Ep 118: ACORN Winery of Sonoma California
Wine for Normal People - A podcast by Elizabeth Schneider
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I had the honor of talking with Bill and Betsy Nachbaur of ACORN Winery in Sonoma. From Sonoma history, to grape leaf shape, canopy management, barrel toast, and their specialty -- field blends -- you will learn so much from this podcast. I know I did!
A few more details on the winery we forgot to hit...the significance of the winery and vineyard names...
Vineyard Name
Our Vineyard name, “Alegría”, means happiness and joy in Spanish. Bill chose the name, because he was much happier as a farmer than he’d been as a lawyer (and folks like his products) . He chose a Spanish word to honor California’s Mexican heritage, and to recognize that our ranch was part of the Rancho Sotoyome land grant. Spanish was spoken here before English, and our workers are mostly Mexican. We also use it as a toast. Alegría!
We wanted the winery name to be different than the vineyard name, because we wanted out grape buyers (we sell about a third of our grapes to other wineries), to vineyard-designate the wines they made from our Alegría Vineyard grapes. We felt they’d be more likely to do so, if the vineyard name was not also the name of a winery. Also, because Betsy’s Dad (and others) kept mispronouncing Alegría (saying Algeria), we wanted a name that was easily pronounceable and memorable.
Winery Name
We chose “ACORN” because we are tiny like an acorn; there are oak trees in our vineyards, our wine is aged in oak barrels; and an acorn is a symbol of potential, prosperity, and good fortune. It is also easy to pronounce. A writer once headlined an article about us: “Mighty Wines From Little Acorn Flow.”
