"I'm So Sorry"

A trip to Sonoma, an unexpected emotion, and a grape nobody expects to care this much about

No crying in the vineyard

I'll be honest — I still don't fully know why I was chosen. The trip was organized by California Wine, and my best guess is that reaching out to Canadians right now wasn't an accident. Keep the relationship warm during the storm. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful, so I showed up.

It was after talking with Mary Dewane, owner of Benovia Winery in Russian River Valley, that I was hit with a wave of emotions and I embarrassingly found my eyes welling with tears. It wasn't sadness exactly. It was the humility that caught me off guard. Here I am, standing in front of someone who has spent decades building something extraordinary, and she's the one apologizing. For something she had absolutely no part in.

Mary and her husband Joe Anderson founded Benovia in 2005 — a family winery with giving back woven into everything they do, right down to wines created to support causes larger than themselves. Which is exactly what made her apology land so hard.

This sentiment of "our friends to the north" was not an isolated saying but a general feeling among all those that we visited. Winemakers, workers, growers, and owners would apologize wherever we went and send their sentiments to the Canadians in the group.

They had heard Prime Minister Carney's speech — the one where he stood at Davos and told the world plainly that the old rules-based international order "is not coming back." The speech that declared the United States is no longer a reliable partner. "It was a knife to the heart," one winemaker told me. "But we understand why." Another simply said, "That speech was so powerful." Our Prime Minister wasn't just speaking for Canada in that moment. He was speaking for every relationship that has been quietly fractured by policy made at the top.

Elbows up — but are we, really?

Back home in Alberta, the boycott lives entirely in the individual. Our privatized liquor system means American wine never fully disappeared from our shelves. Nobody tells you what to pick up. Which makes it interesting.

There are people who loudly and proudly declare no American wine — and I respect that. But I asked someone who works at a well-known restaurant downtown whether they'd seen a drop in California wine orders. They hadn't noticed one. Is it because that crowd skews toward oil executives and tourists, or people with less stake in the protest? Is it that the boutique wine shop in daylight, where your neighbours might see you, feels like a public declaration — while the dimly lit restaurant table feels like a private one? The same person, possibly. A very different feeling.

I don't have the answer. But I think about it.

78% — drop in US wine exports to Canada in 2025, per Wine Institute

$357M — lost in export value in a single year, the worst on record

Canada was their single largest export market — $460 million in shipments in 2024 alone, dropped to $103 million in 2025. Those Canadian accounts weren't built overnight. Some producers spent decades earning shelf space, building relationships with buyers, becoming a familiar name on a wine list. When the bans came, that wasn't a line item that got cut. For many, it was everything they had built internationally. Gone in a season.

California proved itself — and then some

Paris, 1976. Steven Spurrier organized a blind tasting of California wines against the great Burgundies and Bordeaux of France. Nine French judges. All blind. The 1973 Château Montelena Chardonnay beat the white Burgundies. The 1973 Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon beat the top Bordeaux. The room went very quiet. Those bottles now sit in the Smithsonian. Chardonnay remains the most planted grape in California to this day — and after that tasting, you can understand why the world took notice.

Zinfandel doesn't dominate the acreage the way Chardonnay does. It dominates the conversation. By far the most talked-about grape on our entire trip — not because it's everywhere, but because it has the most passionate advocates. There's something about this grape that gets under people's skin, and once you understand where it came from, you start to understand why.

It originated on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia (where it goes by Crljenak Kaštelanski — good luck), made its way through Italy, hopped the Atlantic to a nursery on Long Island in the 1820s, and then rode west with the Gold Rush, landing in California somewhere between 1852 and 1857. Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody cared much. It grew like a champ, made great wine, and became one of the most important grapes the state has ever grown. At that point California just adopted it. And here's a cool note — Ridge Vineyards' Lytton Springs property in Sonoma is actually growing an acre of the original Croatian ancestor of Zinfandel right now. The grape's great-great-grandparent, alive and well in Sonoma. More on Ridge in a sec.

Farmers first — a morning on Jackass Hill

Sonoma is not Napa. Napa built its identity on prestige. Sonoma built its identity on farming. Many of the wineries here started as agricultural operations that happened to grow exceptional grapes over generations, until someone looked around and said — we should probably make wine with these.

George Martinelli is that story. The Martinelli family has been farming the same land in the Russian River Valley since the 1880s, and George carries that history the way farmers do — quietly, without ceremony, but with an unmistakable depth of knowledge and warmth. The kind of person you'd follow in the vineyard and feel like you were getting the better end of the deal.

During our Truck Talks — driving through the properties, asking questions, getting a proper ground-level education — George was the one keeping an eye on the clock. At some point he glanced at his watch and I noted that the schedule at this point felt more like a suggestion than a guideline. George didn't miss a beat.

As we drove, he waved to his picking crew taking their lunch at a table on the side of the road. Unprompted. Just a wave. He talked about how his more experienced older pickers get first call on the rotation. As they get older and want less demanding work, they move to easier picking groups while the younger, stronger hands take the harder rows first. The kind of thing you don't learn about a place from a website.

And then we drove up Jackass Hill. The name comes from the Martinelli family's great-grandmother, who declared that anyone who wanted to plant vines on that impossibly steep slope must be a jackass. The hill is dramatic — sandy clay loam soil, a pitch that makes you grip the door handle, and from the top you can see the valley gap opening in the distance.

Zinfandel vines planted in 1890. A hundred and thirty-seven years old. Gnarled and ancient and still producing. And if you look closely at the older wood you can see where the pruning cuts were made by George's great-grandfather. Not a photograph of history. Not a plaque. The actual mark of a hand that worked this land over a century ago. I stood there for a moment and didn't say anything. Some things don't need commentary.

That afternoon, after seeing George with his team, I kept thinking about what sustainability actually means in a place like this. Karissa Kruse, who runs Sonoma County Winegrowers and was one of our hosts, told us the story herself. Apparently it was Duff Bevill — the guy everyone calls the Godfather of Sustainability — who, over a glass of Sauvignon Blanc (naturally), asked the big question: how do we get the Governor of California to actually recognize what Sonoma growers are doing out here?

So in 2014, Karissa rolled up her sleeves and got to work. By December 2019, 100% of Sonoma County vineyards were certified sustainable. But here's the part that got me — it was never just about soil and water. It's healthcare. Housing. Childcare. Education. For the people actually out there picking the grapes. The ones doing all the work and getting none of the headlines. George waving to his lunch crew, his whole rotation system for his older pickers — that's the same thing. That's what it looks like when sustainability is just woven into how you do things, not printed on a sticker. Sonoma gets it. You can feel it.

A room full of giants — the legacy wine panel

Three winemakers, a table lined with glasses, wines in some cases older than my career. Before I get into it — something the panel made clear that I had never fully considered: Zinfandel is as finicky as Pinot Noir. It needs well-drained soils and a winemaker who knows the exact moment to let go. During maceration you're tasting constantly — the moment you feel tannin starting to grip, the wine comes off the skins. Doesn't matter what the sugar says. You're chasing texture, not numbers. That plush, generous, sun-soaked fruit that makes great Zin so distinctly itself. I had wildly underestimated this grape. Which, based on the passion in that room, is apparently a very common mistake.

Joel Peterson — yes, the Godfather of Zinfandel — started Ravenswood back in 1976 with a tagline that became a whole movement: No Wimpy Wines. The thing grew. And grew. All the way to a million cases a year. And then in 2013 he tried to retire, but those damn vines wouldn't let him sleep. So, he started all over again. Once & Future Wines. He literally dusted off the old redwood fermenters from storage. His son Morgan is a Master of Wine now with his own celebrated label. And Morgan's son Joel? He just made his first Zinfandel. He's five.

Clay Mauritson is a seventh-generation farmer whose family has been growing grapes in Dry Creek since 1868. In the early 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers seized 3,300 acres of the family estate under Eminent Domain to build Lake Sonoma. The family kept the ridgetop acres, came back, and helped establish Rockpile as its own AVA. The 2013 Mauritson Rockpile Ridge Vineyard Zinfandel: dried raisin, prune, blackberry, pepper, plum. Clay mentioned the vintage quietly. 2013 may have been a year worth marking.

Shauna Rosenblum grew up as a cellar rat — her father Kent a veterinarian who became a Zinfandel legend, founding Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda. Shauna was on the bottling line at twelve, in blending sessions at sixteen, and then decided she wanted nothing to do with wine. She went to art school. Ceramics. Sculpture. And in her chemistry classes realized that glaze composition was exactly the same process as blending wine. It had followed her. In 2022 she joined Ridge Vineyards as Lytton Springs winemaker — the first woman to hold that position in the winery's 60-year history.

She told us about her dad. 1983. His Zinfandel had just won Best in Show at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. The call came while Kent was mid-surgery. Operating on an animal. His secretary slid the phone onto the surgical field. "You won it all. You won it all." Kent Rosenblum, veterinarian, Zinfandel champion, mid-surgery. That's California wine right there.

The Ridge Vineyards 2003 Lytton Springs Zinfandel we sipped as Shauna spoke still had so much life — fresh raspberry, plum, vanilla, a touch of maturity, plush and balanced. Twenty years old and hadn't given up. Joel's Ravenswood 1992 Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel from possibly the oldest continuously farmed vineyard in California, established in 1852. Toffee, leather, lively acidity, spice, a touch of mint. 1992. Still talking. Still alive.

 

And there was so much more

This trip had more in it than one blog can hold. A spectacular welcome dinner at Copain winery. A cooking competition at Celebrity Chef Duskie Estes' home with winemaker Julie Pedroncelli on my team — chaotic, fun, and a story that needs photos to tell properly. A full seminar on the Petaluma Gap and West Sonoma Coast that deserves its own post entirely. Good people everywhere you turned, more generosity than I knew what to do with.

The somm showdown

And then there was the moment I found out — along with the rest of the group — that we weren't just guests at dinner. We were the entertainment. The Healdsburg Wine & Food Sommelier Showdown at Dry Creek Kitchen. First sold-out show of the Festival. Live audience. Judged by Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein, Ray Isle of Food & Wine, and Virginie Boone. I was frazzled by the announcement, had a cold from the flight, and had never done a service in my life.

My partner Anna Tchoukaleff and I tasted the Trione Vineyards & Winery 2024 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley — and we both turned and looked at each other at the exact same moment. That's our wine. Bright citrusy acidity with deep Pinot Noir cherry and earth underneath. Grounded and real. Not just a summer sipper. A wine with something to say. Our pairing: crudo of local halibut with shaved porcini mushrooms, fennel, meyer lemon, and truffle aioli. The lemon brightness, the earthiness of porcini and truffle, the delicacy of the fish. That Rosé didn't shout. It whispered — and the room leaned in.

Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein named it his wine of the night. Anna and I looked at each other again. Different feeling this time as we took our bow. One of those deeply uncomfortable growing moments you only recognize as fun once it's over. Thank you. Genuinely.

On resilience

Before we were accepted on this trip, we were asked to write about what a resilient wine future looks like. Here is the gist of what I wrote:

When I think of resilience, I think of forests. In Canada, we have forest fires every year. Trees burn, the ash coats the ground, and new growth sprouts. The forest is a collection of trees, so it doesn't die while the individual tree may — the forest acts as its own organism. Resilience is acknowledging harm and challenges, and learning to pivot, move forward, and find new avenues. Without this ability, you become stuck.

I wrote that before I stood on Jackass Hill. Before I touched a pruning cut made by hands a century ago. Before I held a glass of wine from 1992 that still had something to say. Before a room full of people who had lost their most important export market looked at me and said sorry.

California knows resilience. Drought, wildfire, phylloxera, economic crash, and now a trade war not of their making. And every single time, the vines kept growing. The winemakers kept showing up. The 137-year-old Zinfandel vines on Jackass Hill did not ask whether it was a good political climate to produce fruit.

So keep your elbows up. Buy Canadian with pride. Support your local producers. But know this: the people on the other side of this are not the policy. They are the ones who looked a Canadian stranger in the eye and apologized for something they didn't do. They are playing a long game, thinking in generations, making wines that will outlast administrations.

They will be here when this is over. And when it is, I have a feeling our friends in California will be ready to welcome us back — with open arms and a very good glass of Zinfandel.

Cheers!
Jen