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TWO NEW HEALDSBURG TASTING ROOMS OPEN AMID WINERY SHAKEUP
Healdsburg, California Healdsburg, California
April 4, 2024 Date, Date, 20202020
TRUETT HURST MOVES TO THE ROUNDABOUT, WHILE AESTHETE TAKES ITS PLACE ON DRY CREEK ROAD By Simone Wilson
Photo courtesy of Edge Esmeralda
About five months after boutique Healdsburg wine brands Truett Hurst and VML went on the market, they found a buyer: the same man who founded them back in 2008. Phil Hurst sold his beloved brands to a large, Washington-based company called Precept Wine & Spirits around six years ago. When that company put Truett Hurst and VML up for sale last fall, Hurst seized the opportunity to take back what he built— with a little help from his friend Ken Wilson, of Wilson Artisan Wines. The two well-known local vintners made a joint purchase of True tt and VML in late March. They’re calling it a “groundbreaking partnership” that will leverage Wilson’s vast local infrastructure—including the Rockpile Vineyards tasting room along the roundabout—to help Hurst’s wines thrive. “Together, Hurst and Wilson plan to invest in crafting world-class, aw a r d - w i n n i n g w i n e s and create a downtown Healdsburg tasting room experience that captures the essence and personality of the wineries,” Wilson Wines said in a statement. Hurst will collaborate with longtime winemaker Ross Reedy to make the wine. Hurst’s son, Clay, will uphold the family tradition by overseeing the tasting room. The Wilson Wines team will handle operations and brand growth. And Wilson himself will design the tasting room
SOLARPUNK Promo materials for the 'Edge Esmeralda' village in Healdsburg are full of sci-fi images like floating cities and poolside live-work utopias.
Futuristic ‘Popup Village’ Plans Summer Residency in Healdsburg BAY AREA TECHIES GIVE AI, CRYPTO TALKS IN TOWN AND USE FOSS CREEK PATHWAY AS ‘SERENDIPITY LANE’ By Simone Wilson
Heads up: Healdsburg will likely look and feel a lot different for the whole month of June. More than usual, we may hear crypto words like “blockchain” and “Ethereum” being thrown around in the aisles of Big John’s. We may see large clumps of out-of-towners huddled together on laptops and doing other mysterious business in local buildings. We may see the normally tranquil Foss Creek Pathway overflowing with foot and bike traffic. And
don’t panic, but we may also have a slightly more difficult time finding a parking spot. That’s because 150plus Bay Area techies and other thought leaders from across the globe are being invited by two outside organizations—Edge City and the Esmeralda Land C o m p a ny — t o b e c o m e the “full-time residents” of an ambitious, monthlong “popup village” here in town, from June 2-30. Hundreds more shortterm visitors are invited to stop by as well. Onlookers speculate it might be one of the largest-ever influxes of visitors to Healdsburg in search of something other than wine. The Edge City organization is run by Janine Leger, a South Africa native and
Austin resident in her early 30s, and Timour Kosters, a young New York City startup builder and investor. They recently hosted a similar weeklong event in Denver—inspired by a couple of giant, twomonth-long seaside crypto villages they attended and helped organize last year in Montenegro and Istanbul. And they’re already planning another six-week village in Southeast Asia this fall. The raison de vivre for these excitable young entrepreneurs is nothing less than to reimagine the way society works—and they’ve chosen Healdsburg as the next staging ground for their grand experiment. They’re calling it a “gathering for people building the future.” The Healdsburg event
will “help us expose top builders and funders in the SF tech scenes to the movement we’re building,” Edge City organizers say on their website. No new housing will be constructed in Healdsburg to create the village of “Edge Esmeralda,” as its founders call it. Instead, attendees will be encouraged to stay in existing hotels at a discount—particularly the cluster of hotels near the Dry Creek exit off Highway 101, including Hotel Trio and the Best Western, and, about a mile south, the H2Hotel and Harmon Guest House. Participants will then be encouraged to walk and bike along the Foss Creek Pathway to attend daily seminars, meetups, work parties, communal meals
and other events scheduled within close proximity to that mile stretch. “I've long dreamed of living in a small town while also being surrounded by interesting, creative people,” says Devon Zuegel, the head of Edge City’s partner organization, the Esmeralda Land Company. “Healdsburg is one of the few places I’ve been that hits both notes at the same time.” Zeugel says the hope for the event is to “add to the amazing community that Healdsburg already has, mix in new ideas and people, and learn from and collaborate with locals.” Healdsburg City Councilmember Ariel Kelley, who’s been in the loop and shown her support for the past few months, thinks of Edge Esmeralda ➝ Summer Residency, 4
➝ Tasting Rooms, 5
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OTTO SAFARI WEST’S YOUNGEST RHINO IS 1 YEAR OLD THIS WEEK By Dan Pulcrano
Photo by Dan Pulcrano
LOCAL CELEBS From left, Eesha, Otto and Ongava meander across Safari West— Otto turned 1 on April 2.
The big news this week is that the Sonoma Countyborn white rhinoceros Otto Lang celebrated his first birthday on Tuesday. He was born April 2, 2023, with a birth weight of about 100 pounds—after Safari West’s rhinolove doctors spent nearly 15 years trying to get his mom, Eesha, to bond with a suitable mate.
She quickly fell for the well-traveled Ongava, a 28-year-old hornster who’d previously made the rounds at the Fort Worth Zoo, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Tampa’s Lowry before arriving at Safari West in 2021. Otto enters toddlerhood as a frisky, thousand-pound pup who spends his days enjoying mud puddles and sharpening his horn on tree stumps. We captured this shot of the family during a recent safari tour in the hills 10 miles southeast of Healdsburg Plaza, as the crow flies. Safari West is a 400-acre private wildlife preserve in the hills east of Windsor. During spring and summer, visitors can catch one of six daily safari tours that run between 9am and 5pm. For more info and to book a tour, visit SafariWest.com.