North Bay Business Journal

Agavé Garden (agavegarden.com) is not grape wine, but it is fermented in local wine country and shipped in wine bottles. It’s not distilled like tequila, but it is made from organic syrup of Agavé tequilana weber, or blue agave. This “fine agavé wine” is the work of custom vintner Owl Ridge Wine Services of Sebastopol. …

Large-scale custom winemaking company The Vintners Group, which operates Carneros Vintners, purchased a 600,000-gallon winery it had been renting from the VinREIT division of Entertainment Properties Trust since the middle of last year. …

Karissa Kruse, who has been marketing director for Sonoma County Winegrape Commission since August and instrumental in the rollout of the Sonoma County branding campaign, is set be the 1,800-plus-member organization’s next president on May 1. She replaces Nick Frey. …

The anticipated Kendall-Jackson bistro and tasting lounge is coming to the Healdsburg plaza area around the end of this month. The 55-seat restaurant, called Partake by K-J (partakebykj.com), is set to open March 25 at 241 Healdsburg Ave. …

La Follette Wines (lafollettewines.com), launched in 2010 by Tandem creator Greg La Follette, is set to open a tasting room with private and public tasting events March 15–17 at The Barlow industrial-retail redevelopment in Sebastopol. …

The 17th annual Premiere Napa Valley charity auction by Napa Valley Vintners in late February took in $3.04 million, nearly matching last year’s record. …

A total of $483,500 in proceeds from the 2012 Sonoma Wine Country Weekend charity food and wine events. …

A 9-liter bottle of 2010 Williams Selyem Westside Road Neighbors pinot noir was auctioned for a Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo record $205,000. …

SANTA ROSA — Sonoma County Winegrape Commission found the next leader for the 1,800-plus-member group in its recently hired marketing director, Karissa Kruse.

SANTA ROSA — While the 2012 winegrape harvest in Sonoma County appears to have been among the county’s largest ever, the market for grapes continues to be active early in the 2013 buying cycle, yet rising costs and uncertain ability to increase retail prices is crushing wine producer margins, according to industry supply and finance experts at a major seminar.

SANTA ROSA — Nick Frey, president of Sonoma County Winegrape Commission and its predecessor trade group for nearly 14 years, today formally announced he will retire this spring.

SANTA ROSA — Sonoma County winegrape growers, vintners and tourism promoters are launching a coordinated multimedia campaign to promote one of the county’s top economic engines.

The San Rafael Chamber of Commerce recently announced the appointment of several new officers and directors. …

Strong & Hayden Commercial Real Estate announced its agent Michael Holcomb earned the CCIM designation. …

Friends House, a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community in Santa Rosa, and Pacific Retirement Services, Inc., a not-for-profit senior housing and care provider that manages Friends House through its California affiliate, Retirement Services, LLC, announced that Travis Staples has been appointed to the position of executive director. …

The Pacific Coast Air Museum Board of Directors has selected Christina Olds as its new director of museum operations. …

Marin resident Shirin Vakharia joined the California Alliance for Arts Education board of directors. It’s a statewide arts education advocacy organization based in Pasadena and Sacramento. …

The Petaluma Community Foundation has appointed six new members to its board of trustees since its relocation downtown in August. …

Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission, will lead the Sonoma County Harvest Fair as board president for 2013. …

More than half the 2012 North Coast winegrape crop is off the vine and most of the rest is expected to be arriving at wineries by early November.

Many North Coast growers and wineries were surprised to find the crops were much bigger than expected around the beginning of the season.

SANTA ROSA — A coalition of Sonoma County wine, grape and tourism organizations today unveiled a new coordinated marketing strategy, an effort that participants said is designed to raise the county’s profile among other winemaking destinations in the United States.

After three straight years of harvests delayed and reduced by unwelcome weather, North Coast winegrape growers see signs of brighter prospects for a 2012 crop that could be, thankfully, average-sized and on time.

After three consecutive years with early and late rains and hard frosts in some areas negatively impacting winegrape production, growers and wineries in the North Bay and coastal regions of California cling to hope for sustainable yields and better returns in 2012 and beyond.

Sonoma-based Cecchetti Wine Co. reported that it had its third year of volume sales growth. Roy Cecchetti’s goal of making lower-priced wines has resulted in 200,000 cases sold in 2010, a 39 percent increase from 2009. The winery is projecting sales of 250,000 cases total this year. … Winners from vineyard pruning contests in Mendocino, Sonoma and Napa counties. … A California Department of Industrial Relations Division of Labor Standards Enforcement opinion letter has added new wrinkles to the quandary over whether student interns have to be paid at least minimum wage as employees, according to Jennifer Phillips, an employment and real estate attorney with Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty in Santa Rosa. … Graton-based custom winemaker Sonoma Wine Co., which now produces more than 5 million cases of wine from six facilities in Sonoma and Napa counties, inked a deal with Sebastopol-based Winesecrets to provide services to Sonoma Wine’s 30 clients. … Golden State Overnight and FedEx expand direct-shipping services. … Bill Hambrecht teams with Paul and Heath Dolan and Phil Hurst in the H.D.D. wine group venture. … Dry Creek Vineyard entered a sales and marketing agreement with Sonoma-based V2 Wine Group, which will manage Dry Creek’s distribution nationwide.

SANTA ROSA — The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 5-0 to proceed to a final vote at next week’s meeting on a draft frost-protection water use ordinance, despite warnings from several conservation groups today to slow down the process and make it more “transparent.”

SANTA ROSA — The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors this afternoon is set to consider reworked local rules for use of well and stream water for frost protection in parts of the Russian River Basin deemed key habitat for protected fish.

SONOMA COUNTY — A bid to make the Sonoma County name a standard descriptive feature on all wines made from grapes grown in its winegrowing regions, called conjunctive labeling, reached a significant stage today as grower and winery trade groups reached consensus to back state legislation this year to make it happen.

Leaders of Sonoma County Vintners,

Just months after launch, Santa Rosa-based TastingRoom already has nearly 50 wineries lined up to repackage their wines in 50-milliliter bottles that allow remote sampling of their wines. … Tonnelerie Saury, which produces the Leroi and Erable brands, merged with French barrel stave maker Groupe Charlois. All 6,700 cubic meters of staves Charlois produces will go to Saury brands, instead of the 70 percent usage currently. … Presidents of the various American Viticultural Areas in Sonoma County plan to meet April 27 to decide whether to support Sonoma County vintners’ proposal for conjunctive labeling, which would require wines made in nested or subappellations to also carry the name of Sonoma County as the origin of most of the grapes in the wine, according to Nick Frey, president of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission. … Napa-based direct-to-consumer wine sales training program WISE Academy (www.wineindustry
saleseducation.com) is launching two new courses. … Twenty years after buying 4,000 acres of land on Mt. George in Napa Valley and planting 75 acres of it, Kenzo Tsujimoto, chairman of the Japanese gaming giant Capcom Group, plans to open his Kenzo Estate winery on Monticello Road on May 1.

Foster’s reports ‘premiumization’ showing some gains

SANTA ROSA – The Sonoma County Vintners trade group on Jan. 20 started a campaign to get state legislation that would require labels mentioning any viticultural area within the county to also include “Sonoma County.”

North Coast winegrape growers late last week were looking forward to a few warm, breezy days to dry out the remaining grapes on the vine and close out what has been a surprising, challenging season in terms of weather and economics.

SONOMA COUNTY – As tourism statistics indicate the sector is on the rise, the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau will commence its first, three-year strategic plan, including more tech marketing, a larger home office and additional satellite locations on the East Coast and abroad.

CALIFORNIA – Some California farmers will for the first time receive crop insurance coverage for losses created by a quarantine, according to a new pilot program announced by federal officials this month.