Benovia

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Benovia Winery

“[Pinot is] very thin-skinned and temperamental. It’s about subtlety; not power. It’s the heartbreak grape,” Mike Sullivan, co-owner and winemaker

The difficult and fickle nature of the Pinot varietal is precisely what Benovia co-owner and winemaker Mike Sullivan finds most appealing about his favorite varietal. “It’s very thin-skinned and temperamental. It’s about subtlety; not power,” he says. “It’s the heartbreak grape.”

Benovia’s take on the “heartbreak grape” spawned a love affair among North Bay wine lovers. The recognition is well deserved for a winery with a primary focus on producing premium Pinots. “Pinot is our specialty,” says Sullivan. “We farm 72 acres in Russian River Valley. Pinot is our passion and the cornerstone of our business.”

Benovia’s style of Pinot is “one foot in the old world, and one foot in the new world,” according to Sullivan. The winery embraces the regional character within the vines to create wines that are flavorful and food friendly. “We want to strike a balance between richness, acidity and wines that are savory,” says Sullivan. The winery ages its wines for 16 months in barrels and an additional six months in bottles.

For Benovia, labor is life and life is fulfilling. It’s a credo Mike has embodied throughout his life, spending his summers tending to his family’s vines on Sonoma Mountain while he pursued an enology degree at Fresno State. Mike went on to establish Benoiva Winery with Mary DeWane and Joe Anderson in 2005. “It’s a delight and an honor to be recognized,” he says. “Especially since we’re a small, independent, family-owned winery in the Russian River Valley.”

Despite being a smaller operation, Benovia is big on philanthropy. Co-founders Mary DeWane and Joe Anderson helped raise $4.5 million as co-chairs of the Sonoma County Wine Auction for Sonoma County literacy programs. The winery is also big on sustainability, but like their Pinots, Benovia makes an ecological splash with a subtler approach. Benovia’s Martaella Estate Vineyard in the Russian River Valley is equipped with 171 solar panels that produce around 60,000-kilowatt hours of electricity per year. The solar panels help reduce the winery’s CO2 emissions by an estimated 1,180 tons over a 25-year period. In addition to this, Benovia builds its own organic composts, provides habitat for wildlife and the Cohn Estate Vineyard is farmed organically, an effort that’s been certified by the California Certified Organic Farmers.

Benovia’s line of balanced and expressive, limited-production wines are even more than they seem. Sullivan prefers to view each of them as a unique and distinctive adventure. “Tasting the wines here is a discovery,” he says. “Where people can stop in and find out which ones they love.”

www.benoviawinery.com

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