History

Prior to moving to Sugarloaf Wine Company in 2023, we started making wine at Copain Custom Crush in Santa Rosa. At that time it housed many successful brands like DuMol, Donum Estate and Carlisle. We moved to our Russian River Valley winery in 2013. The building had an interesting history in Sonoma county lore. It was first built as a winery for Sam Marovitch’s Fulton Valley Cellars. Many now-well-known winemakers have passed through its walls including Joseph Swan Winery’s Rod Berglund, Porter Creek’s George Davis and Robert Mueller of Mueller Wines. The Kunde family took over the property and ran Sonoma Grapevines, using the vines around the property as budwood that was then grafted onto rootstock in the cold storage buildings to propagate clonal selections for vineyards all over Sonoma Valley. Many locals tell us fond memories of the parties and 4H events that took place within the walls of the Farmery. The upstairs offices used to house the Russian River Wine Growers association. We always thought that after Saralee Kunde left this mortal coil we would hear her coming to work in the place she loved when doors would open or when we would hear strange sounds out-of the-blue.