Month: December 2023

Dear Friends,

Festive greetings from the Russian River Valley! With another year drawing to a close and the holidays approaching, there is so much that we are grateful for here at MacRostie—most especially our amazing community of club members. One of the great delights of 2023 was the fact that we were able to resume our full slate of events. We love hosting events! There really is no better way to share our passion for wine with our members, which is why we were thrilled to hold our second annual Nightwing Estate Summer Party in August, where over 200 guests experienced the beauty of our new estate vineyard while celebrating the finest in Sonoma County food and wine.

And because not all of our members can regularly make it to wine country, we took MacRostie on the Road again in 2023, hosting unforgettable events in Tampa, Houston, Austin, Washington D.C., New York, and Dallas. We participated in more than 45 events in 2023, where we connected with many old friends and made countless new ones.

This past year also marked Heidi Bridenhagen’s 10^th anniversary as our winemaker. What Heidi and her team have accomplished over the past decade is extraordinary. In addition to garnering more than 475 scores of 90 points or higher during her tenure, in 2023 Heidi earned double honors from the North Bay Business Journal, which named her one of its “Forty Under 40 for 2023,” and presented her with the “Winemaking Excellence Award” at the Women in Wine Awards. With a female winemaker, assistant winemaker, and grower relations manager here at MacRostie, we are proud to be a Women-Led Winery helping to chart a path toward greater equity and representation in the wine industry.

Under Heidi’s dynamic leadership, 2023 saw us unveil a host of fantastic new wines, from our inaugural Nightwing Vineyard Pinot Noir to our debut Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs sparkling wines to our first-ever Clockwise Zinfandel from the famed Monte Rosso Vineyard. This spirit of exploration and winemaking artistry will continue in the coming year, with the scheduled release of several fantastic new wines, including our first Nightwing Vineyard Late Harvest Chardonnay dessert wine, a single-vineyard Bennett Valley Syrah from Clockwise, and our debut Pinot Noir from the iconic Fiddlestix Vineyard in Santa Barbara County’s renowned Santa Rita Hills AVA.

From all of us here at MacRostie, thank you for your support. Your patronage and passion for our wines is a constant source of inspiration. May your holidays be filled with joyful gatherings and unforgettable wines!

Warmest wishes,

The MacRostie Team

Since 2015, when we opened the doors to our beautiful MacRostie Estate House in the idyllic Russian River Valley, we have dedicated ourselves to providing our guests with the finest wine tasting experience in Sonoma County. While our frontline Wine Ambassadors are the welcoming faces that greet and guide you during a MacRostie tasting, it also takes a great back-of-the-house team to ensure that every guest experience is all that it can be. That’s where Jamison comes in. “As assistant operations manager, it’s my job to help ensure the trains run on time at the Estate House,” says Jamison, who joined our team in 2022.

Jamison was born and raised in Sonoma County, where she developed an interest in wine working in the hospitality industry before earning an associate of arts degree in communications. Jamison began her career in wine at Fort Ross Vineyard and Winery, where she served as the assistant tasting room manager. During this time, Jamison took an out-of-town guest for a visit to MacRostie, and both Jamison and her friend left as passionate wine club members. After years as a member, when the chance came to join our team, Jamison was thrilled. “I’d already fallen in love with  MacRostie’s wines, the Estate House experience, and its amazing team. Now I’m part of that team, and instead of paying for the wines, I get paid to sample them!” As our assistant operations manager, Jamison wears many hats, overseeing inventory, payroll, and many other aspects of operations that help ensure seamless operations at the Estate House.

Jamison holds her WSET Level 1 certification from the Napa Valley Wine Academy and lives in Santa Rosa with her dog and two ducks. Outside of work, she loves hiking in nature and taking day trips to the coast. While her go-to MacRostie wines are the Hellenthal and Wildcat Mountain Pinot Noirs, once the weather warms, it’s Rosé of Pinot Noir time for Jamison.