Giving Tuesday is a day to reflect on how we can stand up and make an impact in our communities. The past few years have been challenging for us all, but especially for children with food insecurity – many of whom rely on school programs to ensure full meals.

Did you know that 1 in 8 children in our country struggle with hunger? No child should go hungry and that is why for the last seven years, MacRostie has made a significant annual contribution to No Kid Hungry in support of their mission to end childhood hunger in America.

No Kid Hungry provides programs nationwide providing kids with the healthy and reliable food they need to thrive. In addition to our annual contribution, we’re donating $10 for each holiday gift set sold at the MacRostie Estate House through the end of the year.

How can you help? Join us and help feed more hungry kids by giving TODAY. Today only, No Kid Hungry’s Leading Partner Citi is MATCHING donations up to $500,000. That means your gift will go TWICE as far to help get urgently needed meals to the 1 in 8 kids at risk of hunger in America today. Every $10 donated provides as many as 200 meals. No amount is too small!

If you, or someone you know, have school-aged children that need access to free meals, please search here by zip code to locate your nearest meal distribution center. 

Wishing you a very wonderful, healthy, and safe holiday season,

The MacRostie Team

In the few short years since we unveiled the debut wines from our Nightwing Estate Vineyard in the Petaluma Gap AVA, Nightwing has rapidly emerged as one of California’s most acclaimed and exciting young Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vineyards. Earning across-the-board rave reviews from critics and numerous mid-90-point scores, it has exceeded all expectations and validated our belief in the remarkable quality of the site and its potential to become one of California’s greatest cool-climate vineyards.

Wind to Wine in the Petaluma Gap

Understanding why Nightwing Vineyard is so extraordinary begins by understanding the Petaluma Gap appellation (AVA), which only earned official AVA status in 2017. While the AVA may be new, among winemakers who focus on cool-climate grapes it has long been viewed as one of California’s top regions for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It is also a region that our Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen has worked with for many years and is so passionate about that she currently serves as President on the Board of Directors of the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance. The slogan for the AVA is “Wind to Wine,” and for good reason. The Petaluma Gap benefits from a wind gap in the coastal mountain range that funnels cooling breezes and fog east from the Pacific Ocean through Petaluma and south to San Pablo Bay. These persistent afternoon breezes result in lower yields and generous hangtimes, enabling flavors and fruit characteristics to fully develop, while creating beautifully balanced wines of uncommon depth and distinction. Though the AVA spans more than 200,000 acres, only about 4,000 are planted to vines spread across more than 70 vineyards.

Nightwing Takes Flight

In 2017, when Heidi and our founder, Steve MacRostie, first saw the unplanted land that would become Nightwing Vineyard, they both immediately recognized the site’s incredible untapped potential. “Great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay land in California is becoming more and more rare and Nightwing is Pinot and Chardonnay nirvana,” said Heidi, who personally selected Nightwing’s nine clones of Pinot Noir, nine clones of Chardonnay, and seven rootstocks. In partnership with Atlas Vineyard Management, which farms the nearby Gap’s Crown and Sunchase vineyards, Heidi oversaw the design and planting of Nightwing, which features numerous elevations, exposures and soil compositions. To take full advantage of this diversity, the vineyard was planted as a mosaic of 35 blocks featuring 44 acres of Pinot Noir and 30 acres of Chardonnay, with planted elevations reaching heights of 1,400 feet. “When we planted Nightwing, we leaned into the site’s natural diversity by planting multiple block and clone combinations,” said Heidi. “Today, several of those small blocks are the source for some of our most sought-after wines, including Nightwing Calera Clone Pinot Noir, Swan Clone Pinot Noir, and our Nightwing First Flight Pinot Noir.

About the Name Nightwing

We called the vineyard Nightwing in honor of Vernon Morelli, the property’s original owner and a WWII pilot who built a landing strip on the site. We also selected the name as a nod to the Petaluma Gap’s many indigenous birds. There are over 200 species of birds native to the Sonoma region, and some migrate in huge flocks at night. While we serve as caretakers of the vineyard by day, the name Nightwing acknowledges the many birds who watch over the land after dark, including the majestic Night Heron.

Experiencing Nightwing

Since we only occasionally host events at Nightwing, we unveiled a special experience last year to spotlight the vineyard and to help our customers forge a deeper connection with this exciting site and its wines. Focused exclusively on 90+ point wines from Nightwing, our 2-hour Nightwing Food & Wine Experience is a must for anyone who loves great food and wine pairings. The experience includes a flight of acclaimed current releases paired with caviar, local artisan cheeses and cured meats, as well as barrel samples of yet-to-be-released vintages from Nightwing. During the tasting, which features a delicious array of single-vineyard and single-clone bottlings, our Wine Ambassadors share stories about Nightwing, its history and what makes it such an extraordinary source for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

“Great vineyards are like great wineries,” added Heidi. “When properly stewarded, they evolve, mature and get better and better with age. Nightwing is on an extraordinary trajectory with the potential to become one of Sonoma’s grand cru-caliber vineyards.”

Making great wines begins with finding great vineyards; unique and lovingly tended sites with something special to express in the glass. At MacRostie, we work with upwards of 25 Chardonnay vineyards and close to 20 Pinot Noir sites each vintage, but we are always on the lookout for exciting new terroirs as we explore the diversity of Sonoma County Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. One such discovery is the Huichica (Hoo-cheee-kah) Hills Vineyard in the Carneros region of Sonoma County. 

We began working with Huichica Hills about five years back, and in the years since, it has played an important role in our Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and has even contributed to our pinnacle Pinot Noir, The Loch. In 2022, after evaluating our lots of Pinot Noir from Huichica Hills, Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen and her team were so impressed that they made the decision to elevate Huichica Hills to a single-vineyard wine, our 2022 MacRostie Huichica Hills Vineyard Carneros Pinot Noir.

One of the factors that drew Heidi to the 380-acre Huichica Hills Vineyard is its unique location straddling the border between the cooler Sonoma side of Carneros and the warmer Napa County side. Our prized block of Huichica Hills, which features Dijon Clone 828 Pinot Noir vines planted in 2012, is entirely on the Sonoma County side. The block features well-draining volcanic clay loam soil and is located on steep undulating hillsides. Planted in an ideal east-west orientation that allows cooling winds to funnel through the block, it yields grapes with thick skins, amazing color, and classic Carneros notes of earth and spice. While Carneros is know for producing lush, red fruited Pinot Noirs, the climate of Huichica Hills pushes the flavors to a darker fruit profile of blue fruits and purple plum with big, lush tannins. The site also naturally limits yields, with small, tight clusters producing intense, concentrated flavors.

At Huichica Hills, Heidi and our Grower Relations Manager & Viticulturist Taylor Abudi, work closely with the same farming company that guides two other acclaimed sites we work with, Mirabelle and Wohler Road vineyards, to implement pruning, leafing, and shoot thinning as needed. Because the vineyard produces a naturally bold expression of Pinot Noir, Heidi aged the wine in a bit more new French oak (38%) to frame the wine and add intriguing layers of cocoa and coffee.

If you wish to try our debut Huichica Hills Pinot Noir we invite you to visit our tasting room in Healdsburg, the MacRostie Estate House, where we are currently pouring the wine as part of our Signature Experience. Featuring single-vineyard Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, our Signature Tasting can be enhanced with a selection of curated food pairings, including Caviar & Truffle Chips or an Elevated Charcuterie Plate (vegetarian option available).

The wine was also be included in our May 2025 Summit and Pinnacle MacRostie Wine Club shipments. At MacRostie, we offer three great wine club options, our Pinnacle, Summit and Highlands clubs, with each one offering a Pinot, Chardonnay or Mixed option. Our customizable clubs also include a wealth of fantastic benefits such as access to limited production wines like Huichica Hills, complimentary tastings, exclusive member pricing, complimentary flat-rate shipping and much more. If you are a fan of world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, we hope that you will consider joining our vibrant community of wine lovers.