Sebastopol’s new cutting-edge bar pours wine from nearly every Sonoma AVA

SEBASTOPOL — My first wine tasting trip to Sonoma County in nearly three years could have been stressful. Throughout the pandemic, I had visions of myself in the flowy Marine Layer dress and wide-brimmed hat reserved for the occasion, a canvas bag of cheese and bread dangling effortlessly on my shoulder.

But did I really want to spend my day racing across this massive wine region nearly twice the size of Napa — needy Maltese and 11-year-old in tow — just to sit through long, expensive, overindulgent concierge-style appointments? Never mind the price of gas or that many of the producers on my wine-nerd list didn’t even have tasting rooms or public hours. No thanks.

“Traditional tasting room visits are actually declining,” says Kerry Thedorf, co-founder of Region, a self-serve wine bar in Sebastopol that offers 50-plus wines on tap representing 14 of the county’s 19 appellations. “We wanted to create a vibe kind of like breweries, where you hang out, try a bunch of wines and educate yourself as you go. This is what the wine industry needs.”

Theodorf, a former marketing manager for Duckhorn Vineyards, and her co-founder, engineer Johan Eide, opened Region at The Barlow (180 Morris St., Suite 170) in 2020. Region opens at noon or 1 p.m. daily (noon on Fridays and weekends) and offers QR codes to order food from neighboring restaurants, like The Farmer’s Wife, and have it delivered while you sip.

The duo unveiled another Region earlier this year in San Luis Obispo, and have hopes for a third in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone tells them to open a location in Napa, but Thedorf isn’t sure.

“I think accessibility would be an issue there,” she says.

The Sebastopol location is a bright, indoor-outdoor space with vaulted ceilings and soft leather chairs. Grab a smart card and start pressing buttons, watching as your chosen nectar flows from stainless steel dispensers. The wines — two from each of 25 wineries — are organized right to left from lightest to heaviest. The wines rotate quarterly, while the wineries, from Gary Farrell Vineyard & Winery, a pioneer of Russian River wines, to Young Hagen, a newer producer making a name for its stunning Sonoma Coast pinot, are on a one-year contract.

Most are boutique and independent wineries that often lack the deep pockets for flashy brick and mortars (just 12 of the 25 have tasting rooms). In many cases, their wines are made in small quantities and can be hard to find. Being Sonoma County, there is a strong chardonnay and pinot noir presence, in addition to syrah and Rhone blends, but I discovered a jasmine-laced Petaluma Gap estate albariño from Thirty-Seven Wines ($26 bottle) and a delicate Russian River Valley rosé from Alta Orsa Winery ($25 a bottle). Only 98 cases of that wine were made.

“Any brands owned by Constellation or Kendall-Jackson, we didn’t want,” Thedorf says. “We wanted small independently-owned brands. We have Immortal Estate. That’s a $350 bottle (of cabernet). You can’t find that anywhere right now.”

A taste of that wine, a 100-pointer critically-acclaimed as “perfection from Sonoma,” will run you $26. But most of the wines, including several that I tasted, cost just a few dollars. It goes up from there, if you want to pour a half-glass or full glass, but without the mark-up of a restaurant or typical wine bar.