"Moving our tasting room to the Redwood Room marks an exciting new chapter, offering guests a welcoming new way to enjoy our wines, our estate and the remarkable views that have always defined this place," said Nathan Kandler, general manager and winegrower of Thomas Fogarty Winery.
Thomas Fogarty Winery will mark its 45th anniversary on October 3, 2026 with the opening of the Redwood Room, a new tasting space that relocates the winery's hospitality program into a room built of original redwood. The winery, founded in 1981 by Dr. Thomas Fogarty and Michael Martella, sits on a 350-acre estate in the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 2,000 feet above Silicon Valley, with roughly 30 acres of organically farmed vineyard and heritage oak and fir forest preserved as open space.
"For 45 years, Thomas Fogarty Winery has been shaped by Dr. Thomas Fogarty's vision and Michael Martella's pioneering work to demonstrate what is possible in the Santa Cruz Mountains," said Nathan Kandler, the winery's general manager and winegrower. He called stewarding the estate alongside the next generation of the Fogarty family a privilege, and said moving the tasting room to the Redwood Room "marks an exciting new chapter, offering guests a welcoming new way to enjoy our wines, our estate and the remarkable views that have always defined this place."
The room
The Redwood Room centers on original redwood construction, a cast-iron wood-burning stove and handcrafted tables built from wine barrels. The winery describes the move as giving guests a more intimate way to experience its site-driven Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the varieties that have defined the Santa Cruz Mountains estate since its founding.
Hospitality extends beyond the room itself. The winery's Pavilion deck hosts pizza from Daniel's Kitchen, and reservations run through Tock, with tastings starting at $20 for a Bar Splash. The address is 19501 Skyline Blvd, Woodside, CA 94062.
The mountain bet
The Santa Cruz Mountains AVA is one of California's most demanding places to farm: steep slopes, modest yields and high costs. Fogarty's 45-year run under continuous family stewardship is itself the credential, and the estate's 30 organically farmed acres sit inside a 350-acre property where heritage oak and fir forest is preserved as open space.
The anniversary also signals succession. Kandler's reference to stewarding the estate alongside the next generation of the Fogarty family points to a transition plan, the kind of orderly handoff the industry's family wineries often struggle to execute. For the trade, Fogarty is a case study in how mountain estates survive: farm organically, sell the place as much as the wine and plan the handoff before it is urgent.
Why the anniversary matters to the trade
Few California wineries reach 45 years under continuous family stewardship, and fewer still in mountain appellations where farming is expensive and yields are modest. The Fogarty estate's longevity rests on a model the industry is watching closely: organically farmed estate vineyards, a hospitality program that trades on place rather than spectacle, and a succession plan that brings the next generation of the Fogarty family into the operation.
The Redwood Room opening is also a bet on the tasting room as a growth channel at a moment when DTC is contracting nationally. Moving the tasting experience into a purpose-built, atmospheric space is exactly the kind of capital investment in conversion that the 2026 industry surveys say separates growers from decliners. Fogarty is wagering that a better room, in a better setting, still sells wine.