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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 60 WINES&VINES January 2016 New home for the MacRostie brand Since Steve MacRostie founded his epony- mous winery in 1987, the name MacRostie has meant high-quality Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. A few years after launching the winery, MacRostie set up shop in a warehouse in the industrial area along Eighth Street East near the city of Sonoma. While the area has become a hotbed for boutique warehouse wineries in recent years, MacRostie's may have been the first. The original MacRostie facility is now being used for the brand's Chardonnay pro- gram, which has grown to around 35,000 cases and is distributed nationally. Pinot Noir production, meanwhile, is around 5,000 cases, and that's where the program will stay for the foreseeable future. The new winery is designed to produce small lots of Pinot Noir wines with grapes from vineyards in the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley appellations. That focus came from a slight change in strategy in 2011 to build up MacRostie's direct-to-consumer sales. MacRostie initially focused on using the grapes from the Carneros AVA that straddles the south- ern reaches of both Sonoma and Napa coun- ties. "The question came up of how do we grow our Pinot program? And the answer wasn't distribution," Bridenhagen said. "It's how do we find really neat, cool-climate Pinot Noir vineyards. Let's start looking further west for cooler climates." That search led the MacRostie team to the Russian River Valley and the far west Sonoma Coast area of Fort Ross-Seaview. Bridenhagen joined the winery as assistant winemaker around the same time in 2011. Before joining MacRostie, she worked at Sonoma Cutrer and completed internships at other North Coast wineries and in New Zealand. Bridenhagen graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a degree in bio- chemistry, and a trip through Europe inspired her to pursue a career in winemaking. She said her science background has given her a pro- pensity for rigorous experimentation, and that fit perfectly with the small-lot style of wine- making practiced by MacRostie. "I'm kind of a science and experiment person at heart." The change in direction also coincided with founder Steve MacRostie's decision to sell the winery to the Distinguished Vineyards & Wine Partners group that also owns Argyle Winery in Dundee, Ore. Steve MacRostie still works as a consultant and meets and tastes with Briden- hagen regularly. With an injection of new capital and a new focus on small-lot Pinot Noir production, the company also began looking for property in Sonoma County to build a new winery and hospitality center. "Once we figured out what we wanted to do, the next step was finding a home and land in this area," Bridenhagen said. Distinguished Vineyards purchased the property near the end of 2012. The land had originally been planted with vines that sur- rounded a private residence. Another wine company had purchased the site to build a winery and had redeveloped the 14 acres of vineyards in 2009. That company had done Founder and current consultant Steve MacRostie ROBERT HOLMES