Bartholomew Estate Winery in Sonoma

Relax and toast to good times at Bartholomew Estate Winery. Here, guests will enjoy breathtaking vineyard views, an on-site art gallery, horseback rides, and picnics in the beautiful Bartholomew Park. This winery is also dog-friendly, with hiking trails on their 375-acre property.

History

Bartholomew Estate Winery was founded to honor the legacy of Frank “Bart” Bartholomew and his wife, Antonia, previous owners and true stewards of the Sonoma Valley property that is now known as Bartholomew Park. This particular piece of land also has great historical significance. “It is considered the birthplace of California viticulture, having been the location of the first privately owned vineyard in the Sonoma Valley, and was also once home to Count Agoston Haraszthy, widely considered to be the father of the California wine industry,” said Bartholomew’s Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt. “The Bartholomews purchased the then-dilapidated land in 1943 and worked to restore it back to its original magnificence.”

A non-profit trust, the Frank H. Bartholomew Foundation, was established as part of their estate to ensure that the park would forever be preserved and protected and remain open to the public at no charge. Visitors have the opportunity to enjoy picnic areas, majestic oak trees, a variety of hiking trails and walking paths, horseback riding, ponds and streams, and stunning vineyard views.

The Sonoma winery, formed by Foundation Trustee Anna Pope and winemaker Kevin Holt, officially opened its doors in 2019. It is located in a historic, newly renovated, mission-style building originally built in 1922. 

We interview Holt to learn more.

Tell us about your wine offerings.

Bartholomew Estate Winery Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: We make Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon from our Sonoma Valley estate vineyard in roughly equal amounts.  We also make smaller quantities of Marsanne-Roussanne, Viognier, and Pinot Noir from three other vineyards in Sonoma Valley.

Share a popular tasting experience.

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: My favorites are those in which I am directly involved.  Depending on the season, we offer two different tastings with the winemaker.  In the winter, it’s a cellar tour and barrel tasting, and in summer it’s a vineyard tour, followed by a sit-down tasting under the oaks.  Both are personal and in-depth, and I love to be able to interact with visitors and answer all their many questions about grape-growing and winemaking techniques.

What makes your wine unique?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: The ground from which it comes. Many wines today are blended from various vineyards all over the county, or even from all over the state.  All of our wines are either exclusively made from our historic estate vineyard or from a few select sites elsewhere in Sonoma Valley, but they are never blended together; each wine from each vineyard stands alone, and speaks of its unique heritage.

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about your winery?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: That its vineyards are ground zero for the Sonoma wine industry–one of our blocks is the first vineyard known to have been planted outside the mission grounds, in 1832.  The current vines there are not quite that old, however! They were planted in 1998.

Describe your winemaking approach.  

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: I believe in getting out of the way and letting the earth speak through the wines as much as possible.  However, that has to be balanced with the willingness and ability to jump in and guide the process as much as necessary, in order to get the wine where it needs to go.  No wine worth drinking can make itself; wine is a human construct and winemaking is a humane craft. As with any craft, it’s a matter of applying one’s knowledge, experience, and talent to decide which tools to use and when, but also to realize when it’s time to close up the toolbox and let the magic happen.  Balanced wine requires a balanced approach.

How did you get started in the wine industry?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: I worked in wine sales before I made the transition to production, and one fall, the sales team of the Texas wholesaler that I was working with came out to California to visit some of our supplier wineries. Touring those cellars caused me to fall in love all over again. I met several great winemakers that week, but Michael Havens, Milla Handley and Randall Grahm stand out in my memory.  

Later, after making the move back to California, but while I was still selling wine, retail this time (and going to community college at night in order to qualify for admission to the graduate enology program at UC Davis), Tony Soter agreed to let me work harvest at Etude. Mia Klein and Cathy Corison were making their wines there then, too. It was an incredible experience to be surrounded by all that talent in one place, all at the same time. I went off to Davis the next year, knowing that I had made the right decision.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the winemaking process?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: Want to hear the gods laugh? Make a plan. Quality winemaking, of course, requires meticulous planning and rigorous application of those plans, but sometimes nature decides that your well-made Plan A has to go out the window–and I mean, right now. You’ve got to be flexible, adaptable, ready to go to Plan B  at a moment’s notice, and, if necessary, able to completely invent Plans C and D on the fly.

Do you remember the first time you fell in love with wine?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: Yes. A friend talked me into taking an intro to wine class that three wine-loving professors at our university had put together. One taught French, the others biology and chemistry.  I wasn’t really interested; I didn’t drink wine, or really much of anything, back then, even though the legal age was still 18 at the time.  It was not an easy class; we had to learn some real science as well as wine-region geography around the world.  But each three-hour class ended with a tasting, and that’s where it happened.  I couldn’t believe that what is essentially the same product could taste so different depending on who made it and where and how, nor could I believe that it could be so amazingly good!

Do you have a favorite story about working at your winery?

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: The day we bottled our first wines on-site was wonderful.  No one had made wine in the facility for decades, and the production areas were almost entirely derelict when we started out.  It took a lot of planning and many months of hard work to get the place rehabilitated to the point where we could operate in it.  Watching the mobile line put those great wines into glass that day filled me with a very gratifying sense of all that we had accomplished to make that moment possible.

How does your team help you as a winemaker?  

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: I have a team of one, our cellar master, Bernie Vargas.  I have worked with him for many years, well before Bartholomew Estatecame along, and he’s indispensable.  Between the two of us, we do pretty much everything that needs doing, but he does most of the heavy lifting in the cellar. I couldn’t make it happen without him.

What do you love about winemaking?  

Director of Winemaking, Kevin Holt: I love that it requires knowledge of so many different subjects in order to do it well. In my academic career I studied everything from Shakespeare to organic chemistry, and while I can’t truly say that the Bard of Avon has come in handy too many times, pretty much everything else is there.  Physics, microbiology, biochemistry, history, geology, agriculture, meteorology, sociology, botany, accounting, marketing, you name it; just about every discipline out there is somehow or other involved in the world of wine.