The why behind the guide

LocaleTerroir is an independent, curated editorial guide to Sonoma County, built around one question: where do the people who live here actually go?

A view to the future

Sonoma comes first, written place by place. Napa and Mendocino are next, built the same way, with the people who live and work there.

What we stand for

About the Publisher

The guides

Ana Huson has worked in Northern California media for decades. As Advertising Director of AM/PM Publishing and its Epicurean Rendezvous guides to the 100 best restaurants in Northern California, Southern California, Florida and New York, her own territory was Napa and Sonoma. She later bought AM/PM and published the AM/PM Guide to Northern California, with Wine Country introductions by Robert Mondavi and wine tasting notes by a panel of nine Bay Area Master Sommeliers. She went on to found Sol y Luna, a bilingual guide to the best of Central America.

The restaurants

She has also stood on the other side of the table. She took her husband's San Francisco Italian restaurants, I Fratelli and Tre Fratelli, international: she created the franchise, documented and published its manuals of operation, and sold franchises in Central America, Texas and Spain. Their group also created Frisco Grill, an American bistro in Guatemala, and opened multiple units. They later sold Tre Fratelli to the Guatemala group that runs it today.

The golden years

Those were golden years. Led by Robert Mondavi, whose winery began America's first winery culinary program, the wine industry held seminars from Carmel and Monterey to Napa and Sonoma. Winemakers and chefs taught how wine lifts a meal, and when it clashes: a Cabernet with a lemon sauce, no; a Cabernet with a steak, divine. The original Napa Valley Mustard Festival filled the season. The goal was a bottle of wine on every American table. It worked.

Wine today

Today wine shares the table with more choices than ever: craft beer, which Ana watched take root in Seattle many years ago, fine spirits and ready-to-drink cocktails. While the choices keep growing, wine is still the bottle that turns dinner into an occasion.

Why LocaleTerroir

Wine belongs at the table, shared slowly with good food and good company. LocaleTerroir, the Sonoma guide, carries that same spirit: Sonoma's wineries, tables and stays on one map, written with the people who live and work here, so every visit can end with a glass raised to the place it came from.