Rodney Strong Vineyards

Rodney Strong Vineyards was founded in 1959 by Rodney Strong, one of the pioneers of the modern wine industry in California and Sonoma County. After changes in ownership and directions during the 1970s and 1980s, Rodney Strong Vineyards was acquired by Klein Family Vintners in 1989, a family-owned and farming-based business. The firm s history goes back almost 100 years, when Sonoma County settlers planted their heritage River West Zinfandel vineyard in 1904. Rodney Strong Vineyards grew while adding new oak barrels, wood tanks, an on-site case goods warehouse, barrel servicing equipment, six rotary fermenters, a new crush pad and scale house, a conveyance system and a 1,000-square-foot barrel storage building. Sales topped 69,000 cases in 1989 and nearly half a million by the end of the 1990s. In 2000, it acquired an additional seven vineyards totaling 606 acres in the Alexander Valley, Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley appellations.