4 days ago
The Maverick Trio Making Magic in Sonoma Wine Country
On a blisteringly hot afternoon at Aperture Cellars in late May, the chenin blanc goes down easily, the first in a flight of Sonoma County wines produced here in Healdsburg, California. I'm staring out at acres of vines—stretching almost to the Russian River—alongside three wine world celebrities: Aperture's Jesse Katz, Marine Layer Wine's Baron Ziegler and chef Kyle Connaughton, whose restaurant SingleThread earned three Michelin stars. Apologies to the winner of a charity auction wandering nearby, who spent $170,000 on a prize package that included a private tasting here, but we're discussing important business, like how Connaughton once rolled up for a ski vacation in Telluride, Colorado, with a cooler full of duck.
'Kyle travels with his own dishware,' says Ziegler, the wine industry provocateur zinging his friend as only a close one can. (More than one story today involves a hot tub.) Call the trio the Young Guns of Healdsburg—or youngish, anyway—a group of maverick wine country entrepreneurs who, despite their jokey rapport, have become standard-bearers for a corner of Sonoma County at a time of great uncertainty.
