Spiced Lamb Ribs
“Our grandfather loved lamb, so we grew up eating it,” says Kelly. “We bought one a year and divided it among all of our families.” Years later, as a cook at Chez Panisse, Kelly’s first day at the gri...
Scribe Hits Its Stride
Beneath the rocky spine of the Mayacamas Mountains at the southern edge of Sonoma Valley, Scribe winery is writing a new story. It’s an enchanted tale of old values and new vision, and we’re not the first to be mesmerized by its telling.
When the Mariani family took on the property in 2007, hopes were high. Fourth generation farmers from the Central Valley, they figured their agricultural roots were just what was needed to repair the blight wrought by decades of neglect. Formerly an old turkey farm (and, at one time, a working brothel!), the property had long been surrendered to time and the elements.
A can-do attitude was essential for the monumental effort it took to bring the vineyards and the once-crumbling hacienda to life. When they purchased the land, it was home to 13 decaying turkey sheds and littered with odds and ends from decades of farm use. The Scribe team dismantled most of the old sheds—recycling the materials—and re-established the hillside’s natural slope while readying the land for biodynamic farming. Of the 255 acres, only 55 are devoted to vines. Three-quarters of the remaining acreage is set aside for a Forever Wild conservation and the rest is dedicated to a small fruit orchard, olive grove, vegetable and flower gardens, honeybees and chickens.
Today, winemaker brothers Andrew and Adam manage the winery, and sister Kelly directs what comes out of Scribe’s kitchen. Under their leadership, the winery reflects the siblings’ natural respect for the land and their casually sophisticated NorCal style. The wines are modern and light, the winery surroundings timeworn yet elegant, and the food Chez Panisse–level excellent. All three share a dedication to environmentally conscientious farming, a preference for artisanship and a willingness to experiment. Their efforts have resonated with both locals and tourists, and an ever expanding fan base is all-in on Scribe’s vibrant, terroir-driven wines and laid-back atmosphere.
Scribe’s first vintage—a light Sylvaner—debuted in 2012, the first time the wine had been produced in the Sonoma Valley in 93 years. “We take a lot of inspiration from the pre-Prohibition era on the Scribe farm—resurrecting varietals like Sylvaner, Riesling and Mission here, in addition to Pinot and Chardonnay—our focus,” says Andrew. “It’s all in pursuit of expressing the distinct Sonoma terroir that we farm in: the volcanic ashy soils, the salty breeze coming off the bay, the fog through the Petaluma gap.”
The brothers chose to produce what made sense to two young men with agricultural backgrounds and educated confidence, blending their first vintages from the Burgundian grape varieties that do well in the valley’s cool, windy climes.
Andrew and Adam, then both in their 30s, had already released a handful of vintages and hosted a few wine pairing dinners (prepared by visiting chefs brave enough to make do in the still rustic environment) when they first set about restoring the hacienda in 2014. Like their terroir-driven approach to winemaking, they stayed true to the structure’s bones—improving on finishes rather than changing them completely, and honoring the building’s more-than-century-old history.
“We preserved as much character, patina and texture as possible,” says Andrew. “So walking through the hacienda you see relics of different eras of the property that tell its story and California’s story more broadly. The 1850 brick cellar, the 1906 fire, the bootlegging-era hall and Mission Revival rebuild, the quirky wallpaper of a ’60s reno, and now our contemporary addition … Adding another layer to that story and being a part of a long history feels meaningful.” Many of Scribe’s devoted fans arrive ready to spend a day settled into custom-crafted wooden furniture in the sun-splashed lounge, or to picnic on the sloping lawn. They settle in at tables on the veranda with a glass of wine and eagerly await the gourmet snacks issued from Kelly’s kitchen.
The kitchen, like the rest of the hacienda, is a lesson in comfort and simplicity. Centered around an ample island, the space is rustic, sophisticated and functional—backed by a generously proportioned Montague range and flanked by open shelves of hand-crafted serveware from local potters. Massive floor-to-ceiling glass doors open wide to an adjacent patio for wood-fire grilling à la Francis Mallman, and stairs tumbling down to the generous organic vegetable garden.
The garden is central to every dish that comes from the Scribe kitchen. Kelly takes the same approach to her work in the kitchen as her brothers do in the vineyards—allowing time and nature to dictate what she produces. Farm-to-table cooking is not a new concept to the Marianis.
“We grew up on an orchard and always had a vegetable garden, so seasonality was always something we simply expected,” says Kelly.
Kelly joined her brothers at the winery in 2016, just before completion of the kitchen remodel (along with the rest of the hacienda) the following year. By that time, the young chef already had an impressive range of experiences to draw from. Determined to hone her agricultural and culinary education after college, Kelly enrolled in Ireland’s famed Ballymaloe Cookery School in East Cork. She spent three months receiving intense culinary instruction and making the most of everything derived from the country’s green grass and cool climate.
“I’d wake up in the morning and milk the cows, then use that in the kitchen that day to make butter and ice cream and clotted cream,” says Kelly. “Then I’d be working in the vegetable garden every afternoon.”
Thinking she wanted to write about food, she received her master’s in human ecology and sustainability at Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, only to recognize that the more she learned, the more she wanted to get back into the kitchen. She went on to cook at the progressive American Academy in Rome. There, she was introduced to visiting chef Alice Waters and opportunity knocked. When the California culinary icon offered Kelly a job back in the States, it didn’t take her long to make a decision.
In her four years at Chez Panisse, Kelly made her rotation through the restaurant’s cooking stations: from the grill station to salads to everything else in between. Central to the Chez Panisse experience, of course, was the consistent supply of freshly harvested organic produce that flowed into the restaurant on a daily basis. So, when Kelly moved from the famed East Bay restaurant to take over the kitchen at Scribe, the winery’s garden was her first consideration.
She partners with the winery’s head gardener, Stephen Carter, on garden management—often a good-natured negotiation and complicated puzzle of timing and space considerations. The two met while working at Chez—Kelly in the kitchen and Stephen in service. During his first day on the job, Stephen tagged along for a pickup at Green String Farm in Petaluma and met Bob Cannard, the farm’s renowned director and a leader in the sustainable farming movement. Three months later, Stephen was living on the farm. The experience was transformative.
“Slipping your feet into wet boots still damp from yesterday’s harvest. Bitterly cold harvests, started under the moon, giving way to brilliant sunsets. Endless summer days of weeding.
Huge fields that just seem to go on forever,” he recalls. It was rigorous and taxing and poetic all at once, and Stephen fell in love with working the land.
He brings every bit of it to the garden at Scribe, keeping seedlings from the greenhouse and row crops in constant rotation, fed with a rich composting system supported by kitchen scraps and a busy flock of chickens. Debate on garden management is keen.
“There’s definitely a dance we have to do when it comes to crop rotation,” says Stephen. This year, with its wet spring and late start to summer, was especially trying.
“Stephen wanted to pull the favas before they were done producing because he had to make way for the tomatoes,” Kelly adds. Lucky for both, the tomatoes should be producing well into October this year and both appreciate the change in flavor that comes with colder weather.
“Everything tastes so much better after a little frost,” notes Stephen. “Carrots, radishes, turnips, mustards, brassicas, leeks—Kelly will use them all.”
Kelly does her best to keep ingredients in the ground through the growing season—all the while experimenting with new combinations to complement different varietals in Scribe’s collection. She draws inspiration from what the garden delivers, and by hosting an impressive coterie of chefs at the winery. Just in the last few years they’ve welcomed Jess Shadbolt and Annie Shi from King in New York City, Mashama Bailey of The Grey in Savannah, GA., Alice Waters and Joshua McFadden, among others. “Continuing education is really important to me,” says Kelly. “There’s always something to learn in the kitchen.”
At Scribe, the Marianis have cultivated a community that speaks to their upbringing as well as their hopes for the future. Adam and Andrew are now both young dads, and Kelly and other close family live within biking distance. The family is paying it forward the only way they know how—by creating the life experience they love for their visitors and their children.
“I have a lot of wonderful memories of growing up on an orchard in the western Sacramento Valley,” says Andrew. “Sitting on the canal in the summer heat, eating a fresh apricot right off the tree, the smell of the plums drying in the sun at the dehydrator next door late in the fall, finding snakes in the watermelon patch, on and on ... I hope that my daughters and nephews have similar memories when they’re older. Maybe it will be sitting in the pickup truck in the middle of the night watching the harvesters pick grapes under the floodlights, picking radishes in the garden, hanging out in the hacienda kitchen. I think these types of memories are grounding and connect you to the land, food and an agricultural ecosystem. You see hard work, people collaborating, and the tangible result of that work—and how it all can bring people together to form a community.”
And to that, we raise our glass!
Recipes
Tomatoes with Whipped Feta and Popped Seeds
“With our late spring, we didn’t get the tomato plants in the garden until late this year,” says Kelly. “Given the timing, we should be harvesting tomatoes well into October.” Kelly loves this salad a...