Like so many of the great things about California – or about the United States in general – the wine community has benefited so much from the people who have come from other countries. This includes, of course, migrant workers who tirelessly work the vines under the hot Californian sun. It also includes famous wine migrants like Miljenko Grgich, who was born in Croatia and became a legendary wine figure here. Migrants bring ambition and creativity, they bring an open mind, and they bring ideas developed in other places among other cultures. All of this contributes to the highly diverse, very experimental, and always adventurous wine culture that we enjoy here today.

Sonoe Hirabayashi group up in Nagano, Japan. Her family made sake, fermented soy sauce, and miso, and grew apples. She came to California to study wine, completed a number of internships at wineries around the world (Ted Lemon, Ostertag, etc.), and then settled down here to make Californian wine. She calls her winery “Six Cloves” – the name that her Japanese ancestors called their own business.

Sonoe makes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The Chardonnay is grown by Napa master Steven Math in the quite cool Linda Vista vineyard. The wine is made in a style that will please admirers of, say, PYCM, following her intuitions to pick early barrel age wines on their lees. Acidity is great and alcohol is modest.

There is a similar approach with Pinot Noir, in this case grown in a “backyard” organic vineyard. Alcohol is modest and oakiness is non-existent, with aging only in neutral barrels. The use of whole clusters (50% of the grapes) adds texture and aromatics.

These are lovely wines that are decidedly old-world in style. By old world, we of course mean Europe, but perhaps Sonoe brings a touch of something from a different old world, Japan? She has said that she wants to bring her Japanese heritage to her wines. Could this be the kind of beneficial obsessiveness that we read about in Drops of God or witness firsthand at a top Tokyo sushi bar? We don’t know. But try these wines and keep an eye on Sonoe, as we expect many great things from her in the future.

Six Cloves Wines Oak Knoll Chardonnay Linda Vista Vineyard 2020 - $39.99

Six Cloves Wines Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Buf-Wehr Ranch 2022 - $54.99