Horse & Plow Tasting Room
Suzanne Hagins presses cider from over thirty apple varieties grown around Sebastopol and Chris Condos makes the wine. You taste in a converted barn, four wines or four ciders.1
Why go
Hagins and Condos started the label in 2008 and buy only from certified organic or biodynamic vineyards, with minimal intervention in the cellar.1 Cider arrived in 2013, pressed from local orchards in the corner of Sonoma County that Gravenstein apples come from.1 You taste in a converted wooden barn with a vinyl collection behind the bar and a garden you can picnic in.1 Condos studied plant ecology at SF State and then viticulture at UC Davis, started at Pine Ridge, and has run Vinum Cellars in Oakville since 1997 at 30,000 cases a year.2 He has also been consulting winemaker at Kathryn Kennedy since 1998.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Heirloom cider, a blend of different apples. Wiatrak rated its texture before its flavor.1
- Order: The Gardener Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley, which is the upper of the two labels.1
- Order: a growler if you are local. Same price as a bottle for a full liter, in wine or cider.1
- Avoid: picking one flight and sticking to it. Wiatrak asked to mix the wines and ciders and the staff happily obliged.1
What locals & experts say
- Bryce Wiatrak, San Francisco Chronicle (17 July 2018):
Horse & Plow seems to embody everything there is to love about Sebastopol — a place where hippie intersects with hipster and delicious things seem to flow from every open bottle.
On the Heirloom cider, itimpresses as much for its texture — waxen, round, tactile — as its dry, pollenous flavor.
On The Gardener Wabi Sabi, a southern Rhone blend, ittastes of leather, chaparral and game.
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Good to know
- Two labels: the entry-level Horse & Plow wines and The Gardener Series above them.1
- The barn has a garden with outdoor seating, and the winery still advertises it.2
- I could not find the hours or the tasting fee. The winery's own site carries almost no prose, and neither number appears in the Chronicle piece.
Verdict
could-visit — The cider is the reason to turn off the highway. Hagins and Condos added it in 2013 and press over thirty apple varieties from orchards around Sebastopol, which is Gravenstein country, and Bryce Wiatrak's note on the Heirloom is about texture before flavor: waxen, round and tactile, finishing dry. The wine half has a real winemaker behind it, since Condos has run Vinum Cellars since 1997 and consulted at Kathryn Kennedy since 1998. Against that, the newest evidence is a 2018 Chronicle piece, and neither the hours nor the tasting fee appear anywhere that was read, so a reader cannot plan the visit from the record.