Air Travel Into Sonoma County

Southwest Airlines has just announced upcoming service to STS, Sonoma County's commercial airport. SW will be offering flights to and from Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Burbank. Vegas and San Diego will be daily. Ticketing is available now, but the flights don't begin until April 2026.

Currently, Alaska Airlines has the most flights to STS with Los Angeles, Orange County, Burbank, San Diego, Portland, and Seattle routes. 

American Airlines has service to Dallas and Phoenix. 

You may see mention of Avelo Airlines flights to STS, but they have pulled out, and good riddance. 

BTW, the nearest winery tasting room to the airport terminal is less than three miles.  :) 

Wineries Moving Into Distillation

 If you can't beat 'em ...

Agrivoltaics

An issue with solar panel fields is the amount of land they can take up. You've maybe seen solar panels over parking lots. What if you could put them on farmland?

Agrivoltaics is using solar panels in conjunction with farming to turn the shade from the panels into a positive. A positive, get it? I'm pretty charged by the potential here.

Spotted Lanternflies, Just What the West Coast Doesn't Need

The invasive plant-hopping Spotted Lanternfly, indigenous to Asia, has made its way to the eastern U.S., probably via a cargo ship from Asia in 2012 into Philadelphia. It has since migrated into 19 eastern states. It will eventually hop a train, or some other mode of transportation, to the rest of the country.

Its reproductive rate and ability to live off of many plants, makes it is unlikely that we can eradicate the Lanternfly. This is bad news.

Wine Industry: "The Sky is Falling"

Not quite. 

This has been seen before, and the wine industry recovered, usually to get even bigger than before. That doesn't mean it'll be a quick downturn. Will it be a year, will it be a decade (jeez, I hope not)?

Retrenching in the Wine Biz

Some of the major players in the industry are reducing their footprint in the wine business. This is a sign of uncertainty in the future of the wine market. 

Alcohol Warning Labels

 The outgoing Surgeon General would like to put cancer warning labels on all alcoholic beverages. Dr. Brian Lawenda, a Harvard-trained oncologist, thinks wine might be the exception. He is on Facebook if you'd like to read what he has to say.

 Dr. Lawenda stated that some studies show the moderate consumption of wine may not increase your cancer risk and may actually decrease the risk for certain types of cancer. This isn't definitive, that's why he says, may not increase your risk.

 There is a lot of detail on his Facebook post dated Jan 5, 2025. Read it and decide for yourself. Wine may be the wise choice.

Excerpt from his post

 Thanks to FB user Sierra Wine Guy for bringing this to my attention.

The Big Wine Stories of 2024

It's the end of the year (OMG, another one?) so let's see what the big news was from 2024 in Sonoma County and the rest of California wine.

An Oversupply of Wine

  You have probably heard that we have too much wine in the pipeline, too many vineyards, and various dire warnings about oversupply. Some want you to believe that the wine business is going under. Let's look at why we have an excess amount of wine and why it's probably one of the usual cycles the business goes through.

Napa Tourism Bounces Back

There's been plenty of bad news out of the wine industry recently. It's not all gloomy, however, as Napa seems to be doing fine. The article linked below is from a Napa tourism group reported by the Wine Spectator.

The Sell Off of Vintage Wine Estates

The bankruptcy sale of VWE holdings of Santa Rosa, CA has taken place. Here are the bigger names and where they are going.

Top Concerns of the Wine Business

What are the top concerns of 2024 for those in the wine business? Per a survey from innovint.us, the top five are:

1. Maintaining or growing sales
2. Increasing costs to produce wine
3. Traffic to the tasting rooms
4. Brand recognition in the market
5. Losing customers because they are drinking less or not at all

Number 4, brand recognition, can be a problem any time. The rest are specific to today's wine market. Brand recognition, and maybe sales growth, are something you can influence if you have a marketing budget. The others are mostly out of a winery's control.
 

Signs of Weaker Wine Demand

Current thinking in the wine biz says we are in for slowing times. As I've asked before, is it a permanent slowdown or is it related to the Pandemic/lockdown/shortages/inflation cycle? Most think it's more permanent, with slowing demand for wine.

Couples That Drink Together Live Longer

Data from a Heath and Retirement Study shows that couples who drank together live longer. This conclusion was based on moderate drinking, eight or fewer drinks a week. Couples where one drank and the other didn't, couples that drank heavily, and even couples that didn't drink at all did not live as long.

Shared drinking habits could be a key to a longer life!

Article from the Wine Spectator

Winery & Vineyard Real Estate

What does the Napa and Sonoma real estate market for wineries and vineyards look like now, in mid-2024? Here's a little info from Vintroux, real estate agents for wineries and vineyards.

NEWS: Foppiano Winery Acquired

Foppiano Winery, established by Giovanni Foppiano in 1896, has sold to a local wine company.

There have been public family squabbles for several years, even lawsuits. I guess this was the easy way out for them. Too bad.

The winery was purchased by the owners of Martin Ray Winery through an umbrella company, CMB Wines. No ideas who CMB is, except they are local. Martin Ray wines are found in retail stores selling it what you'd call the lower end of the premium wine market.

 

Sonoma County's Point Fire

Northern Sonoma County was hit with an early season large wildfire, as have many places in the state. Here's the current status as I've been able to gather from news sources.

So, Is Drinking Good or Bad For You?

Scientific opinion on whether you should drink, and how much, has been all over the place. What's going on? The science hasn't changed, so what has?

Amazon and Alcohol Shipping

  With the Pandemic in 2020 Amazon put out a proposal to modernize alcohol shipping rules that would allow them to get into the business. Wholesalers everywhere screamed until they had heart attacks. Nothing much has happened in the four years since this plan became public, but that doesn't mean Amazon has given up on the idea. More likely, they're working behind the scenes to get this moving.

Ken Wilson's Expanding Empire

  Maybe you've heard of Wilson, Mazzocco, or Soda Rock wineries. That's just three of the eleven in the Wilson Artisan Wine collection throughout Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. It's definitely a collection, as Ken collects wineries, B&Bs, and vineyards like others collect bottles of wine. Ken and winemaker Diane Wilson's wineries also collect lots of gold medals. 

 Ken has added a new winery to his bevy of businesses.