Our Story

We took a circuitous path “back to our roots.”

Bill grew up in Vallejo, but his Sonoma County roots are deeper than our Zinfandel vines’.

In 1868, great-great-grandparents on his mother’s side settled in Windsor, less than three miles south of Alegría Vineyards. At about the same time, great-great-grandparents on his father’s side settled near Petaluma. In the 1890s, one of Bill’s grandfathers was working in vineyards in the Napa Valley.

After college and law school at UC Berkeley, Bill went to Washington, DC, where he met Betsy, then in graduate school at George Washington University. Bill worked as a lawyer in DC for six years before returning to San Francisco where he practiced law for another ten years. Betsy worked in public policy in DC and Virginia. In San Francisco, she was, for many years, the Public Policy manager at Bank of America.

Bill enrolled in viticulture classes at Santa Rosa Junior College while he was looking for a vineyard, and discovered what became Alegría Vineyards during a class field trip in 1989. He is very “hands on” and did much of the work to reinvigorate the old vineyard, design, and plant the new blocks. He works in the vineyards every day. In 1994, Betsy and Bill decided to make wine from their Alegría Vineyards and they established ACORN Winery, which they operated for almost 30 years.

2024 will be our 35th harvest
at Alegría Vineyards.

Our focus now is only to grow great grapes for other wineries. Our experience as winemakers helps us understand what winemakers are looking for.

Bill is a past president of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association and served on the boards of the Sonoma County Vineyard Technical Group and the Russian River Valley Winegrowers as well.

Today, we continue to find alegría as we enjoy living in the middle of our vineyards, enjoying the Russian River Valley climate and continuing a long tradition by sustainably growing premium quality grapes.