At Bacigalupi Vineyards, Nicole Bacigalupi Dericco and her twin sister, Katey Bacigalupi Row, share duties as the general manager for their family’s vineyard company and winery. Nicole is quick to laugh at her title. “As a family-run business, we wear a lot of hats. Basically, we do anything that needs doing.” Nicole and Katey are the third generation of their family to guide the business that their grandparents, Helen and Charles Bacigalupi, founded back in the 1950s—decades ahead of the grape planting boom that reshaped California wine country. There’s a fourth generation in the wings. Nicole and Katey each have two young children, all of whom are 10 or younger. “We probably can’t count them as the fourth generation to work here yet, but they help out at events, bussing tables, or doing odd jobs. We’re trying to plant the seeds for their future involvement.”

When asked why so many of the great vineyard companies are multigenerational, Nicole considers the question. “Farming isn’t a 9 to 5 job. It’s a way of life. My dad, John, who guides our farming, has pretty much worked every day for the past 45 years. Working the land is his obligation and his passion. The vineyards rely on us to be present.”

The seed that would grow to become Bacigalupi Vineyards was first planted in 1956, when Charles Bacigalupi, who was a dentist, and his wife Helen, a pharmacist, followed their love of the land and acquired the 121 acres that would become the Bacigalupi family’s Goddard Ranch on Westside Road. On the advice of Pam’s father, who believed that premium winegrapes were the future of the Russian River Valley, Charles began planting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. This included using Pinot Noir budwood from Karl Wente—the first well-documented plantings of Pinot Noir in the Russian River Valley. Charles and his son, John, worked alongside each other, perfecting their viticulture techniques and expanding the vineyards with the addition of Bloom Ranch in 1973.

In 1976, the Bacigalupi’s caught lightening in a bottle, when Château Montelena’s 1973 Chardonnay—a wine that included Bacigalupi fruit—won the famous Judgment of Paris Tasting against a who’s who of the world’s best Chardonnays. “Back then, the California wine industry was in its infancy,” says Nicole. “That win let us know that we were on the right path. It also elevated perceptions of the Russian River Valley. But as farmers, we don’t believe in resting on our laurels. There is always another vintage that needs our attention.”

In the years that followed, the Bacigalupis honed their skill as grape growers, with John taking on the role of vineyard manager, and in the early 1980s, the family partnered with Belvedere Winery to release some of California’s first vineyard-designate Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. This included a 1983 vintage that was served at the White House for President Ronald Reagan. In 1993, the Bacigalupis added a third property, the now-renowned Frost Ranch, to their vineyard holdings, and in 2011, the family founded their own winery and opened their Tasting Room, neighboring MacRostie on Westside Road.

MacRostie’s history with the Bacigalupi family goes back decades to Steve MacRostie’s early relationship with Nicole and Katey’s parents, John and Pam. Over the past decade, this relationship has only deepened, as our winemaker, Heidi Bridenhagen, has sourced grapes from a coveted block (Block 12A) of Frost Ranch to craft our Bacigalupi Vineyard Chardonnay. Fruit from Frost Ranch often also plays a key role in our pinnacle Chardonnay bottling, The Key. “Frost Ranch is a fantastic vineyard,” says Heidi. “It’s in a warmer part of the Russian River Valley and features a combo of plantings of old 1970s heritage clones. It also has a very unique trellising system that’s a hybrid of vertical shoot positioning (VSP) and old-school sprawl, which provides this ideal dappled sunlight to the grapes. We often pick it at lower Brix, and it produces an exquisite standalone Chardonnay, with gorgeous floral notes, amazing acidity, and lovely citrus and tropical flavors.”

In any given vintage, the Bacigalupi family works with approximately 15 to 20 wineries, but only a few—like MacRostie—are allowed to make vineyard-designate wines using the Bacigalupi name. “When it comes to putting our name on a bottle, we are looking for wineries that share our values and our commitment to quality,” says Nicole. “We are not looking just to sell fruit. We are looking for mutually beneficial relationships. When I see my family’s name on a bottle, I want to be proud. Heidi is a fantastic winemaker and a joy to work with. Despite being so accomplished, she has this very humble, respectful approach that is really refreshing. She gets it!”

As a reflection of how closely aligned MacRostie is with the Bacigalupis, the two wineries share the fruit from Block 12A. In fact, Block 12A is the same section of the vineyard that the family used to make their winery’s debut Bacigalupi Vineyard Chardonnay. “We are neighbors in Block 12A,” adds Nicole, “and our tasting rooms are right around the corner from each other. When we talk about our roots in the Russian River Valley and our love of this region, that’s something that Heidi and the MacRostie team understand.”

It’s hard to believe that 2024 is my fourteenth harvest here at MacRostie and my twelfth as a winemaker. Or to put it another way, I’ve been making wine at MacRostie for a third of my life, and I’ve seen many different types of vintages. Each year brings new insights and wisdom-there is always something to learn. The 2024 growing season was an interesting one, and the success of the vintage will be different depending on what type of varietals you work with and what regions you grow them in. As a winery dedicated to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from cool-climate regions that include the Sonoma Coast, Russian River Valley, Petaluma Gap, Carneros, Redwood Valley, Anderson Valley, and the Santa Lucia Highlands the 2024 growing season was excellent, and I am particularly excited by our Chardonnays.

The vintage started with perfect weather for flowering, producing a bountiful crop of Pinot Noir and historically average yields for Chardonnay. Moderate early summer temperatures with occasional short periods of heat provided ideal conditions for ripening. This was followed by a hot July and mild temperatures throughout most of August. In terms of the timing of the weather in the leadup to harvest, as a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay winemaker, the conditions were great.

There was some heat at the end of August and into September that hurried things along, but just as I started to get stressed about things like tank capacity and dehydration, the weather really cooled off. This gave us an extra two weeks for the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to recover on the vine, soak up some moisture, finish ripening, and come in at an even and steady pace—with really amazing quality overall! 

Happily, all of our grapes were harvested by October 1^st, which meant that we were able to bring everything in before the big heat wave that hit in October. In fact, we were finished with our Pinot Noir fermentations by the middle of October, and we are currently just wrapping up the primary fermentations for our Chardonnays. While it is still very early to properly assess the characteristics of individual wines, in general terms I am very enthusiastic. Across the board, the wines are clean, aromatic, and elegant, and I am particularly impressed with the phenomenal quality of our Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

Because everything was picked before the October heat wave, the grapes arrived in pristine condition, with pure, profound flavors and an electric intensity that promises a standout vintage. While the 2021 vintage remains perhaps my favorite overall vintage for Pinot and Chardonnay, I think our 2024 Chardonnays have the potential to rival even that extraordinary growing season. Of course, only time will tell, and it will be a couple of years until we begin releasing our 2024s. Until then, our 2021, 2022, and soon-to-be-released 2023 wines offer a world of pleasure and discovery.

HEIDI BRIDENHAGEN
Winemaker – MacRostie Winery and Vineyards

The history of winegrowing in Sonoma County goes back more than 200 years, with grapes planted in the region as early as 1812. By the 1920s, driven by European immigrants who brought their viticultural traditions with them, there were more than 250 wineries in Sonoma County. While that number dropped to less than 50 wineries by the end of Prohibition, the region had already established itself as a New World mecca for wine.

In the decades that followed, different parts of Sonoma County earned acclaim for specific grape varietals, and efforts emerged to define different regions within Sonoma County. Building on the region’s reputation for excellence, the Sonoma Coast earned official status as an American Viticulture Area (also known as an AVA or appellation) in 1987. The Sonoma Coast AVA is one of California’s most diverse wine regions. Much like the Napa Valley AVA, which includes 16 sub-AVAs, the Sonoma Coast encompasses nine unique sub-AVAs: Chalk Hill, Fort Ross-Seaview, Green Valley of Russian River Valley, Los Carneros, Northern Sonoma, Sonoma Valley, the Russian River Valley, which is home to our Estate House and our Thale’s Vineyard, and the Petaluma Gap, where we established our Nightwing Estate Vineyard.

Spanning almost half a million acres of land, the Sonoma Coast extends from the border of Mendocino County in the north to San Pablo Bay in the south, and from the windswept Pacific Coast to the rolling hills of Sonoma County’s southeastern dairy lands. While the AVA offers an abundance of microclimates, geology, and soil types, in general, the best Sonoma Coast wines benefit from wind and fog off the Pacific, and the fact that the region consistently receives almost twice the annual rainfall of AVAs that are further inland. These factors generally ensure a long, temperate growing season, which allows for slow, even ripening and acid retention, both of which contribute to the extraordinary quality of our Sonoma Coast wines.

Today, many of North America’s highest-scoring and most celebrated Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays are grown on the Sonoma Coast, with Sonoma County being named the “Wine Region of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast in 2019, and wines from the Sonoma Coast are consistently featured on Wine Spectator’s annual list of the “World’s Top 100 Wines,” including the “2011 Wine of the Year.” The acclaim of the Sonoma Coast AVA has only grown over the past two decades during the Pinot Noir boom that has reshaped the map of California winegrowing. During this time, many wineries like MacRostie that focus on cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as well as winegrowers, have headed ever further west and north to plant new vineyards using the best modern plant material and state-of-the-art viticultural techniques.

Because of its large size and diversity, the Sonoma Coast can produce wines in a range of styles. For Chardonnays from the coolest regions like Green Valley, this can mean sleek, acid-driven wines with zesty citrus flavors and sophisticated minerality. In warmer vineyards, the flavor spectrum can change from citrus to stone fruit to tropical. Pinot Noir can follow a similar spectrum of ripeness from tart red berry and forest floor flavors to more opulent blue and black fruit flavors at warmer sites.

At our Sonoma Winery, Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen embraces the diversity of the Sonoma Coast vineyards we partner with to create vibrant, beautifully balanced wines with profound aromas and complex, layered flavors. This is certainly true for our 2022 MacRostie Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, which recently earned 93 points from both Wine Enthusiast and The Tasting Panel. Blended using grapes from theSangiacomo and Ricci vineyards in Carneros, and sites farmed by the Dutton and Martinelli families in the Russian River Valley, it combines notes of lemon and stone fruit from Carneros with the acid-driven tension, green apple, and tropical fruit of the Russian River Valley. For the 2022 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, Heidi focused on her favorite sub-AVAs for Pinot, notably the Russian River Valley, Carneros, and the Petaluma Gap. From the earth and spice notes of Carneros to the lush fruit of the Russian River Valley to the power and complexity of the Petaluma Gap, each vineyard and region brings something distinctive and compelling to the final wine.

We also explore many single-vineyard expressions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast at sites like Walala Vineyard and Wildcat Mountain, as well as from acclaimed sub-AVAs like the Russian River Valley (Kent Ritchie Vineyard, Thale’s, Mirabelle, Klopp Ranch), the Petaluma Gap (Nightwing Vineyard, Gap’s Crown) and Los Carneros (Sangiacomo Vineyard).

While the Sonoma Coast is globally renowned for its wines, it has also earned acclaim as one of the world’s premier destinations for wine tourism and relaxed, down-to-earth hospitality. Sonoma Coast wine country has become a must-visit destination by combining world-class wines, Michelin-starred restaurants, and beautiful hotels with a warm, unpretentious attitude. It is also home to numerous tasting rooms and not-to-be-missed annual wine events like Winter Wineland (January), Taste of Sonoma (June), the Sonoma County Wine Auction (September), and Pinot on the River and Healdsburg Crush (October).

Whatever your taste is in wine, food, and outdoor fun, the Sonoma Coast has it all!