Sojourn Cellars buys its East Napa Street buildings, putting down permanent roots off the Plaza
The winery announced October 14 that it has acquired 141, 143 and 145 East Napa Street, the buildings housing its Tasting Salon and offices, the first time in its history that Sojourn has owned its own brick-and-mortar home.
SONOMA: A downtown tenant since 2009 has become an owner. Sojourn Cellars announced on October 14 that it has acquired its downtown Tasting Salon and administrative office buildings at 141, 143 and 145 East Napa Street, just off the historic Sonoma Town Square. The company says the purchase is the first time it has owned its physical brick-and-mortar space, and the first time its administrative offices and guest hospitality spaces have been unified in a single, consolidated location.
Sojourn first established its presence at 141 East Napa Street in 2009, in what the announcement describes as a modest, single-room tasting space with just one table for intimate, seated tastings. The winery's listing on Sonoma.com tells the same story from the guest's side of the table: a Tasting Salon just off the Square where seated tastings compare its Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon side by side across their growing regions, from the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley to Napa Valley.
Room for bigger tables, and a patio
Ownership has already changed how the space works. The company says it has transformed the 143 East Napa Street space around a large custom table with seating for up to 12 guests, so it can host larger private and corporate groups, and that the indoor expansion pairs with an outdoor tasting patio. Guests are being poured the winery's single-vineyard Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon in the newly unified layout.
"Owning our home on East Napa Street is a profound step forward for the Sojourn team," said Sherrie Perkovich, the winery's head of marketing and consumer experiences, in the announcement. "We started here in 2009 with a single table and a vision for deeply personal, seated tastings," she added, describing a hospitality culture the company says ownership now lets it preserve on its own terms.
A renovation, phased, and buyouts to come
What comes next, the company says, is renovation in phases, working with the frame of the buildings as they stand and keeping the small, seated character regulars know rather than trading it away for scale. The three-building site also makes a new format possible: letting one group take the whole property for its own occasion, whether a company gathering or a tasting arranged for a single party.
The deal lands in a season when Sonoma wine news has run the other way, through closures and a Chapter 11 filing the Post has covered this fall. A winery buying the buildings it has occupied since 2009 is the opposite motion: a bet, made in the middle of a hard market, that the block just east of the Plaza is where it intends to stay.
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