We are so lucky in Sonoma to have a world class film festival every spring—the Sonoma International Film Festival. We were even luckier this year because we were able to have access to the whole festival and document it day by day for Cult Sonoma—including filmmaker interviews, special event footage and even some playful words from Lifetime Achievement honoree Susan Sarandon.
Click through to see the other two short videos…
We lent our video production services out to Cult Sonoma to cover the exciting, first annual Trashion Fashion Show & Exhibit featuring homegrown fashions created from reused, repurposed and recycled materials.
See more at Cult Sonoma.
We were recently commissioned by Sonomanews.com to update an old SONOMA magazine story Sarah had written and supplement it with a short video covering the subject of local craft beer in Sonoma. With our love for writing, filming and beer, we did not hesitate to say “yes!”
“Ah, the alchemy of good beer. Water, yeast, malted grain, hops. It feels like such a quaint equation, and yet prattling off those four ingredients is where the simplicity ends and the darkling tide of chemistry begins, chemistry from which—after a thousand bubbly incantations—our muse emerges from behind steel and oak. There’s a primitive comfort to good beer’s complexity. While wine strives to tether its story to a geographic place, beer makes a humble home in its glass. Surely, it can be regional, but at its best, good beer is drink for the deconstructionist.
One of our favorite things about living in Sonoma is the bread. Our community is lucky to have one of the world’s greatest bakers making bread just for us! Take a look at the short feature we produced on the subject above for Cult Sonoma, which writes:
There is gravity to a good bit of bread—it carries a sort of sacramental heft that doesn’t fool around. The way the outside shatters like a mosaic as you take a carnal rip off the crust, or the way it springs forth like a cloud into your mouth, swirled with a slug of olive oil. Great bread tethers you to your mortal coil—to your teeth and tongue and bones and blood and the all the things and conversations going on around you. It keeps you from floating away into the zeitgeist and leaving nothing but status updates to show for it. Pair it with nice beer, friendly people and some amicable herbs and vegetables and you pretty much have another reason to live.
This is why we have vaulted Sonoma’s Mike [the bejkr] Zakowski to the echelon of artisanal god. What can we say? He maketh good loaves, the sort of bread that bores into your psyche, the sort that would keep ancient fishermen alive when adrift at sea or something. I guess what we’re trying to say is that there are a lot of breads out there, but his breads feels divinely necessary.
“Every town needs a good baker,” intones Mike from the shipping container in his backyard he’s converted to a professional, artisinal bread-baking shop. We agree and we feel very blessed that Sonoma’s good baker is Mike!
Few products in our marketplace harbor such a poignant, rounded evolution as wine. If you approach winemaking in the right way, you marry your skills to minerals and weather patterns, long-forgotten volcanoes and riverbeds, the unspoken arc of sun and the eventual movement from light-drenched hillsides to the cool cocoon of casks and caves. You bear witness to the grapes’ transformation, and you do your best to preserve the story of their raw ingredients. It’s time and place in a glass.
Auteur, one of Sonoma’s highly regarded boutique wineries, radiates this understanding of winemaking. This year, the winery celebrates the release of some of winemaker/owner Kenneth Juhasz’s long-awaited estate wines as well the rebirth of their logo and label. Whether it’s that culminating moment that heralds a midnight harvest or the subtle interplay of colors in a new design, Kenneth and Laura understand the importance of process—that a million hand-wrought nuances distinguish great wine from good wine.
We had the privilege to work with them over the course of a few months as they embarked on their own sort of transformation. Here we captured a glimpse of the story of their wine. It’s also worth mentioning we highly recommend the wine. The view from a glass of Auteur is pretty stunning.
Click through to see some more photos!
We had the opportunity to join Sonoma’s Mike [the bejkr] Zakowski at his home last month for some delicious flat breads. Under a veil of December condensation, a group of lucky friends huddled around his outdoor brick oven while he and girlfriend Christy assembled small, steaming miracles adorned with pumpkin sauce, fresh cheeses, dandelion greens and other brilliant toppings.
We love art, and the Bay Area is certainly renowned for its uniquely creative vision—a vision which Sonoma area collector Rene di Rosa excelled at capturing in his extensive collection at the di Rosa preserve. We were sorry to hear of his recent passing. Sarah recalls, fondly, interviewing him for a story and how all he wanted to talk about was how much he loved eating his lunches at Sonoma Market. We do too! We’ll miss seeing him across the salad bar, but happily know his passion for art and his support for the arts will live on through the di Rosa preserve.
Here is a short video we produced for Cult Sonoma, capturing just a fraction of the collection and di Rosa experience.
Way back in August, the Belle Creative home offices took their show on the road to beautiful Orcas Island in the San Juans—we started off the workcation with a weekend at the stellar Doe Bay Fest enjoying meteor showers and some amazing music (we called it “band camp for adults.”) Check out our video recap and keep an eye out for Sonoma’s own Ryan William Lynch and his band Indian Valley Line . . . !
We’re under the spell of Scribe Winery . . . here’s a video we produced on the subject for Cult Sonoma!
Update: We were able to return to Scribe Winery for their last bash before they remodel “The Hacienda.” The event was a collaboration between the winery and 18 Reasons:
Thank you to the Sonoma Community Center for putting on yet another fabulous event! We’re already looking forward to next year!
