The Dry Creek Valley estate that once housed Sbragia Family Vineyards is getting a second life. Sbragia Family Vineyards announced a merger with Brookside Winery, with a renovated tasting room slated to reopen in spring 2027.
Sbragia Family Vineyards closed its tasting room in August 2024 after citing low visitation, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. The winery, known for age-worthy, mountain-grown Cabernet Sauvignon that sold for as much as $130 a bottle, had been producing about 8,000 cases a year and kept moving inventory through its wine club and wholesale accounts even after the doors shut. The more than 50-acre estate sits in Dry Creek Valley, part of a Sbragia family history in the Sonoma County wine industry stretching back more than 120 years.
According to Sbragia Family Vineyards, the merger with Brookside Winery became official on Sept. 8, 2026. The overhauled estate and tasting room are set to welcome visitors again next spring.
A Winery With Roots Back to 1832
Brookside Vineyard Company traces its lineage to a winery founded by Theophile Vaché in 1832, long before it became a Southern California institution.
How Sbragia and Brookside Found Each Other
Sbragia Family Vineyards was founded in the early 2000s by Ed Sbragia and his son Adam, and it had entered a partnership with San Francisco-based Bacchus Capital Management back in 2011. Ed Sbragia built his reputation over three decades as a winemaker at Beringer Vineyards in Napa Valley, a run that included being named Chronicle Winemaker of the Year in 2001.
The deal that revives the estate under the Brookside name took shape after Tim Bacino, the sixth-generation family member now carrying the Brookside legacy forward, reconnected with Ed Sbragia in 2025. Bacino, who founded Gen 7 Wines in 2008 and already runs a tasting room in Napa, said he recognized an opportunity to buy the winery, according to the company's press release. Ed Sbragia has described the effort as a way to preserve the winery's future.
A Tough Few Years for California Wine Country
The Sbragia closure in 2024 came amid a broader slowdown across wine country. Tasting-room traffic in Sonoma County fell 5.9% year over year in the first half of 2024, with sales down 2.9%, while Napa Valley saw traffic drop 5.3% and sales fall 4.2% over the same stretch, according to the Chronicle's reporting. Other wineries and tasting rooms that shut down that year included Carlisle Winery, Brendel Wines, Tarpon Cellars and Twisted Oak Winery.
The pressure hasn't let up since. California had 4,727 wineries at the end of 2024, down from 4,949 at the start of the year, a loss of 222 operations attributed to rising costs, climate pressures and shifting consumer habits, as Forbes reported. Napa Valley alone saw three more wineries — Brian Arden Wines, Newton Vineyard and Twomey — shutter within a single month in early 2025. Statewide, California lost 47,229 acres of wine grapes between August 2025 and August 2026, leaving 439,115 acres remaining, and wineries crushed 2.62 million tons of grapes in 2025, down more than 8% from the year before, according to data reported by the Sacramento Bee.
Not every recent move in wine country has been a retreat. Auteur Wines opened a new estate tasting room outside Healdsburg in April 2025, investing roughly $10 million in a 3,000-square-foot building on eight acres, Forbes noted. Brookside's planned return to Dry Creek Valley next spring will test whether a storied but long-dormant name can find new footing in a region still shedding wineries and vineyard acreage.
