good wine in a garage is perhaps harder than it seems: there is much trial and error, there are disasters. “The first couple of years – of which I still have a few bottles – is pretty bad stuff,” Randazzo said bluntly. “I opened it up the other day. My daughter was visiting, and she said ‘You know, Dad, this could make a pretty good salad dressing. A little tarragon, a little oil, shake it up pretty good …’ I had a case of pretty good red wine vinegar that I didn’t know I had!”

But the glorious bottles help keep a man’s chin up.

For years, Randazzo gave all his chardonnay grapes away to other home winemakers, preferring to master the process with the cabernet grapes. “Red wine just loves heat, so when it’s fermenting, the warmer it gets, the better it ferments,” he said.

But this year he installed a cooling unit in his wine room, and the investment has paid off with solid results. “If I do say so myself, I made a pretty good batch of chardonnay,” Randazzo said. “I’m pretty excited about it.” There are only two cases, which he feels obligated to hoard. “I think I’m going to ration it amongst my friends.”

As hobbies go, winemaking is expensive. But its complexity captures the imagination. “It’s a great discussion about whether it is an art or science,” Randazzo said. “From my perspective, it really is a combination of both.”

A winemaker needs to understand how to successfully grow grapes, which involves fungicides and pest control and when to water or withhold. And then there’s sugar and acidity and the calculation of sulfites. “I’ve had to go back and rethink all the science classes I slept through in college,” Randazzo said.

But after the science, there is the ineffability of art: a sense of how elements combine, and unmeasurable components, like mouthfeel. “There’s a lot of guys who know chemistry,” Randazzo admits. “But there are other guys who just look at the vine and say the vine will tell you what it needs. You can invest in equipment, but there’s guys who say you don’t need that, just taste it.”

It’s trial and error, and not for the impatient. But when a hobbyist manages to put something fine in a bottle, it’s a thrill. “It’s just the pride of making wine,” Randazzo said. “This is sort of a new thing for me, but it’s fun. It’s just a great hobby.”

Email Kate at kate.williams@sonomanews.com.

Unbottled ?enthusiasts

Sonoma Home Winemakers will be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis, on Sunday, Sept. 17. The event is from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Sonoma Veterans Hall, and the $40 ticket includes access to food and wine pairings, live music by Sean Carscadden, and a large silent auction featuring travel packages, spa and beauty services, collectible art, and more.

Sonoma Home Winemakers will be pouring at “Sonoma Valley Uncorked,” a fundraiser benefiting the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance and Sonoma Plaza Kiwanis, on Sunday, Sept. 17. The event is from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Sonoma Veterans Hall, and the $40 ticket includes access to food and wine pairings, live music by Sean Carscadden, and a large silent auction featuring travel packages, spa and beauty services, collectible art, and more. For tickets, visit https://sonomauncorked.eventbrite.com.

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