Welcome to the Hafner Vineyard blog. Here, we share what’s happening around the vineyard and winery, along with wine education, helpful wine tips, stories from our patrons, and some of our favorite things to do in Healdsburg and Sonoma County.
We hope you enjoy following along, and if there’s something you’d like to learn more about, we’d love to hear from you.
Send your ideas to kate@hafnervineyard.com
The Press
Our little town of Healdsburg here in Sonoma County has turned into a mecca for wine lovers. It has much more to offer than just great wines. We want to share with you things to do in Healdsburg t...
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Early each year, we sit down at Mom and Dad’s dining room table overlooking the vineyard for our annual vertical tastings. Held over a couple of days, these tastings give us an opportunity to compa...
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From December until March each year, our veteran vineyard crew tackles the tedious and time consuming job of pruning our 80,000 vines. While the vines are dormant, the crew removes most of last yea...
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Looking out over the vineyard from our home, I see Winter asserting its cooling authority and I remember the warm magic of Spring and Summer. How excited all of us were in March and April to see t...
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Bottling is a critical stage of winemaking – wines that are ready to bottle are very fragile and can be easily ruined by microbial contamination or high oxygen pickup (making them age prematurely.)...
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During Spring and Summer, friends often visit and ask about our favorite day trips in Sonoma County. There are many to choose from! Sonoma County is incredibly diverse, reaching from the Mayacamas ...
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In addition to the 100 acres we have cultivated to vineyards, we have 150 acres that we have left untouched. Untouched by humans that is…the hillside has become home to numerous species of animals.
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From all across our country came photos of our patrons with their families and friends celebrating the Holiday Season. Their pictures brought the warmth and spirit of those special gatherings to al...
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It’s no secret we are suffering from a severe drought that has been mounting for three years. Luckily, wine grape vineyards are not heavily irrigated in comparison to other crops. We irrigate from...
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While some people think of wrapping presents as a chore, I relish it. For years, I have created my own Holiday gift tags (which became the impetus for designing the Hafner Vineyard gift tags.) In p...
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There’s excitement in the air! It’s a mix of Holiday music, adrenaline and the deep satisfaction of knowing we’re sending pleasure to gift recipients and patrons across the country. The post-Thanks...
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Organize Your Wine for Holiday Festivities
This is the time of year when a tug-o-war occurs between “not enough time” and “wanting everything to be perfect”. The calendar for the next five weeks is filling quickly and happily! Bill and I a...
Read moreWelcome to our new website! It was brought to life by feedback from patrons and implemented by Scott and Kate, with photographic expertise from Sandy. In fact, everyone at HV helped in one way or a...
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Explore the Healdsburg Farmers' Market
Every Saturday morning, you’ll find me at the Healdsburg Farmers' Market. I like to support local farmers because of the quality and the variety and because it is local. The market began in 1978 a...
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When it comes to picking grapes, harvesting by machine is the best way in my book. It is incredibly efficient because the grapes go from being on the vine to crushed and into a chilled tank within ...
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Fermentation: Juice Becomes Wine
I am the lucky one during harvest – I spend my mornings sampling, measuring, tasting, evaluating each lot of Chardonnay to ensure that the fermentations are progressing well. Just after the grapes ...
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There are two days of the year that I look forward to the most in the vineyard…the first day of Harvest and the last. This year the first day arrived earlier than normal, and that is just fine by m...
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Once Autumn arrives, Mother Nature dictates our schedules in the cellar and vineyard. At the beginning of August this year, we anticipated our earliest Harvest yet because the growing season starte...
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