Paul Hobbs Winery is located at the Katherine Lindsay Estate on Highway 116 in Sebastopol, in the heart of the Russian River Valley. Paul Hobbs founded the winery in 1991 after a career that included positions at Robert Mondavi Winery and as part of the original winemaking team for Opus One. He established the Katherine Lindsay Estate in 1998, naming it for his great-grandmother and honoring the connection to the family farm in upstate New York where he grew up. The first harvest from the estate came in 2003, and the property has served as the center of the Paul Hobbs winemaking operation since.

Paul Hobbs: from a New York orchard to the apex of California winemaking

Paul Hobbs grew up on a family orchard in upstate New York, one of eleven children, where farming and selling produce at farmers markets before school each morning was a normal part of life. He has described how tasting the same apple variety grown in different orchards gave him an early, visceral sense of what terroir means — the idea that place leaves a detectable imprint on the thing grown there. That intuition would inform everything that followed.

Hobbs attended Notre Dame on a chemistry track, intending initially to follow his great-grandfather into medicine, but his father persuaded him toward winemaking. He enrolled at UC Davis, promising himself one year to see if it interested him, and earned a master’s degree. His first job in 1977 was at Robert Mondavi Winery, where he started as a lab technician and worked a second shift in the maintenance department to understand winery equipment from the inside. In 1979, his technical skills and palate earned him a spot on the original winemaking team for Opus One, the joint venture between Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild.

One of the most studied palates in California wine, building single-vineyard expressions from the Russian River Valley and beyond.

The Katherine Lindsay Estate and the founding of Paul Hobbs Winery

Paul Hobbs founded his own label in 1991, purchasing fruit from Napa’s Larry Hyde and Sonoma’s Richard Dinner to produce the debut releases of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The winery grew from those initial purchases into an operation built around a clear philosophy: single-vineyard wines that transmit the specific character of their source, without layering over the terroir with heavy winemaking.

In 1998, Hobbs established the Katherine Lindsay Estate on Highway 116 in Sebastopol, naming it for his great-grandmother. The property sits in the Russian River Valley, where the combination of Goldridge sandy loam soils and daily fog cycles from the Petaluma Gap creates ideal conditions for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The first harvest from the estate came in 2003, and Hobbs has expanded the vineyard footprint to eight sites across premier appellations since then.

What the Russian River Valley produces, and why site matters

The Russian River Valley gained its AVA designation in 1983, but the reputation for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay had been building since the 1970s. The appellation’s defining characteristic is the daily marine fog that moves in through the Petaluma Gap from the Pacific, cooling the valley floor and extending the time grapes spend developing flavor compounds before they reach harvest ripeness.

For Paul Hobbs, the Russian River Valley is interesting precisely because its variations within a defined area can be traced back to soil type, elevation, and fog exposure. The Katherine Lindsay Estate sits in the classic zone of Goldridge sandy loam, the fast-draining volcanic soil that appears throughout the best sites in the appellation. Fast drainage forces vine roots downward in search of water, creating the kind of root depth that picks up mineral character and delivers complexity that simpler, shallower-rooted vines cannot access.

Visiting Paul Hobbs Winery and pairing the wines with food

The Katherine Lindsay Estate offers two tasting experiences, both by reservation. The Signature Tasting pairs four select wines with house-made dips, flatbreads, and vegetables from the estate garden for $95 per person. The Vineyard Designate Experience is a more in-depth seated tasting of six highly limited vineyard designate wines at $250 per person. Both experiences are intended as educational encounters with the estate rather than casual walk-in visits.

Pairing Paul Hobbs wines with food follows the structural logic of the wine itself. Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley, even when partial oak aging is involved, retains the natural acidity that the cool growing season preserves — which means it can handle the fat in roasted chicken, crab, and richly sauced fish where a flabbier wine would be overwhelmed. The Pinot Noir, with its restrained tannin and high acid, is one of the most food-flexible red wines in any price range: the acid cuts through fat, the earthy complexity amplifies savory preparations, and the fruit concentration is measured enough that it does not overwhelm delicate proteins like salmon or roasted duck breast.

Paul Hobbs Winery: common questions