9/10/2023 0 Comments Fly bird blood orange margaritaThe family-run business continues to grow by improving the quality of wines while offering customers consistent value across many appellations. That’s our family tradition, and that continues to be our vision for Don & Sons.” At the end of the day, I’ve learned that the best thing a winery can offer is well-made wines of consistent quality. These wines, which include B Side, Aquinas, Don & Sons, The Crusher and Project Paso, are sourced from specific wine-growing regions such as Napa Valley, Sonoma Coast, Clarksburg and Paso Robles. We are focusing on appellation-driven wines that appeal to a more wine-savvy audience. “I want to have a similar impact on the wine industry. “The plan is to continue the progress that previous generations in my family have made,” says Donny. In addition to popular, food-friendly wines by Pepperwood Grove and Smoking Loon, Don & Sons crafts a portfolio of appellation-based wines like The Crusher, Sivas-Sonoma, Aquinas, and B Side Napa Valley to name a few. In 2005, Don & Sons was named 2005 Wine Star Award ‘American Winery of the Year’ by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Today the company is led by Donny Sebastiani, great–grandson of Samuele the Sebastiani patriarch. In 2001, Don Sebastiani and his two sons, Donny and August, established Don Sebastiani & Sons. Those are two examples of Sebastiani wines that he created, that helped drive our winery’s rise during the latter half of the 20th century. consumers and he created a blush wine known as Pinot Noir Blanc. “He introduced a very fruit-forward “Nouveau” Gamay Beaujolais to U.S. In 2011, he was inducted into the Culinary Institute of America’s Vintners Hall of Fame in recognition of his lifetime accomplishments. The success of these wines enabled him to increase the winery’s production volume a hundredfold. Over his thirty years of running the Sebastiani winery, August focused on these varietal table wines. Now, these wines are even being produced in more traditional markets like France and Italy.” “Now we call those wines ‘fighting varietals’ and they continue to be an important part of the wine industry today, helping to grow the overall category. He wanted to bring quality wine to the general public,” says Donny. It was a whole new category and market for American wine. Under August’s leadership the winery expanded and began to sell Sebastiani branded wine to the general public, becoming the first vintner to market premium varietal wines in popularly-priced magnums. Most notably, he was able to bring quality wine to the general public, and was instrumental in helping shape the way the wine industry is today,” says Donny. He really had some remarkable achievements – both for the wine industry and for the town of Sonoma. “My grandfather quickly gained a reputation as being one of America’s most skilled and innovative winemakers. Shortly after Samuele’s death in 1944, August and his wife, Sylvia, purchased the family’s winery from his father’s estate. In the 1930s, Samuele brought his son August, the youngest of his three children, into active participation in winery management. At the winery, his cannery, building hotels, the theatre, everything…” x Around the town of Sonoma, he did, on a private/local scale, what FDR did on a public/federal level – put people to work. He maintained his winery license to make wines for the church and for medicinal purposes. “During prohibition and into the depression my great grandfather was industrious. He opened the Sebastiani Cannery and began to develop the town of Sonoma, creating jobs and building a church, hotel, apartments, a skating rink and even a theater that has now become a historic landmark in Sonoma. Samuele quickly established himself as a successful grape grower and winemaker in Sonoma County, but his reach stretched well beyond the vineyard. In a way, it was not only the beginning of our business, but also the continuation of what our family had done in Tuscany for generations.” “He sold it to the people he knew: local Italian farmers and stonecutters. “He carted that wine all around Sonoma,” says Donny Sebastiani. The grapes were from local farmers in Sonoma, and the winemaking techniques were those he had seen his parents use when he was a boy. After nine years of saving his money, Samuele invested in making five hundred gallons of wine. Sonoma’s stone quarries provided much of the raw material for the streets of San Francisco. Samuele Sebastiani’s first job in his new country was hauling stones in a horse-drawn cart from Sonoma to San Francisco, using the ferry to cross San Francisco Bay before the Golden Gate Bridge had been built.
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