It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth. - Pliny the Elder (A.D. c. 23–A.D. 79)

Still Wining After All These Years
by Tim Hayes & John Koetzner
Photos by Margie Koetzner

Okay, we've been busy making wine, drinking wine and just having fun. Yet, we didn't fail to miss a milestone: we hit our tenth anniversary of starting Wine Tributaries back at the Healdsburg Tribune in 1998. The paper went through several editors and owners, and we eventually went to the web. We happened to meet Jackie Wilferd, owner of Wines.com at Jerry Mead's funeral and we suddenly found a new outlet for our musings on wine for a couple years, even covering some international wine stories such as Vinopolis in London. There are some old archival articles there.

However, we eventually went the way of most independent writers and created our own site on our own domain, so that we could decide what we wanted to write about and let the wine muse lead us into new stories about wines, wineries, winemakers, winery owners, chefs, and wine events.

Whether it's winery owners, winemakers, local business people, or just locals, anyone who has been in the area for a while knows that the wine industry is never the same from year to year. Even the events change. For example, this year the Taste of Sonoma moved to a different month and joined forces with another wine event. Or, the recent demise of Copia, the Napa Valley wine center that was Robert Mondavi's brainchild, came to a screeching halt with the bad economy.

One of our discoveries was the newly opened Sbragia Family Winery in the old Lake Sonoma Winery facility. They have great Cabernet Sauvignon and they are using a glass stopper in place of a cork or Stelvin closure (screwcap) in their Sauvignon Blanc. Ed and Adam Sbragia bring a fresh way to look at wine.

Likewise, we've watched as winemakers such as Paul Brasset (formerly of White Oak, Pezzi King, Roshambo, and Sidney Frank) has faired with his own line of wines, BluenoseWines, and winemakers such as Mike Loykasek who won sweepstakes for De La Montanya at the 2007 Sonoma County Harvest Fair has faired with his Dark Horse Wines.

So, as we look a decade of the wine industry in the eyes from print, from the web, and from more than thirty years in the wine industry, we will continue to bring stories about wineries, wines, people, and the events that make up our wine tributaries.