Our Story
A family-owned, family operated Sonoma County vineyard & winery
Brutal Hill is a family winery dedicated to hand crafted, high quality wines made from their small, organically farmed vineyards. Lorraine and Michael Barber started the ‘Barber Cellars’ winery in 2007. As the years progressed, they slowly took over farming responsibilities for all their vineyards and changed the name of the winery to ‘Brutal Hill’ in 2026 to better reflect their hard work in the vineyards and the estate-grown nature of their wine production.
There is a saying in this industry that goes: “In the wine business, you start with a large fortune to make a small fortune.” The Barbers started with no fortune at all, just a desire to hand craft unique, memorable, and honest California wines. Their first wines were from Dry Creek Valley fruit, crushed and fermented at a co-op winery in Suisun City close to San Francisco, which they hand sold on their lunch breaks while working their day jobs in the city. Fast forward many years of hard work, sweat, and toil. Now they farm 10 acres of smaller, remote vineyards around the Sonoma County town of Petaluma, making wine in their own winery, and pouring wine in their downtown Petaluma tasting room.
Dry farmed, organic wines made by hand
Hard ground, beautiful wine. Anything great requires struggle, and the Barbers make great wine from the rugged soils of their remote vineyards. From their steep vineyards at the top of Sonoma Mountain to their vines tucked away in the hills of the Petaluma Gap, they painstakingly grow all their vines without the use of any pesticide or herbicide. Every grape is hand picked and hand sorted, and back at the winery they make their wine without unnatural additions or manipulations and as little sulphur as possible. The red wines are fermented gently with two hand punch downs per day, aged in oak barrels, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The white and rosé wines are fermented slowly in stainless steel, naturally clarified with colder temperatures, and bottled unfined.
The Brutal Hill style of wine is more elegant and spice driven with brighter acidity and lower alcohol - new world wines with old world sensibilities. Honest, expressive, and delicious: these are food-friendly and small-batch wines of elegance and complexity that honestly showcase the differences of the terroirs and vintages of their organic vineyards.
