Vineyard photo courtesy of Trattore Farms Seven Tons of Dry Creek Valley Rhône Fruit Trattore Farms’ 40-acre Dry Creek Valley estate spans 11 vineyard blocks planted to a broad range of Rhône varieties. Two focused 2026 lots are now on the Marketplace: five tons of Grenache and two tons of Cinsault. Both are priced at $1,900 per ton and listed under the Marketplace’s Certified Sustainable Regenerative farming designation. Buyers can evaluate either varietal on its own or open a conversation about all seven tons. Cinsault does not appear on the Marketplace often, and the small lot sizes make this a particularly specific sourcing opportunity. The full details and seller contact are available in each listing. View Grenache → View Cinsault → Have grapes, bulk wine, or shiners to move? Reach wine industry buyers by posting on the WIN Marketplace. Use promo code MARKETPLACE for 100% off your next listing. Explore the Marketplace

Walk into almost any tasting room and you’ll hear a familiar introduction: “This is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It spent 18 months in French oak. The fruit comes from three estate vineyards, harvested by hand…” None of those things are wrong. They’re also not why most people buy wine. People don’t fall in love with barrel programs. They don’t become loyal because of a blend percentage. They don’t tell their friends about the clone selection or the fermentation protocol. They remember the story. At WISE, we often say, “Brand first. Wine second.” Not because the wine isn’t important. It absolutely is, but exceptional wine is no longer enough to stand out. There is another beautiful Cabernet down the road… Another thoughtfully crafted Chardonnay across the valley…Another talented winemaker making excellent wine. Your competitive advantage isn’t simply what’s in the bottle. It’s the story that gives the bottle meaning. People Remember M

2026 Coombsville Cabernet from Flying A Vineyard Flying A Vineyard brings an established Cabernet history to this month’s Round Up. Its 2026 Coombsville Cabernet Sauvignon comes from Clone 169 vines on 110R rootstock and is listed as organically farmed. Harvest timing is mid-September, with Grand Crew Vineyard Management overseeing the site. Previous buyers include Amici Cellars, Favia, and Far Niente—a useful piece of history for wineries evaluating the source. Price per ton is negotiable, leaving room for a direct conversation with the seller. If Coombsville Cabernet is already on your sourcing list—or this listing just put it there—the full vineyard details are ready on the Marketplace. View the Coombsville Cabernet listing → Have grapes, bulk wine, or shiners to move? Reach wine industry buyers by posting on the WIN Marketplace. Use promo code MARKETPLACE for 100% off your next listing. Explore the Marketplace Grapes Bu

There is, for good reason, a lot of reporting right now on climate change and how it's affecting the grape harvest. Everywhere you look, wine regions are experiencing harsher-than-normal conditions. It would be easy to write a post about how hot it is and stop there. But, I want to pick out something else: this is a story of climate volatility, not just heat. A Cold Night in Bigfork, Montana This hit home for me in 2022, when I was asked to evaluate a future winery, and existing vineyard in the Bigfork area of Montana. Two years earlier, in 2020, the growing season had been warm, and the owners felt good about what climate change might mean for grape growing that far north. But, climate change isn't just hotter weather. It's climate volatility. In that same warm year, Montana got a sudden, early, catastrophic cold event. The weather through September and into early October 2020 stayed mild, highs in the mid-50s, with only two nights that dipped to freezing. Because of that, most of the

Papapietro Perry Winery and Four Roses Bourbon Take Top Honors (March 6, 2026) — Winners have been announced in the fifth annual Los Angeles Invitational Wine & Spirits Challenge. A pinot noir from Papapietro Perry (Sonoma County, Calif.) and a small batch bourbon from Four Roses Distillery (Lawrenceburg, Ky.) topped their fields to be named Best of the Best. The competition was established in 2022, in conjunction with Los Angeles-based beverage professionals (representing both the on- and off-premise channels), to highlight the best of the best wine and spirits producers in the world, and to introduce those producers to the largest market of consumers in the United States. Judging took place February 18-19, 2026. Competition this year was stellar, says event producer Debra Del Fiorentino of Wine Competitions Management & Production: “Year after year, our judges continue to be impressed with the depth in each category. The quality of product was fantastic!” Wh

Domaine Della 2023 Soberanes Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir Takes Top Prize  November 18, 2025 — Winners have been announced in the 2025 Harvest Challenge Wine Competition. After two spirited days of judging, Domaine Della 2023 Soberanes Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir took the top prize. It was also awarded Best of Show Red Wine and Best of Monterey County AVA. Coming in at 98 points, judges praised the wine as “warm and spicy” with “fig and nutmeg.” Other descriptors included “meaty,” “prosciutto,” and “dried rose petal.”  With entries from across the globe, the Harvest Challenge bases judging on a group of vineyards (or even vines) from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions and grapes that combine to give personality to the wine.  In other competitions, this terroir is ignored. At the Harvest Challen

“Lumo has been the linchpin in the re-engineering of our approach to water management.”  Michael and Kara Busselen, the Owners of Woodhawk Vineyards, farm 21 acres of world-class Cabernet Sauvignon for Silver Oak, situated 1,000 feet above sea level, overlooking the Alexander Valley and Russian River at the northern end of Sonoma County. They're also starting to make some of their own high-end Cabernet. Michael and Kara in the vineyard. Over the past couple years, they’ve evolved their irrigation strategy in collaboration with Fruition Sciences and Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, supported by data from a sap flow monitor they have installed in one of their blocks.  The big shift in practice has been getting away from running relatively frequent, short-duration sets and moving toward running longer-duration irrigations less often. “Far fewer but far more strategic,” with the aim of improving the root architecture

A draft Napa County Regional Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (RCAAP) has been released for public comment. The draft and related documents can be found at https://climateactionnapa.konveio.com/  Comments are due by September 30, 2025. This draft has been in development for many years, and covers the County of Napa, the Cities of American Canyon, Calistoga, Napa, and St. Helena, and the Town of Yountville. It includes Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction targets of up to 85 percent by 2045. At the same time, it aims to achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2045, primarily by reforestation of burned areas of the County to promote natural carbon sequestration and removing GHGs from the atmosphere. The draft discusses 21 GHG reduction strategies with 46 GHG reduction measures across seven emissions sectors, (though the draft only quantifies the impact of 17 of those measures). The seven sectors, in declining order of their listed percentage of GHG Emissions, are: On-Road Tr

Garrison Brothers Distillery and Ledson Winery Take Top Honors  (March 17, 2025) — Winners have been announced in the fourth annual Los Angeles Invitational Wine & Spirits Challenge. A merlot from Ledson Vineyards & Winery (Sonoma County, Calif.) and a small batch bourbon from Garrison Brothers Distillery (Hye, Texas.) topped their fields to be named Best of the Best. The competition was established in 2022, in conjunction with Los Angeles-based beverage professionals (representing both the on- and off-premise channels), to highlight the best of the best wine and spirits producers in the world, and to introduce those producers to the largest market of consumers in the United States. Judging took place February 25-26, 2025. Says event producer Debra Del Fiorentino of Wine Competitions Management & Production, “Year after year, our judges continue to be impressed with the depth in each category. The quality of product was fantastic!” Competition this ye

It's not for the faint of heart Going no-till certainly has been picking up steam in recent years, and overall it’s a good thing. When I first got involved in viticulture back in 2010 I was living in Italy. Like a lot of Mediterranean viticultural areas, there was a tendency to disc everything all the time. If you didn’t have a barren wasteland with vines poking out of it, you weren’t a good farmer. Anything you couldn’t get to with a tractor you sprayed with herbicide. One of my first vineyard jobs in Italy was spraying glyphosate out of a backpack sprayer all spring. I felt like I was in the final scene of the Godfather! Minus the dying part. Herbicide: the new four-letter word Mentalities have shifted since then both in Europe and here in the states. All in all it’s a good shift. We’ve all seen places that have gone on for years and years using herbicide to a point where you don’t even need to spray it anymore because that soil is so d