This weekend, fans and makers of natural and biodynamic wine will flock to Solar Punk Farms in Guerneville for Big West. For its fourth installment, Big West is featuring nearly fifty winemakers each day, and has added an in-house bistro.
Founders Nina Kravetz and Emily Weber studied in Copenhagen and were inspired by the salon culture in Europe, “how people were just drinking outside and it was cheap and accessible and not a whole big ego/class thing,” Kravetz, 29, told Gazetteer SF. Big West, she said, brings “a wholesome culture of welcome” to wine.
Kravetz and Weber were also tired of schlepping to the city. Most winemakers live close to the vineyards they farm in Napa and Sonoma, and often must drive to San Francisco or Oakland for wine events, Kravetz said. They figured it was time to host a wine festival in Sonoma. Many of the participating winemakers do not have their own tasting rooms, so larger events and festivals are necessary for attracting customers.
“The impetus to start this whole thing was to give [winemakers] an opportunity and a space to share their wines in the place where they make them, the place where they grow grapes and often live and work,” said Weber, 34.
This year’s lineup of winemakers is just shy of a hundred, and features some familiar names such as 280 Project (who joined us at Chat Room: Analog), Catch and Release, Le Chill, Ashanta, Laughing Gems, and Florèz. Woody’s will be pouring some non-alcoholic options as well.
The first Big West was in 2023. Kravetz and Weber held two small test events before partnering with Solar Punk Farms, a queer-minded regenerative lifestyle demonstration site, for a one-day, very DIY festival with 60 winemakers.
The draw for attendees was its minimal pretense, Kravetz told me over the phone while navigating a lumber yard outside of Guerneville. No VIP; just people hanging around a redwood grove sharing wines.
Replacing the food trucks of previous years is a bistro run by Lily Chait, a Chez Panisse alum who curated the menu around seasonal produce, including summer squash, fennel, radicchio, and snap peas. “Like French bistro meets California co-op,” they say.
Kravetz and Weber are expecting some 800 people in the grove across attendees, roughly half of whom are from SF, winemakers, and volunteers each day. Saturday’s already sold out. It’s all ages, so expect to see some “wine babies.”
“People use the word community a lot in the natural wine industry, and I feel like it's both like a buzzword and very true,” said Kravetz. “We started Big West knowing that true community means that everyone is around, including kids, including elders, and that this scene should be really welcoming for everybody.”
