Hi. My name is Jake Hawkes. I’m a second-generation farmer, born in Alexander Valley in 1975. My day job is making Cabernet for my family’s winery, but I have trouble holding still. At Flora, we (mostly) do two things: grow a few pigs and make a little sparkling wine.

About the pigs:

My goal is to raise animals in a way we can all be proud of – I want our pigs’ lives to be filled with joy until the day they die. And then I want them to be delicious. The pigs on Flora Ranch live in a pasture dotted with oak, manzanita, and pine trees for shade. Truth be told, they mostly lie in the mud, but they have lots of room to roam when they want it. I give the pigs as much scrap as I can get my hands on, mostly day-old baked goods and dairy. If you’ve never tasted pork raised on scraps, you don’t know what you’re missing. It takes about twice as long for my pigs to make weight as it does for the commercially raised competition. That’s partly because of how I feed them and partly because, like the rest of us, when they have room to move, they don’t get fat as easily. It’s an expensive process, but it makes the pigs happy and the meat incredibly juicy and delicious.

About sparkling wine:

We crush, ferment, inoculate, and bottle everything by hand, one bottle at a time, then age it en tirage for a minimum of three years, disgorge, and add dosage. Production numbers are tiny – 48 cases for the 2021 Rosé of Pinot Noir, 95 cases for the 2021 Blanc de Blancs – and our approach to quality is uncompromising: we start with fruit with love, and treat it with the utmost care at every stage. The Chardonnay for the Blanc de Blancs comes from our own vineyard. The Pinot Noir for the sparkling Rosé comes from the Flocchini Vineyard in the Petaluma Gap of the Sonoma Coast. We want a sip of Flora to provide the same sublime, transporting experience as biting into the best peach you’ve ever tasted, fresh off the tree; tipping a tiny oyster out of the ice-flecked shell into your mouth; popping a perfectly ripe, tart, golden berry of Chardonnay between your teeth.

If you want to buy pork or wine, or have any questions about what we do and how we do it, holler.

Be Good – Jake