Wine & the vine

Wine: the vineyard and the glass

Eighteen questions on what’s in the glass, what’s in the ground, and the Sonoma Valley’s own place in the wine world. Some are gentle; most are not. No half-points for “I knew that.”

18 questions

On a Rhône-style label, “GSM” stands for three grapes. Which?

  • Gamay, Sangiovese, Merlot
  • Grenache, Sangiovese, Malbec
  • Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre
  • Gewürztraminer, Syrah, Muscat

Those little glassy crystals sometimes found on a cork or at the bottom of the glass — “wine diamonds” — are what?

  • Residual grape sugar that failed to ferment out
  • Trace deposits of powdered vineyard-applied sulfur
  • Potassium bitartrate (tartrate) crystals
  • Fine sediment shed by the crushed grape skins

A wine is “corked.” What does that actually mean?

  • Fragments of cork are floating loose in the poured glass
  • It was cellared far too long and has gone flat and oxidized
  • It is contaminated with TCA, which smells of wet cardboard
  • The cork crumbled and broke apart during the opening

Malolactic fermentation, common in reds and in many Chardonnays, does what?

  • Adds the fine natural bubbles found in sparkling wine
  • Converts sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid
  • Raises the finished alcohol level of the bottled wine
  • Strips away much of the deep color from the young wine

Buena Vista, founded in Sonoma in 1857 and often called California’s oldest commercial winery, was established by whom?

  • General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
  • Agoston Haraszthy
  • Robert Mondavi
  • Father Junípero Serra

Sonoma Valley holds a particular distinction among Sonoma County wine regions. Which?

  • It is the largest single AVA in California
  • It was the county’s first federally recognized wine appellation (AVA), in 1981
  • It is the only AVA permitted to plant Pinot Noir
  • It was the last AVA established in the county

Swirl a glass and watch the “legs” (or “tears”) run down the side. They mainly tell you about…

  • How sweet or off-dry the finished wine turned out
  • How old the particular wine now in the glass is
  • How high the wine’s overall quality really is
  • The wine’s alcohol content and surface tension

The “noble rot” prized for sweet wines like Sauternes is which organism?

  • Brettanomyces yeast
  • Powdery mildew
  • Phylloxera
  • Botrytis cinerea

A red smells of barnyard, band-aid, or sweaty saddle. A winemaker would most likely blame…

  • An excess of new oak barrels
  • Malolactic fermentation
  • Brettanomyces
  • Leftover residual sugar

In the vineyard, “veraison” is the moment when…

  • The grapes begin to change color and ripen
  • The dormant vines are pruned back during the winter
  • The fully ripe fruit is picked at the autumn harvest
  • The first tender new leaves unfurl in early spring

Phylloxera, which devastated the world’s vineyards in the 19th century, is…

  • A powdery fungal mildew that coats the vine leaves
  • A tiny insect that feeds on grapevine roots
  • A bacterial blight spread through open pruning cuts
  • A chronic trace-mineral deficiency in the vineyard topsoil

The tannin that makes a young red taste grippy comes chiefly from…

  • Powdered tannin added during fermentation
  • The residual grape sugar left after fermenting
  • The limestone bedrock beneath the vineyard
  • Grape skins, seeds and stems (and oak barrels)

A “field blend,” like the ones from Sonoma Valley’s historic Old Hill Ranch, means…

  • Varieties fermented separately, then blended just before bottling
  • Grapes drawn from several separate vineyard sites
  • A wine assembled from two or more vintages
  • Several varieties interplanted in one vineyard, picked and fermented together

“Brix” on a winemaker’s refractometer measures…

  • Total acidity, which governs the wine’s freshness
  • Sugar content, which predicts potential alcohol
  • Tannin, which predicts the wine’s aging potential
  • Color depth, gauged against a fixed scale

White Zinfandel, the blush wine, is made from…

  • A pale-skinned grape called White Zinfandel
  • A blend of Chardonnay and Grenache Blanc grapes
  • Pinot Grigio grown on cool coastal hillsides
  • The red Zinfandel grape, with little skin contact

Chaptalization — illegal in California — is the practice of…

  • Adding water to the must to lower the alcohol
  • Adding tartaric acid to a flat, low-acid wine
  • Adding oak chips to the tank in place of barrels
  • Adding sugar to the must to raise the finished alcohol

The Mayacamas Mountains, the range along the valley’s eastern skyline, separate Sonoma Valley from…

  • Napa Valley
  • The Pacific Ocean
  • The Central Valley
  • Marin County

A white wine described as aged “sur lie” was left in contact with…

  • Charred oak barrel staves
  • The pressed red grape skins
  • Its spent yeast (the lees)
  • Fresh beaten hen egg whites

Science & nature

Science and nature of the valley

Eighteen questions on the rocks, water, trees and creatures of the upper Sonoma Valley — from the peak over Kenwood to the newt in the creek. Field guides down, please.

18 questions

The valley’s enduring nickname, “Valley of the Moon,” was cemented in the popular imagination by a 1913 novel written by…

  • Jack London
  • John Steinbeck
  • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • M.F.K. Fisher

The highest peak in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, above Kenwood, is…

  • Mount St. Helena, about 4,340 feet
  • Bald Mountain, about 2,729 feet
  • Hood Mountain, about 2,730 feet
  • Sonoma Mountain, about 2,460 feet

Sonoma Creek, which rises in Sugarloaf Ridge and runs the length of the valley, empties into…

  • The Russian River
  • San Pablo Bay
  • The Napa River estuary
  • The Petaluma River

Despite its modest size, Sonoma Creek still supports a spawning run of which federally protected fish?

  • Rainbow trout
  • Largemouth bass
  • Delta smelt
  • Steelhead (and, some years, Chinook salmon)

The single largest oak species native to North America, and a signature tree of the valley floor, is the…

  • Valley oak
  • Coast live oak
  • Blue oak
  • Oregon white oak

Which of the valley’s common oaks is evergreen — holding its leaves through winter?

  • Coast live oak
  • Valley oak
  • Oregon white oak
  • California black oak

The valley’s climate, which suits both vines and oaks, is best described as…

  • Mediterranean — dry summers, wet winters
  • Humid subtropical — wet summers, mild winters
  • Semi-arid steppe — sparse rain year-round
  • Oceanic — cool and damp in every season

The California newt, found in valley creeks and damp woods, carries what defense?

  • It can shed and regrow its tail at will
  • It sprays a caustic musk when handled
  • A potent skin neurotoxin (tetrodotoxin)
  • It flashes bright warning eyespots

Acorn woodpeckers, a noisy fixture of valley oak woodlands, are famous for…

  • Migrating to central Mexico each autumn
  • Nesting in streamside burrows underground
  • Feeding solely on insects, never on acorns
  • Drilling “granary” trees riddled with stored acorns

The valley’s chaparral shrubs — chamise, manzanita, ceanothus — are adapted to…

  • Periodic wildfire
  • Constant moisture and year-round humidity
  • Deep shade beneath a redwood canopy
  • Salt spray drifting off the coast

Patches of the valley sit on serpentine — California’s state rock. For plants, serpentine soils are…

  • Unusually fertile ground, supporting dense growth
  • Chemically inert soil, sustaining no plant life at all
  • Prized ground for premium wine grapes
  • Harsh and low in nutrients, hosting specialized native plants

In cool, shaded canyons of the surrounding hills you can find coast redwoods — a tree notable as…

  • The oldest living tree species on Earth
  • The tallest tree species on Earth
  • The only conifer native to California
  • A tree found nowhere outside coastal fog

The old warning “leaves of three, let it be” refers to which native valley plant?

  • Stinging nettle
  • Wild blackberry
  • Coyote brush
  • Poison oak

California’s state bird, a plump ground bird with a curling head plume common in valley brush, is the…

  • Acorn woodpecker
  • California towhee
  • California quail
  • Mourning dove

Sudden Oak Death, which has killed oaks and tanoaks across the region, is caused by…

  • A wood-boring bark beetle
  • A fungus-like water mold (Phytophthora ramorum)
  • Drought alone
  • A parasitic native mistletoe

Conservationists work to protect the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor — a narrow band of open land across the valley floor — chiefly so that…

  • Cyclists have a safe route
  • Large animals like mountain lions can move between the Mayacamas and Sonoma Mountains
  • Floodwater has somewhere to go
  • Vineyards can expand

The smooth, cool-to-the-touch bark of manzanita is which distinctive color?

  • Chalky greyish-white
  • Mottled olive-green
  • Deep red-mahogany
  • Pale silvery grey

The summer fog that slides into the lower valley on many mornings does what for the vineyards?

  • Nothing at all, since it never reaches the vines
  • Cools the nights, helping grapes keep acidity
  • Delivers the bulk of the vineyard’s yearly rainfall
  • Rots the ripening fruit and must be blown clear

Valley history

Jack London in the valley

Fourteen questions on the restless author who bought a mountainside above Glen Ellen, farmed it, built a dream house he never slept in, and gave the valley its name in print.

14 questions

Jack London’s 1913 novel that fixed the valley’s nickname in print was called…

  • The Call of the Wild
  • The Valley of the Moon
  • Burning Daylight, Sonoma
  • Martin Eden, of Oakland

London began assembling his ranch above Glen Ellen in…

  • 1889
  • 1912
  • 1905
  • 1898

Before he was America’s best-paid author, a teenaged London worked San Francisco Bay as…

  • A bay ferry pilot
  • A coastal lighthouse keeper
  • A dockside customs inspector
  • An oyster pirate

The Klondike gold rush gave London the material for which career-making 1903 novel?

  • White Fang
  • The Call of the Wild
  • The Sea-Wolf
  • The Iron Heel

In 1907 London and his wife Charmian set out from San Francisco Bay on a years-long Pacific voyage aboard a boat called…

  • The Roamer
  • The Dazzler
  • The Snark
  • The Valkyrie

Wolf House, the dream home London built on the ranch, met what fate?

  • It stands today, every one of its rooms fully restored
  • It was dismantled for its lumber during the mid-1920s
  • It collapsed in the 1906 earthquake
  • It burned in August 1913, days before the Londons were to move in

What did later investigation conclude most likely started the Wolf House fire?

  • Spontaneous combustion of linseed-oil-soaked rags left by workmen
  • A lightning strike during a violent late-summer storm
  • Deliberate arson by a laborer London had just dismissed
  • A stray ember carried from a workman’s evening campfire

London’s pride at Beauty Ranch included a famously grand piece of livestock architecture nicknamed…

  • The Pig Palace
  • The Cow Cathedral
  • The Stallion Barn
  • The Sheep Chateau

One of London’s grander agricultural misadventures at the ranch involved planting roughly 100,000…

  • Olive trees, as an oil crop the market never wanted
  • Eucalyptus trees, as a timber crop that never paid
  • Grapevines, all blighted before their very first harvest
  • Almond trees, killed off by an unexpected early frost

Jack London died at the ranch in 1916, at what age?

  • 52
  • 58
  • 46
  • 40

London’s ashes lie on the ranch…

  • Beneath a marble slab within the Wolf House ruins
  • In a bronze urn kept at the ranch cottage
  • In the Glen Ellen cemetery
  • Under a boulder of Wolf House stone, beside the graves of two pioneer children

After London’s death, his widow Charmian built a stone house on the ranch called…

  • The House of Silent Fields
  • The House of Quiet Waters
  • The House of Distant Hills
  • The House of Happy Walls

Jack London State Historic Park preserves, among much else…

  • The valley’s last working water-powered grist mill and pond
  • California’s earliest surviving mountain fire-lookout tower
  • Wolf House’s ruins, London’s grave, and his experimental Beauty Ranch
  • A restored Miwok village

Since the 2012 state-parks budget crisis, the park has been operated day to day by…

  • The National Park Service, under a long-term federal lease
  • Sonoma County’s regional parks department, by county contract
  • A community nonprofit, under agreement with California State Parks
  • A private hospitality firm leasing the entire grounds

Valley history

The Bear Flag Revolt

Twelve questions on the June morning in 1846 when a few dozen armed settlers rode into Sonoma’s plaza, invented a country, and sewed its flag from spare cloth — and on what became of the republic, the general, and the bear.

12 questions

On June 14, 1846, some 33 armed Americans rode into Sonoma’s plaza and…

  • Burned the mission
  • Proclaimed an independent California Republic and raised a homemade bear flag
  • Purchased the pueblo and its lands outright from General Vallejo
  • Were repelled by the Mexican garrison after a brief plaza skirmish

The revolt’s leaders in the field were…

  • William Ide and Ezekiel Merritt
  • John Sutter and James Marshall
  • Kit Carson and Jim Bridger
  • John Fremont and Commodore Sloat, acting jointly

The man who painted the original bear flag, William Todd, had a famous relative. Who?

  • General Mariano Vallejo, Sonoma’s founder — his father-in-law
  • John Sutter — his uncle
  • President Abraham Lincoln’s future wife, Mary Todd Lincoln — his aunt
  • Kit Carson — his cousin

The lone red star on the bear flag was a nod to…

  • The Texas republic, which had broken from Mexico a decade earlier
  • The North Star, the fixed guide of westbound overland settlers
  • The imperial banner flown over Russia’s coastal fur outposts
  • The single star that was said to have marked Bethlehem

Why a grizzly bear on the flag?

  • It honored a tame bear kept in the plaza
  • It was chosen as an emblem of strength and resistance — grizzlies then roamed California in numbers
  • Mexico’s flag also carried a bear
  • A bear had attacked the garrison that spring

The California Republic proclaimed at Sonoma lasted…

  • Roughly two years
  • Some six months
  • About 25 days
  • A single afternoon

The larger conflict that swallowed the little republic was…

  • The Civil War
  • The War of 1812
  • The Spanish–American War
  • The Mexican–American War, declared weeks earlier

General Mariano Vallejo, Sonoma’s founder and the region’s most powerful man, spent the revolt…

  • Directing the defense of the Sonoma plaza in person, sword drawn
  • Imprisoned at Sutter’s Fort — despite favoring American annexation
  • In Mexico City, pleading with officials for fresh reinforcements
  • Concealed for days within the mission church’s high bell tower

What became of Vallejo after California joined the Union?

  • He was exiled to Mexico
  • He raised a counter-revolt against the Americans
  • He served in the new state’s constitutional convention and first state senate
  • He vanished into obscurity

The plaza where the flag went up holds which statewide distinction?

  • It is the state’s oldest paved public square
  • It is the largest town plaza in California
  • It served as California’s first capital grounds
  • It is the highest-elevation plaza in the state

The original bear flag itself…

  • Hangs today in the state capitol rotunda in Sacramento
  • Was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire
  • Was carried east and lost during the American Civil War
  • Was returned to the surviving Todd family heirs in 1911

The bear flag’s afterlife: California officially adopted a version of it as the state flag in…

  • 1911
  • 1850, at statehood
  • 1946, on the centennial
  • 1963

Valley history

Mission San Francisco Solano

Twelve questions on the adobe church at the head of Sonoma’s plaza — the last, northernmost, and most irregular of California’s twenty-one missions, and the hinge on which the valley’s written history turns.

12 questions

Mission San Francisco Solano, in Sonoma, holds which distinction among California’s missions?

  • It was the last and northernmost of the twenty-one
  • It was the first and earliest of the twenty-one founded
  • It was the southernmost, founded near San Diego bay
  • It was the wealthiest in cattle, grain, and vineyard land

The Sonoma mission was also unique for being founded…

  • Under direct orders from the Spanish crown
  • Beside an existing Russian trading post
  • On the ruins of an earlier abandoned mission
  • After Mexico won independence from Spain

The mission’s founder was a young Franciscan friar named…

  • Junípero Serra
  • José Altimira
  • Narciso Durán
  • Fermin Lasuén

The mission is named for San Francisco Solano — who was…

  • The same St. Francis of Assisi for whom the city is named
  • An early Spanish archbishop of colonial Mexico City
  • A Spanish Franciscan missionary to South America
  • A Franciscan friar martyred in the distant Philippines

One strategic motive for planting a mission this far north was…

  • Deposits of gold reported in the nearby northern foothills
  • Countering the Russian settlement at Fort Ross on the coast
  • A sheltered harbor for the growing hide-and-tallow trade
  • Standing timber for the Pacific coast shipbuilding yards

The mission was dedicated on July 4, 1823, when its founding party…

  • Fired a ceremonial salute from a small brass cannon
  • Concluded a formal pact with the local native headmen
  • Set out the mission’s first rows of grape vines
  • Raised a redwood cross and said Mass on the site

In 1826, the mission’s own story turned dark when…

  • A severe earthquake toppled the church walls
  • A raiding party struck inland from the coast
  • Native people, angry over their treatment and unpaid labor, burned some of its buildings
  • Mexican troops seized and stripped its stores

After the 1826 revolt, Father Altimira fled to…

  • Mexico City
  • The Russian post at Fort Ross
  • The presidio at Monterey
  • Mission San Rafael

The mission era at Sonoma ended in 1834 when…

  • The building burned for good
  • Mexico secularized the missions and the young Lieutenant Vallejo was sent to found the pueblo
  • American settlers claimed it under the Bear Flag
  • The last resident friar died without a successor

The mission’s buildings were constructed chiefly of…

  • Adobe — sun-dried earthen brick — under tile roofs
  • Hand-hewn redwood timber and sawn plank, under shingle
  • Local basalt stone cut from the nearby volcanic quarries
  • Kiln-fired red brick shipped up from the bay by boat

Today the mission is preserved as part of…

  • A privately owned tasting-room estate
  • Sonoma State Historic Park
  • An active Roman Catholic parish
  • The state agricultural museum system

How many missions did the California chain comprise, San Diego to Sonoma?

  • 12
  • 18
  • 27
  • 21

Parks & trails

The valley’s state and regional parks

Fifteen questions on the public lands ringing the valley — the state parks, the regional parks, the mountain the fog breaks against, and the observatory hiding up Adobe Canyon Road. Boots optional; attention required.

15 questions

Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, above Kenwood, is home to the Robert Ferguson Observatory — notable as…

  • The largest observatory in the western U.S. dedicated entirely to public viewing
  • The only federal satellite-tracking station north of Palomar Mountain
  • The oldest continuously operating observatory anywhere in California
  • A closed university research station with no scheduled public access hours

The observatory’s PlanetWalk trail at Sugarloaf lets hikers…

  • Retrace a graded 19th-century logging wagon road down to Kenwood
  • Walk a scale model of the solar system, sun to Pluto
  • Follow a surveyed surface trace of the San Andreas Fault
  • Tour nine restored pioneer homestead and orchard sites

The summit of Bald Mountain, Sugarloaf’s highest point at about 2,729 feet, sits directly on…

  • The trace of the San Andreas Fault
  • A segment of the Pacific Crest Trail
  • The Sonoma–Napa county line
  • A long-dormant volcanic vent field

Sonoma Creek begins its run to San Pablo Bay in which park?

  • Sugarloaf Ridge State Park
  • Jack London State Historic Park
  • Maxwell Farms Regional Park
  • Trione-Annadel State Park

After the 2011–12 state parks budget crisis, Sugarloaf and Jack London parks share what unusual arrangement?

  • They waive all entry, parking, and camping fees year-round
  • They are run day-to-day by local nonprofits rather than state staff
  • They admit visitors on weekends and public holidays only
  • They were transferred outright to Sonoma County parks ownership

Trione-Annadel State Park, on the valley’s northwest shoulder, added “Trione” to its name to honor…

  • An old Spanish surveyors’ phrase meaning “the three hills”
  • A Coast Miwok village once on the site
  • A Santa Rosa banker-philanthropist family instrumental in saving the land
  • The park’s founding chief ranger and longtime superintendent

Lake Ilsanjo, the swimming-hole centerpiece of Trione-Annadel, got its name from…

  • A Pomo word meaning “water that stays”
  • An 1846 Mexican land-grant parcel
  • Ilsanjo Ricci, the county engineer who dammed it
  • Its former owners Ilsa and Joe Coney, run together

Hood Mountain, whose bare summit faces Sugarloaf across Adobe Canyon, differs from its neighbors in that it is…

  • Private ranchland with no legal public access
  • A county regional park, not a state park
  • A federally designated wilderness area
  • A working basalt quarry, still permitted

Jack London State Historic Park preserves, among much else…

  • The upper valley’s last working grist mill
  • California’s earliest surviving state forest fire lookout tower
  • Wolf House’s ruins, London’s grave, and his experimental Beauty Ranch
  • A restored Miwok village

Sonoma Valley Regional Park, the oak-savanna park with the paved multi-use trail, sits beside which town?

  • Glen Ellen
  • Kenwood
  • Boyes Hot Springs
  • Schellville

Maxwell Farms Regional Park, along Sonoma Creek near Boyes Hot Springs, occupies land that once grew…

  • Hops grown for the valley’s early breweries
  • Rice on flooded creekside paddies
  • Cotton on a Southern settler’s plot
  • Berries and orchard fruit on a pioneer farm

The name “Sugarloaf” on the ridge above Kenwood refers to…

  • A sugar-refining mill that stood there
  • A settler named Zucker
  • A Coast Miwok word variously rendered as “sweet grass”
  • The conical shape of a hill, like the molded loaves sugar was once sold in

The best-known viewpoint in Hood Mountain Regional Park, a rock outcrop hanging above Kenwood, is called…

  • Gunsight Rock
  • Eagle Rock
  • Devil’s Pulpit
  • Sentinel Point

Within Trione-Annadel’s hills, archaeologists have documented quarry sites where native peoples once gathered…

  • Obsidian for tools and trade
  • Placer gold from the creek gravels
  • Salt evaporated in the marsh pans
  • Soapstone carved for cooking bowls

The upper valley’s parks form part of a larger conservation effort to link…

  • The valley to the Pacific beaches
  • Napa’s eastern vineyards with Sonoma’s western vineyards
  • The Russian River to the Delta wetlands
  • The Sonoma Mountains to the Mayacamas, so wildlife can cross the valley floor

The first peoples

The valley’s first peoples

Fifteen questions on the peoples who lived in and around this valley for thousands of years before missions, flags or vineyards — the Coast Miwok, Wappo and Pomo — their arts, economies and living presence today. The oldest valley history there is.

15 questions

The native peoples whose homelands meet in and around Sonoma Valley are…

  • The Coast Miwok, Wappo and Pomo
  • The Ohlone, the Chumash and the Salinan
  • The Modoc, the Shasta and the Achomawi
  • The Paiute, the Washoe and the Mono

“Pomo” names not one uniform tribe but a group of communities speaking…

  • A single language with several regional dialects
  • One branch of the widespread Uto-Aztecan family
  • About seven related but mutually unintelligible languages
  • Two closely related coastal tongues

Pomo weavers hold what standing in the craft of basketry?

  • They wove only coarse utility baskets
  • They are widely regarded as among the finest basket makers in the world
  • They took up the craft after Spanish contact
  • They ranked below their inland neighbors

The famous Pomo “feather baskets” were surfaced with feathers from local birds and hung with…

  • Clamshell disk beads and abalone pendants
  • Blue glass trade beads obtained from later settlers
  • Hammered copper ornaments traded from the north
  • Carved bone and antler toggles and small pins

Clamshell disk beads, ground and drilled from Bodega Bay clams, served Pomo and neighboring peoples as…

  • Fishing weights
  • Children’s toys
  • Currency — strings of beads functioned as money across the region
  • Roofing material

The dietary staple across all three peoples — the “bread grain” of pre-contact California — was…

  • The acorn, leached of its tannins and cooked as mush or bread
  • Maize, grown in cleared river bottoms
  • Wild rice gathered from marsh margins
  • Camas bulbs, pit-roasted and dried for winter storage

Coast Miwok territory reached its eastern edge at approximately…

  • The high granite crest of the Sierra Nevada range
  • Sonoma Creek — taking in the southern Sonoma Valley
  • The Russian River’s northern bend
  • The shore of San Francisco Bay

The Kashaya Pomo, on the Sonoma coast, are distinctive for their long relationship with…

  • American whalers off the coast
  • Chinese abalone-fishing camps
  • Russian settlers at Fort Ross
  • British fur traders from the north

Valley boulders near old village and camp sites often carry deep round holes worn into the rock. They are…

  • Musket damage left over from the 1846 Bear revolt
  • Vents opened by old geothermal springs and seeps
  • Bedrock mortars, worn by generations of acorn grinding
  • Boundary marks chiseled by the earliest land surveyors

Traditional dwellings in this region were typically…

  • Conical hide tipis stretched over long wooden poles
  • Domed houses of bent poles thatched with tule reeds or grass
  • Earthen pit lodges dug deep well below the grade line
  • Terraced adobe apartment blocks stacked several stories

The arrival of the Sonoma mission in 1823 meant what for native communities of the valley?

  • Little immediate change, as the mission kept largely apart
  • Forced relocation, unpaid labor, and devastating epidemic disease
  • A broadly mutual and profitable trading partnership formed
  • Grants of ancestral land and full standing before the law

The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the federally recognized tribe of this area, unites…

  • Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples
  • Wintun and Yokuts peoples
  • Chumash and Salinan peoples
  • Ohlone and Esselen peoples

Along with obsidian tools and shell beads, native land management here famously included…

  • Diverting seasonal creeks into long hand-dug irrigation ditches
  • Regular deliberate burning to keep oak woodlands open and productive
  • Cultivating carefully terraced garden plots across the hillsides
  • Constructing low stone weirs across the running salmon creeks

The popular story of the name “Sonoma” translates it from native origins as…

  • “Place of the gathered waters”
  • “Meadow of the many oaks”
  • “Land of the setting sun”
  • “Valley of the Moon”

How long have native peoples lived in the Sonoma Valley region?

  • For thousands of years — archaeology points to many millennia of continuous presence
  • A few centuries, arriving shortly before the Spanish
  • Roughly since the Gold Rush
  • The valley stood empty until the missions came

Food & drink

The valley’s restaurants

Sixteen questions on the people and stories behind the valley’s tables — drawn from the restaurants’ own histories and local reporting. Kitchens change; facts checked July 2026.

16 questions

Before opening Glen Ellen Star in 2012, chef Ari Weiswasser cooked at…

  • Chez Panisse in Berkeley and San Francisco’s Zuni Café
  • The French Laundry and New York’s Restaurant Daniel
  • Copenhagen’s Noma and Spain’s El Bulli
  • Napa’s Auberge du Soleil and Bouchon Bistro

Erinn Benziger-Weiswasser, the Star’s co-owner, grew up in which Glen Ellen wine family?

  • The Benzigers of Benziger Family Winery
  • The Kundes of Kunde Family Winery
  • The Sebastianis of Sebastiani Vineyards
  • The Ledsons of Ledson Winery

Stella, the Italian restaurant in Kenwood, is a sister restaurant of…

  • The girl & the fig
  • Salt & Stone
  • Glen Ellen Star
  • El Molino Central

Les Pascals, the French pâtisserie in Glen Ellen, takes its name from…

  • The mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal himself
  • A small mountain village in the hills of rural Provence
  • The two young sons of the founders who run the shop
  • Its two owners — pastry chef Pascal and his wife Pascale

The Pascals came to Glen Ellen from which French city?

  • Lyon
  • Paris
  • Marseille
  • Bordeaux

Which Kenwood institution left the valley for Santa Rosa in 2020, then closed for good in early 2026 after 35 years in business?

  • The Kenwood Depot, the well-loved roadside general store
  • Swede’s Feeds, the longtime valley farm-supply shop
  • The Vineyards Inn, the roadside Spanish-style roadhouse
  • Café Citti, the family-run Italian trattoria

Café Citti’s Luca Citti came, fittingly, from…

  • Palermo, in Sicily
  • Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna
  • Verona, in the Veneto
  • Lucca, in Tuscany

Golden Bear Station in Kenwood is named for…

  • The gas station that stood on the site for decades
  • The grizzly bear pictured on the California state flag
  • A gold mine once worked high up in Nuns Canyon
  • The retriever kept by the station’s founding owners

Before Kenwood, Golden Bear Station’s owners Joshua Smookler and Heidy He made their name with which New York restaurant?

  • Momofuku Noodle Bar, the acclaimed East Village original
  • Katz’s Delicatessen, the Lower East Side landmark since 1888
  • Rao’s, the century-old and famously exclusive Harlem institution
  • Mu Ramen, which earned two stars from the New York Times

Perfecting Golden Bear Station’s wood-fired pizza reportedly involved…

  • Importing spring water from Naples
  • Milling their own flour on the premises
  • Nursing a 400-year-old sourdough starter
  • Testing nearly 100 doughs

Yeti, serving Nepalese and Indian cuisine since 2008, occupies which Glen Ellen setting?

  • The old Glen Ellen firehouse, off Arnold Drive
  • A deconsecrated church on Carquinez Avenue
  • Jack London Village, beside Sonoma Creek
  • The gatehouse of the Sonoma Developmental Center

El Molino Central, the celebrated Mexican spot in Boyes Hot Springs, takes its name from…

  • A windmill that once stood on the Boyes Hot Springs site
  • The owner’s family hometown in the state of Michoacán
  • “The mill” — it grinds its own masa from whole corn
  • A traditional folk song sung across the Mexican countryside

Salt & Stone occupies a Highway 12 roadhouse that valley diners long knew as…

  • The Black Bart Tavern, a stagecoach stop
  • The Los Guilicos roadhouse and grange
  • The Wagon Wheel, a Highway 12 diner
  • The Kenwood Restaurant

Poppy, in Glen Ellen, opened in the former home of which much-missed restaurant?

  • The Grist Mill Inn, which sat beside Sonoma Creek for years
  • Aventine, in the old stone glassworks building downtown
  • The fig café, of the girl & the fig family
  • Olive & Vine, the longtime favorite on Arnold Drive

Songbird Parlour, the farm-to-table lounge on Arnold Drive, is known for which signature dish?

  • Beef Wellington, carved at the table
  • Cioppino, in a saffron tomato broth
  • Hot honey fried chicken
  • Duck confit atop a wood-fired pizza

Pillowfight Coffee in Kenwood pours espresso right next door to the former home of…

  • A one-room valley schoolhouse
  • Palooza Brewery & Gastropub
  • The former Kenwood post office
  • A tack-and-saddle shop off Warm Springs Road

Stage & song

Transcendence Theatre Company

Eleven questions on the troupe that turned a winery ruin above Glen Ellen into an open-air Broadway stage — and helped save a state park in the bargain.

11 questions

Transcendence Theatre Company is best known each summer for a show billed as…

  • an outdoor Shakespeare-in-the-vineyard festival
  • Broadway Under the Stars, a revue of show tunes
  • a summer grand-opera season
  • a silent film and live-orchestra series

Transcendence stages its signature performances amid what setting?

  • a restored dairy barn on the Sonoma Plaza
  • an open-air amphitheatre carved into the flank of Sonoma Mountain
  • a canvas tent pitched in a Kenwood vineyard
  • The stone ruins of an old winery on the London ranch

The company was established as a nonprofit in…

  • 2008
  • 1994
  • 2016
  • 2021

Its Broadway Under the Stars summer series first ran in…

  • 2001
  • 2017
  • 2011
  • 1998

Transcendence’s co-founder and artistic director is…

  • Diane Vitale
  • Amy Miller
  • Susan Reed
  • Rachel Cohen

The troupe first formed with a mission to help…

  • build a new concert hall on the Sonoma Plaza
  • restore and reopen the historic Sebastiani Theatre in downtown Sonoma
  • found a film studio in Glen Ellen
  • keep Jack London State Historic Park open amid state-parks closures

By the troupe’s own origin story, its founders reached wine country with just…

  • $83 to their name
  • one borrowed grand piano
  • a single season’s grant
  • a twelve-seat tour van

The performers filling each season’s cast are drawn largely from…

  • valley high-school drama clubs
  • retired winemakers turned actors
  • Broadway and professional stage careers
  • conservatory students on summer break

In 2014, USA Today ranked Transcendence’s open-air home among the nation’s best…

  • wedding venues
  • outdoor concert venues
  • hiking destinations
  • farmers’ markets

Much of what the company raises flows back to…

  • the Sonoma Valley school district
  • a county wildfire fund
  • the Sonoma historical society
  • Jack London State Historic Park

A Transcendence evening traditionally opens, before the songs, with…

  • a picnic on the lawn
  • a guided vineyard walk
  • a costume procession
  • a candlelit indoor dinner

The writer’s life

Jack London, the man

Fourteen questions on the Oakland boy — oyster pirate, tramp, gold-rusher, socialist — who became America’s highest-paid author before he was forty.

14 questions

Jack London was born in 1876 in which city?

  • Oakland
  • San Francisco
  • Glen Ellen
  • Sacramento

London spent his childhood and youth chiefly in…

  • Stockton
  • San Jose
  • Vallejo
  • Oakland

As a boy, London’s hunger for reading was encouraged by which Oakland librarian?

  • Ina Coolbrith
  • Charmian Kittredge
  • Flora Wellman
  • Bessie Maddern

London’s mother, a spiritualist and music teacher, was named…

  • Charmian Kittredge
  • Eliza Shepard
  • Flora Wellman
  • Ina Coolbrith

At seventeen, London shipped out on the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland bound for…

  • the Alaskan panhandle
  • the coast of Japan
  • the coast of Peru
  • the Aleutian fur islands

London’s first literary prize, in 1893, came for a newspaper sketch of…

  • a night among Oakland’s oyster pirates
  • a winter in the frozen Klondike
  • a boyhood on San Francisco Bay
  • a typhoon off the coast of Japan

In 1894 London tramped east with Coxey’s Army of the unemployed and then spent thirty days…

  • jailed for vagrancy in Buffalo, New York
  • shipwrecked off the Oregon coast
  • hospitalised with typhoid in Chicago
  • working a Nevada silver mine

London came home from the 1897 Klondike gold rush with little gold but a bad case of…

  • malaria
  • typhoid fever
  • scurvy
  • frostbitten toes

London married his first wife, Bessie Maddern, in 1900; the couple had two…

  • sons, John and Irving
  • daughters, Joan and Becky
  • daughters, Eliza and Ida
  • a son and a daughter

After that marriage ended, London in 1905 wed his lifelong companion and sailing mate…

  • Anna Strunsky
  • Netta Eames
  • Blanche Partington
  • Charmian Kittredge

A committed socialist, London twice ran — and lost — for which office?

  • Mayor of Oakland
  • Governor of California
  • United States senator
  • Sonoma County sheriff

In 1904 London worked as a war correspondent covering the…

  • Boer War in South Africa
  • Spanish-American War
  • Russo-Japanese War
  • Boxer Rebellion in China

London’s 1913 memoir John Barleycorn is a candid account of his…

  • years at sea before the mast
  • lifelong struggle with drink
  • boyhood poverty in Oakland
  • disillusion with socialism

Among London’s many jobs before fame were cannery hand, sailor and…

  • Pony Express rider
  • railroad brakeman in Nevada
  • cowhand in the San Joaquin
  • worker in a jute mill and a laundry

Books & stories

Jack London’s books

Fourteen questions on the fifty-odd books London wrote in sixteen years — the sled dogs, the sea captains, the dystopias and the thousand words a day.

14 questions

London’s 1903 breakout novel, told largely from a sled dog’s point of view, is…

  • White Fang
  • The Call of the Wild
  • The Sea-Wolf
  • Burning Daylight

The dog whose journey from a California ranch to the Yukon wild anchors The Call of the Wild is named…

  • Bâtard
  • Jerry
  • Wolf
  • Buck

London’s 1906 novel White Fang reverses that arc, following a wild wolf-dog that becomes…

  • gentled by human kindness
  • the leader of a wolf pack
  • a travelling circus act
  • lost forever in the Arctic

In The Sea-Wolf (1904), the ruthless, philosophising captain who torments the castaways is named…

  • Elam Harnish
  • Ernest Everhard
  • Wolf Larsen
  • Captain Ahab

The seal-hunting schooner aboard which The Sea-Wolf unfolds is the…

  • Snark
  • Ghost
  • Pequod
  • Razzle-Dazzle

London’s 1903 work of undercover journalism, living rough among the poor of London’s East End, is…

  • The Road
  • The Iron Heel
  • Martin Eden
  • The People of the Abyss

London’s 1908 dystopia, imagining a tyrannical oligarchy crushing American democracy, is…

  • The Iron Heel
  • The Star Rover
  • The Scarlet Plague
  • Before Adam

London’s most autobiographical novel, tracing a working-class sailor’s rise to authorship and his disillusion, is…

  • Burning Daylight
  • The Valley of the Moon
  • Martin Eden
  • John Barleycorn

London’s best-selling book during his own lifetime was the 1910 novel…

  • The Call of the Wild
  • Burning Daylight
  • The Sea-Wolf
  • White Fang

London’s oft-anthologised short story of a man freezing to death in the Yukon is…

  • Love of Life
  • The Law of Life
  • In a Far Country
  • To Build a Fire

The 1913 novel that fixed ‘the Valley of the Moon’ in print follows an Oakland couple seeking…

  • farmland of their own in Sonoma
  • gold in the Klondike
  • work on the San Francisco docks
  • adventure in the South Seas

London was among the first American authors to earn a fortune purely from…

  • gold prospecting
  • newspaper ownership
  • his fiction
  • the lecture circuit

To keep ranch and readers fed, London disciplined himself to write how much each day?

  • a single perfect page
  • about a thousand words
  • ten thousand words
  • one finished chapter

London’s 1915 novel The Star Rover frames its tale through a prisoner who escapes his cell by…

  • a tunnel dug over many years
  • letters smuggled to a lover
  • vivid dreams of the Klondike
  • out-of-body travel into past lives

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