Featured Wines
Cazadero Winery’s newest vintages, 2018 Bei Ranch Sonoma Coast Cabernet Sauvignon (a Cazadero Vineyard), 2022 Hummingbird Hill Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (a Santa Rosa Vineyard) & 2024 Starscape Vineyard Russian River Valley Chardonnay (a Forestville Vineyard) are now available online. Be the first to order them.
Cazadero Winery, founded in 2008, is Sonoma County’s most awarded Single Vineyard micro winery having garnered 205 Gold & Silver Medals as well as multiple Double Gold’s, many Best of Class, a Triple Gold, a Best of Sonoma County & Best of Sonoma Coast from local & international wine competitions since 2011.
Frank Egger’s grandfather, Eugene Egger, planted the original family vineyard out on Blue Jay, past Fine’s Mill off of Fort Ross Road, in the headwaters area of Cazadero’s Ward Creek in 1922 (Photo: the Egger Family in front of the family’s newly planted Cazadero vineyard).
All grapes for Cazadero Winery wines are handpicked, no machine harvester picks, with owner Frank Egger personally participating in most harvests since 2008.
Wines that complement your holiday meals
By Jeff Burkhart, Marin Independent Journal
April 15, 2025
2019 Cazadero Winery Parmeter King Ridge Vineyard Pinot Noir
Fort Ross-Seaview
$59
A two-time double-gold-winning wine, along with a few other single golds, Fairfax’s Frank and Ronita Egger have a real gem here. Red fruit nuance (raspberries and currants) creates a delicate yet strong fruit-forward base further supported by 14.4% alcohol and 100% French oak, which give this wine plenty of backbone — plenty enough for lamb or brisket for sure. Handpicked, all natural, native wild yeasts and “sustainably produced” hit all the proper buzzwords. And being unfined and unfiltered leaves you plenty to talk about when the wine is gone.
4 red wines to fall back on in autumn
It rained the other day, and if the smell of the woods after the first rain can be called petrichor, the smell of the freeway after a long drought can certainly be called “petrolchor.” But that rain and the slight nip in the evening air reminds us that summer is coming to an end. And granted, the fall equinox is still a month away, but now is the time we start to think about red wine — maybe not the tannic monsters of Napa or even northeastern Marin, or the denser pepper zinfandels of Sonoma, but still something more than a “lively” rosé or a “flinty” albariño.
And that is where pinot noir comes in. Sure, the kings of France would roll over in their tombs over the notion that pinot noir is a starter wine, but there, I’ve said it. Maybe I’ve become emboldened by the fact that the kings of France aren’t in their tombs anymore thanks to the French Revolution or because the notion of Burgundy being the “wine of kings” around here, where both chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon dominate and kings seem ridiculous, doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, pinot noir is both a great way to bridge the gap between white and red, as well as a great way to blow that gap wide open, too.
Cazadero Winery makes great pinot noirs. Frank hauling grapes out of Cazadero vineyards. (Courtesy of Cazadero Winery)Luckily for us, we sit in, on or adjacent to some of the greatest growing areas for pinot noir there are. Hot days, cool nights and fog, hell we might as well be in Burgundy — if Burgundy had redwoods and San Francisco. What did Herb Caen say about heaven? “It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.” And that could be said of just north of San Francisco, too — maybe especially just north of San Francisco.
Here are four excellent examples of the local bounty that is on offer.
#1 • Cazadero Winery, Hummingbird Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma, 2021, $59
Produced by Frank Egger, Fairfax’s former mayor, this unfined and unfiltered pinot noir is aged 12 months in French oak. In ultra-low production — 130 cases — this “cool-climate” pinot noir is “sustainably farmed” and has garnered several gold medal awards at local fairs and in local publications. A delicate dance of earth, sage, loamy cranberry and Earl Grey tea, this wine sings in the glass, even if you might have to pick some stuff out of your teeth during the afterglow.
More information at cazaderowinery.com.
Cazadero Winery wines are not blended, what you see on the label is what you get, 100% of that Single Vineyard Sonoma County varietal. We have been producing all natural, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and the Northern French Burgundian Pommard Clone 4 Pinot Noir since 2008.
From Fairfax mayor to award-winning winemaker
Marin Independent Journal, September 2022
JUST ANNOUINCED, APRIL 10, 2024
| Wine | Appellation | Designation | Award | Special Award(s) | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 Cazadero Winery Pinot Noir | Sonoma Coast (Sonoma) | Hummingbird Hill Vineyard | Gold at North Coast | 92 | North Coast Wine Challenge |
NEW FROM THE 2024 SUNSET INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION
2017 Cazadero Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Coast, 100% Cool Climate Cab
Gold at SUNSET, 92 POINTS
THIS JUST IN, 3-18-26, RESULTS, 2026 MONTEREY INTERNATIONAL WINE COMPETITION:
GOLD; CAZADERO WINERY’S 2018 BEI RANCH SONOMA COAST CABERNET SAUVIGNON, $59.
