Saracina Vineyards

Saracina Vineyards is the most comprehensively sustainable and agriculturally diverse wine estate along the Highway 101 wine corridor between Sonoma County and the Mendocino coast. John Fetzer — the former CEO of Fetzer Vineyards who sold that company in 1992 and spent a decade positioning himself to build something more personally authentic — launched Saracina in 2001 with a vision shaped by 30 years of organic farming advocacy: a working ranch where wine, olive oil, honey, and genuine biodiversity coexist as an integrated agricultural system.

The 600-acre Hopland property is extraordinary in its scope: 300 acres of sustainably farmed vineyards, 120-year-old olive orchards that produce estate olive oil, an organic vegetable garden, a butterfly garden, domesticated livestock including alpacas and miniature goats, and nearly 3 million honeybees whose hives promote the property's natural pollination. Most distinctively, Saracina is home to the first wine caves ever built in Mendocino County — an architectural commitment to the property's wine seriousness that visitors describe as the most impressive feature of an already impressive estate.

The wine program, guided by winemaker Alex MacGregor, produces Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, and Rhône-variety blends under the Saracina label alongside the quirkier Atrea brand for experimental Rhône blends. Named after a centuries-old farmhouse in Tuscany, Saracina aims to capture what Mendocino wine country looked like 'before the crowds discovered Napa Valley.'