West Wines

Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve — Aged two years in French oak and several more in bottle; the first American wine served at the Nobel Prize banquet, in 2010.

Viognier Reserve — A crisp, aromatic white off the valley-floor vineyard.

Tuscan Cuvée — A Sangiovese-based red blend.

Sauvignon Blanc — From the cooler south end of the valley.

All estate grown across two sustainably farmed vineyards — one creek-side, one four hundred feet up a ridge — and made in the traditional French style for long aging.

West Wines is the work of two Swedes, Katarina Bonde and Bengt Åkerlind, who left tech careers in Seattle for Dry Creek Valley and bought a sixty-acre vineyard two miles from Healdsburg Plaza in 1998. They farm two sustainable sites — one on the valley floor beside the creek, the other four hundred feet up a ridge where they built their house — and make wine the way they grew up drinking it, on the French model, with long patience. The Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve spends two years in French oak and several more in bottle before release. In 2010 it became the first American wine poured at the Nobel Prize banquet.

Katarina Bonde runs the winemaking now. She disliked handing it to others — first Julia Iantosca, then the veteran Phyllis Zouzounis, who still consults — so she earned a winemaking certificate at UC Davis and took the cellar over herself, a technologist turned vintner. Tastings are poured under a vast oak overlooking the vines, and the Swedish roots surface every year in the glögg party the weekend after Thanksgiving. Guests can stay next door at the vine-side Big Oak House. She keeps a foot in tech, sitting on company boards between vintages.

Katarina Bonde came to wine from the technology industry, where she built a career after moving from Sweden to Seattle. She disliked handing the winemaking to others — first Julia Iantosca, then the veteran consulting winemaker Phyllis Zouzounis, who still advises — so she earned a winemaking certificate at UC Davis between 2008 and 2012 and took the cellar over herself. She favors traditional French methods and long aging, and still serves on several company boards between vintages.

Bengt Åkerlind and Katarina Bonde left tech careers in Seattle and bought a sixty-acre Dry Creek Valley vineyard as a getaway in 1998, at first selling the fruit before easing into winemaking. The two Swedes built West Wines into a boutique label whose Cabernet reaches restaurants back in their native Sweden — and, in 2010, the Nobel Prize banquet in Stockholm.