The Gentlest Catch in California: Beno Stewart & Monica Varriale
In Sonoma County, Benо Stewart and Monica Varriale make contemporary wines by hand from organic and biodynamically farmed fruit — fermented on native yeasts, pressed gently, never fined, never filtered, kissed with minimal sulfur — and released, like a good fishing trip, back into the world the moment they're ready.
The name is the method. Like the fishing practice it borrows, Catch & Release works on a simple covenant: take only what the season offers, handle it gently, and let it go. Their own Instagram bio says it in five words: "Contemporary wines, guided by circumstance, handmade in Sonoma County."
The project is a partnership between Monica Varriale and Benо Stewart, who make every wine by hand in Sonoma. They did not start with an estate or an inheritance — they started with a conviction, expressed on their site: "We make wines we like to drink, in partnership with growers who lead from the front of regenerative farming."
That conviction has a flavor. "We champion simplicity, prioritize delicacy, and crave acidity at every turn," they write. "These wines are meant to make you feel something. Good, bad, or in between, you will know you're drinking something of substance." In a California landscape long dominated by power and polish, Catch & Release bets everything on lightness, nerve and feeling — and the natural-wine world has taken notice, from RAW WINE to the shelves of shops like Primal and Skin Contact across the country.
The Place — Sonoma, Anderson & Mendocino
Catch & Release works with organic and biodynamic sites across Northern California's coastal wine country — Sonoma County, Anderson Valley and Mendocino — in partnership with growers focused on regenerative farming. And the pair are increasingly farming some of the very sites they source from, deepening from buyers to custodians.
Filigreen Farm, Anderson Valley
An organic Anderson Valley vineyard whose name appears on the label of Lover Girl and P2 — a sign of how close the partnership runs. Cool Pacific fog, diatomaceous soils and old-vine Pinot material make it one of California's most quietly thrilling addresses.
Alder Springs, Mendocino County
High-elevation Mendocino ranch sourcing for After Sun's Trousseau and the Mendocino Chardonnay of earlier releases — lean, salty, briny at 11.8%, no new oak. Mountain fruit with the brightness the pair crave at every turn.
Regenerative, By Name
The brief to every grower is the same: lead from the front of regenerative farming. Organic and biodynamic certification is the floor; living soil, biodiversity and low intervention in the field are what the wines are actually made of.
From Buyers to Farmers
Stewart and Varriale are increasingly hands-on in the vineyards themselves, taking over the farming of key sites as the project matures — the slow conversion of a négociant-style project into a true estate in waiting.
Winemaking — Simplicity, Delicacy, Acidity
The cellar discipline is minimalism with intent. All fermentations run on native yeasts; pressing is gentle; extraction is restrained; nothing is fined and nothing is filtered; sulfur, when used at all, is a whisper. As their RAW WINE profile puts it: less is more, aiming for delicacy, acidity and vitality.
Texture comes from time and patience rather than technique. Skin contact runs long enough to matter and no longer — the Middle Child blend co-ferments Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer on skins for twelve days before joining direct-pressed Riesling in neutral oak. The point is never weight for its own sake; it is contour, line, and the electricity of acidity.
And the wines are built to move. Releases arrive seasonally — six cuvées each fall and winter — through the Club Unfiltered wine club and a small network of natural-wine shops, priced from $30 to $35. No library releases, no tiered prestige program: catch it now, or release it to someone luckier.
The Wines — Six Per Season, Then Gone
Each seasonal release is a small constellation of cuvées from organic and biodynamic sites across Northern California. Native yeasts, no fining, no filtering, minimal sulfur — and a farm's name on every label.
Middle Child
The skin-contact blend — "angular, spicey, friendly"Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer co-fermented twelve days on skins, joined by direct-pressed Riesling, from an organic Mendocino vineyard; twelve months in neutral oak. Ginger, spice and stone-fruit flesh over a taut acidic frame. $30.
Lover Girl
The Pinot Gris — "eloquent, textural, affirming"Filigreen Farm Pinot Gris from Anderson Valley, pressed gently and raised without makeup. Textural but weightless — the kind of white that disappears one glass at a time. $35.
After Sun
The Trousseau — Mendocino light-red, alpine soulTrousseau from Alder Springs' high Mendocino ranch — cranberry, herb and sea-breeze lift in a featherweight frame. Chill it hard; drink it outside; thank the fog.
P2
The co-ferment — "co-fermented Pinot Noir & Pinot Gris"Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris picked and fermented together at Filigreen Farm — a whole-cluster co-ferment that lands somewhere between rosé, red and electricity. $35; Anderson Valley in its most playful mood.
Supernova & Cruising Altitude
The reds — Gamay "inviting, affable, gentle" and Grenache "herbal, glassy, formidable"Gamay and Grenache from organic coastal sites, whole-cluster and whole-hearted — the easy-drinking half of any Catch & Release table. Earlier classics — Swim Good, Fair Trade, Block Party — built the same way and remembered fondly.
Legacy — California, Handled Gently
The first legacy is a thesis proved. Catch & Release set out to show that the most interesting California wines can also be the gentlest — and five years of sold-out seasonal releases later, the thesis holds. Delicacy turned out to be a market, not a compromise.
The second is transparency as brand. Filigreen Farm and Alder Springs appear on the labels in the same size as the cuvée names; growers who lead from the front of regenerative farming get top billing. In a state where fruit sourcing is often a footnote, Catch & Release makes it the headline — and is slowly becoming a grower itself.
The third is emotional. These wines are explicitly built to make you feel something — "good, bad, or in between." That is a radical proposition in an industry that trains drinkers to taste scores. Catch & Release would rather you remember the afternoon than the number — which may be the most Californian thing of all.