Sonoma County is home to 60,000 acres of vineyards, and 99% of them are certified sustainable. Impressive as that is, not all local vintners share the same level of dedication to earth-friendly practices. Here are three Sonoma County wineries that go above and beyond.
Littorai Winery
Founder and winemaker Ted Lemon learned to embrace biodynamic farming during his early career in Burgundy. While some paint biodynamics with a “woo-woo” brush, pointing to practices like following lunar cycles, Lemon emphasizes the interconnectedness of soil, plants, and nature.
Instead of chemical inputs, Littorai uses compost and natural preparations on its Sebastopol ranch to stimulate soil vitality and improve plant health. The idea is to maintain ecological balance by treating the farm as an integrated whole.
“The goal of biodynamic farming is to work with humans as sentient beings,” says Lemon, explaining that with the rapid advance of artificial intelligence, a boots-in-the-vineyard approach is more important than ever. “We have sight, touch, smell, taste, intuition, and emotion. We have an instrument that has a value that techno-utopians cannot replace or imitate.”
788 Gold Ridge Road, Sebastopol. 707-823-9586, littorai.com
Ram’s Gate Winery
Ram’s Gate’s estate vineyards in Sonoma are Regenerative Organic Certified — one of only a handful of California wineries to hold that distinction. The regenerative approach focuses on improving everything from soils and ecosystems to the well-being of farm workers and communities.
The winery forgoes synthetic inputs, uses cover crops to boost soil health and biodiversity, and integrates animals into its ecosystem through practices like sheep grazing for weed control. Last year, Ram’s Gate launched an agroforestry initiative, planting heirloom fruit trees within the vineyard rows to enhance soils, increase biodiversity, and sequester carbon…