A show of hands

Robbi Pengelly/Index-Tribune

More than 200 Sonoma County wine industry supporters raised their hands at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood March 31, in celebration of the record-breaking take from the 2015 Sonoma Wine Country Weekend – a glass shattering $3,487,000, all headed toward local nonprofits. Nearly $2 million of that was raised for the Fund the Future initiative to promote children’s literacy programs, with another $1.5 million disbursed to a whopping 81 charitable groups. Kenneth Juhasz, president of the Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Alliance, partly credited the “rise in leadership” within the county wine industry as helping harvest such unprecedented fundraising. While Dan Goldfield, president of the Sonoma County Vintners Foundation, expressed his “pleasure to be part of something larger than ourselves.” With the 2015 totals in the tally, Wine Country Weekend has over the years invested more than $20 million in local nonprofits.

Jason Walsh