‘Agritourists’ get their hands dirty in Sonoma

When the coronavirus recast urban amenities as detriments overnight, the urge to live more naturally gained sudden appeal. Analog pleasures began challenging the draw of ubiquitous technologies, and old-fashioned ways of production captured the collective imagination.

People were eager to see bees making honey, and learn exactly how milk becomes cheese. They wanted to eat vegetables they’d just plucked from the soil, and feel some kind of connection to the land.

Since the travel restrictions of the pandemic have been lifted, a new kind of visitor is increasingly found in wine country: urbanites eager to see how the other half lives. Having formed a bucolic ideal of country living, they are coming to Sonoma to get their hands dirty. Or dirty-ish.

And they’re doing it at working farms all over the Valley. For these “agritourists,” a farmstay experience provides low-key education; for the small farmers embracing them, they’re a lifeline.

According to the county permitting office, Permit Sonoma, there are currently 54 farmstay applications in the county’s permit pipeline, and dozens of farmstay operations already in operation. Defined as transient lodging of no more than five guestrooms where a farmer is in residence and guest activities directly relate to or support farming operations, farmstays are distinctly different from other kinds of vacations. Travelers are on holiday but not at leisurely ease: they are expected to work — however mildly — for their suppers. Luxury farmstay experiences are available at a price; others are considerably more homespun.

It’s a burgeoning new sector of the Valley’s hospitality industry; agritourists can design vacations to suit their individual tastes.

BELTANE RANCH

At Beltane Ranch in Glen Ellen, siblings Alex and Lauren Benward are reimagining their family’s 129-year-old homestead, composed of 105 sylvan acres dotted with pastures and vines. At the edge of a paddock sits an old Victorian, reconfigured to allow for five airy guest rooms. For generations the Benwards’ forebears lived in the house, making a hardscrabble living in agriculture. But during the Depression the estate fell into decline, and the lessons learned in those lean years linger still.

Alex, 38, and Lauren, 40, are farmers for a new generation who care deeply about the human footprint they leave behind. They are committed to the concept of regenerative farming, a collection of best practices keyed on environmental sustainability. “Factory farm practices are certainly simpler, but they don’t suit our vision,” Lauren said. “Regenerative farming is about a more thoughtful approach.”

To that end they Benwards keep chickens in a repurposed trailer, rolling them to different locations so their droppings can enrich the soil. A herd of sheep provide weed control in the vineyards, sharp hooves tilling manure into dirt. “It’s about being resourceful. It’s about using what you have,” Alex said.

“It’s a mindest,” Alex’s girlfriend, Kelly Koeberer, added. “You use the animals to fertilize the soil, and you’re sequestering carbon at the same time. It’s a whole cycle.”

Guests at Beltane Ranch wake up to a rooster’s crow and are served a breakfast made from freshly laid eggs. Those eggs might be made into some kind of scramble, perhaps served on a bed of greens plucked from the ranch garden. On arrival, guests are given a map of the property and encouraged to hike the grounds at their own pace, observing the processes that make produce into dinner and grapes into wine. “It’s really special to eat food grown here in the garden, and drink wine from the vineyard right here,” Lauren said. “This place was built for hospitality. It really brings more energy and interest to share the practices and get people back to the earth.”

SONOMA BROADWAY FARMS

At Sonoma Broadway Farms, owner Preston Raisin is driven to pass down the “farm values” that he says deeply shaped his own childhood. After purchasing the 6-acre parcel in 2012, Raisin began refashioning it to reflect the core principles that defined his vision: sustainability, community and healthy living. “We don’t do paid events, like weddings, parties, kegs of beer or bands,” Raisin said. “We’re pretty strict about farm education.”

The farm’s grounds include a citrus orchard and a second orchard dedicated to other fruits, a goat pen, a chicken coop, a vineyard and a farm garden; there’s a bocce court, a yoga studio and a “tranquility garden” for guests.

A large wood-framed building houses four bedrooms and three baths, and a second structure accommodates a bunkhouse. Intended for family groups or corporate teams on retreat, Broadway Farms is not designed for individual travelers. There’s a commercial kitchen with an enormous island where guests can cook food freshly harvested from the garden, or engage the in-house chef to do it for them, instead.

There’s a firepit, cornhole and bicycles guests use to ride around town. The idea is to truly slow down, breathe and connect: to the land, to each other or to one’s own wayward self. “People are adopting more of an interactive experience with travel, as opposed to sitting by a pool eating French fries all day,” Raisin said.

DAYTRIPPERS, TOO

But travelers need not book an overnight stay to experience the hands-on appeal of agritourism. Day-trippers, too, can find back-to-the-land enticements, with farm tours, tastings, interactive classes, farm-to-table dinners and more on offer at family farms looking for new ways to educate curious travelers while innovating ways to make financial ends meet.

At Lola Farms on Napa Road, Lori Melacon wants visitors to tour the farm and meet the livestock before heading home with the fresh produce, eggs, pork and honey raised there. She hosts private events and serves farm-to-table meals to a customer base that increasingly prefers down home, country delights. “As you look at what people are drawn to now, they want to have an experience,” Melacon told the North Bay Business Journal in 2018. “People want authenticity.”

Katie Lambert, of Keller, Texas, recently came to Sonoma with her husband and new baby to experience wine country from an ecological perspective. They shopped farmers markets to stock their local Airbnb kitchen, and toured a couple of working farms. Lambert, whose four-month old daughter was born in January, said that motherhood had shifted more than just her sleep schedule. “Everything feels different with a new baby. You’re forced to think about the things you want to pass on, and rethink the things that you don’t. Getting an up-close look at real working farms inspired us to go home and do a few things differently.”

Travelers yearning for vacation experiences that will take them off the beaten path and perhaps closer to the earth can find a comprehensive list of Sonoma County farmstay experiences at farmtrails.org.

Contact Kate Williams at kate.williams@sonomanews.com