Corkbuzz Online | West Sonoma Coast with Guest Andy Peay of Peay Vineyards

Sonoma Valley is a diverse area producing many top quality wine styles. An area often overlooked or misunderstood, are the far western vineyards of Sonoma Coast, where pioneering growers and winemakers have turned to the windswept ridge lines to create wines unlike any other in California. Corkbuzz welcomes Andy Peay to discuss the history, present, and future of the West Sonoma Coast.

Andy started Peay Vineyards with his older brother, Nick, in 1996. Their goal wasto make American wines that captured a purity and unique sense of place like the great wines they enjoyed drinking from the Old World. To that end, the brothers decided it was critical for them to own and farm their own grapes in a climate much cooler than they had experienced in the New World. In 1996, they purchased an old sheep ranch on a ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the extreme West Sonoma Coast near Annapolis-where folks said it was too cold to ripen wine grapes -and were the first to plant the region in 1998. They were joined in 2001 by Vanessa Wong, former winemaker at Peter Michael and Hirsch, who started her career with stints at Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Domaine Jean Gros. This allowed Nick to focus on farming the 52-acre organic vineyard and Andy to manage sales and marketing.They have been very fortunate to be able to make wines of finesse and intensity that capture the character of their estate vineyard as well as the attention of wine lovers around the world.Previous to starting Peay in 1996, Andy worked as a strategy consultant and in finance. He has an M.B.A from Haas School at UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Literature from Dartmouth College. He also sits on the boards of Saverlife, a non-profit fintech based in San Francisco; is a founder of The West Sonoma Coast Vintners; and is one of the founders of the Sustainable Food Initiative at U.C. Berkeley, Haas.

Zoom links will be sent via email on the morning of the class. Follow-up notes are sent the following day.

Check out our wine "backpacks" for class here or email laura@corkbuzz.com for custom wines for class.