Dehlinger Winery

Sonoma County as a winegrowing region after Prohibition. Twenty-eight years old at the time, Tom built a small winery building with his architect brother Dan on what had been an aging apple ranch on Vine Hill Road, outside of the town of Sebastopol. Soon after, Tom met his wife Carole and the two started a family on the ranch and put their energy into making and selling wine.

In these pioneering days of Russian River Valley winemaking, many fewer people were involved in the industry, and knowledge, resources, facilities, and equipment were primitive or hard to find. Winemaking was physically exhausting and left little time for the experimentation and study needed to advance the craft. But over time, and with energy, trial and error, and some blind luck, we and others came to realize the promise of the Russian River Valley climate and the potential of some of its better hillside soils and locations.