Food & Wine

Sonoma Coast Wine Region

Many of Sonoma County's celebrated cool-climate wines are grown in the breathtaking Sonoma Coast wine region

The Sonoma Coast American Viticulture Area (known as an AVA or appellation) may be Sonoma County’s most enigmatic wine region. From the wild, wind-swept northern coast to the gently rolling hills of the southern dairy land, it spans the county.

The Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau officially designates AVAs, each with its own unique characteristics, to help winemakers clearly describe the origin of their wines and to make it easier for consumers to identify the wines they buy. Sonoma Coast AVA status was awarded in 1987.

Much of Sonoma County’s most celebrated Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are grown here, yet few wines are actually made in the Sonoma Coast AVA, and several of its most distinctive sub-regions are not officially recognized AVAs.

But there’s little mystery about this: Some of California’s highest scoring and most coveted cool-climate style wines are grown in the Sonoma Coast AVA. It includes about 2,000 vineyard acres, and fewer than 10 wineries (not counting wineries that belong to overlapping appellations such as the Russian River Valley).

Top Grapes

Burgundian varietals Pinot Noir and Chardonnay star in this cool-climate appellation. Syrah is an exciting runner-up. Varietals grown within the crossover appellations are rarely labeled as Sonoma Coast.

The Lay of the Land

With apologies to the Dungeness crab for which the local fishing region is famed, the Sonoma Coast AVA is shaped somewhat like a lobster, tilted at 45 degrees, and headed northwest. The ‘head’ and the ‘tail’ of this lobster overlap the Russian River Valley and Carneros appellations, respectively. It’s the body and claw that make the meat of the Sonoma Coast AVA.

A vineyard in the Sonoma Coast AVA gets blanketed by fog in Sonoma County — Cline Family Cellars’ vineyard in the Sonoma Coast AVA

Direct, daily influence from the Pacific Ocean defines the appellation. In the northern reach, vineyards are planted high on ridges just a few miles inland. Many lie above the fog that moves in to blanket lower elevations in the afternoon.

The heart of the AVA includes the Freestone area, a sheltered, pastoral valley where hillside vineyards bask in sun when it breaks through the fog. In the south, vines in adobe soils grow to the edge of salt mashes bordering San Pablo Bay. And within the Sonoma Coast AVA lies the wind- and fog-influenced Petaluma Gap area, named after a coastal mountain opening that allows winds from the Pacific to breeze through the town of Petaluma and then roar south to San Pablo Bay. Wineries here are represented by the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance, and the Petaluma Gap got its own AVA designation in December 2017.

And the West Sonoma Coast Vintners association represents more than two dozen wineries and growers who are passionate about farming along the mountainous coastline of western Sonoma County. Arguing that they create wines that evoke the complexity of the region — wines expressive of their unique community — they are working to establish an official West Sonoma Coast AVA destination.

Notable Wineries

Barrels are lined up in a cave at Keller Estate Winery, Sonoma County — Keller Estate Winery

Keller Estate Winery (see photo) offers expansive views of the Petaluma Gap area. Sonoma Valley’s Cline Family Cellars and Joseph Phelps Winery of Napa also have locations in the Sonoma Coast AVA.

Martinelli has important vineyards in the Sonoma Coast and is open for tasting daily, while Hirsch Vineyards is located on the coast but its tasting room is located in Healdsburg. Kistler, Kosta Browne, Williams Selyem, Peay, Evening Land, and Marcassin, to name a few, are not typically open for tasting.