Thackrey & Company N.V. 'Pleiades'

The Wine

This non-vintage wine has been produced every year since 1992, though I don't know if Sean's wines will continue to be produced since his passing in 2022. He described this wine as his "chef's special - something different every year based on what he decided was the best blend he could produce". It has always been a blend of grapes from Napa, Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino, some of them red, some white, and from various vintages. It may sound unconventional, and it is, but it has a loyal following among winemakers, retailers and wine lovers! 

The Winery

Sean Thackrey made these wines in an outdoor facility in Bolinas, California. This little enclave on the Sonoma Coast can be described equally well by the phrases "where the redwoods meet the sea" and "where reclusive billionaire surfers live next to burned-out hermits". It's an odd and wonderful and sometimes chaotic little part of the world.

Sean's wines reflected the uniqueness of this area, the one he chose for his winery. And his winery is as unique as Sean and Bolinas themselves - located outdoors, his massive wooden casks were used to ferment and age his wines in his foggy outdoor space that was his pad. Originally an art major and gallery owner in San Francisco (Thackrey & Robertson), his creative mind led him to make wine like an artist.

Though he took winemaking courses at UC Davis, he professed to have little love for the scientific approach to winemaking. After reading about an ancient open-air winemaking technique in the writings of a Greek poet from 700 BCE, Sean adopted this unconventional approach to his fermentations, a technique he described as "letting the grapes rest for 24 hours under the stars".

His eponymous winery grew from these quixotic origins to produce enough wine to slake the thirst of his ever-growing