Squeeze play: Baker Family Wines features grapes from an MLB great and a wine expert

“If you’re not going to make good wine, why bother?”

Chik Brenneman learned this philosophy early in his winemaking career at Amador Family Winery. That lesson, from owners Katie Quinn and Ben Zeitman, came with Brenneman to Baker Family Wine in West Sacramento, which opened its doors just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Though it just celebrated its second anniversary of their tasting room with a party for four times the amount of people it expected, the Baker Family Wine story starts back in the mid 2000s.

Brenneman was a production manager for Woodbridge. Dusty Baker was, well, Dusty Baker.

He needs no introduction to baseball fans. The Sacramento native is the manager of the Houston Astros. Baker won a World Series title playing for the Dodgers. He is the first manager to lead five different teams to division titles and has been chosen as manager of the year three times. Or maybe you just remember him from his playing time at Del Campo High School.

Baker and Brenneman met at a Mondavi wine tasting in 2004 or 2005. Brenneman eventually moved on to manage the winery at UC Davis. When Baker wanted to put a vineyard on his property, he gave Brenneman a call.

Brenneman remembered, “I got this phone message from Dusty. I thought it was a joke at first.”

He returned the call because he recognized the number as a Chicago area code, and he knew Dusty was managing the Cubs. It was a good thing he did return that call, because it wasn’t a joke.

Baker Family Wine started with 120 vines on Baker’s Placer County property. It began as more of a hobby — just a small, simple vineyard for Dusty to be able to gift wine. The grapes were grown on Baker’s property, and the wine was produced at Brenneman’s house, in the garage and basement. After a particularly good Syrah in 2012, it started to research how to become a boutique winery. It went into an alternating proprietorship at a place in San Francisco.

Brenneman was still at UC Davis, driving to San Francisco to oversee wine production in his spare time. It worked for a while, but wasn’t sustainable.

Brenneman and his wife Polly spent their weekends driving around the Sacramento area looking for potential spaces. One afternoon they made a stop at Bike Dog’s West Sacramento taproom for a food truck lobster roll and a beer. They talked with the staff at Bike Dog and liked it, but nothing was available. Later in November, Brenneman called a broker to look at some spaces. They met up a couple weeks later.

“On a rainy, dark December night, I got off of work and set my GPS for the first location we were looking at,” Brenneman said. When he got to the parking lot, he realized he had been there before — Bike Dog was next door.

They started as neighbors, but now have a joint tap room and tasting room. Your beer-and wine-loving friends can finally sit down together to try out some new beverages.

In 2019, Brenneman retired from UC Davis, and Baker Family Wines moved into its current location. It had only a few months under its belt before the pandemic began in March 2020 — the same month the joint tap room and tasting room was set to open. Luckily, it had enough things to do in making the wine to keep its part-time employees working.

Baker Family Wines hadn’t been around long and didn’t have much of a following yet, but the city of West Sacramento came through with a grant to help prepare an outdoor seating area and it had great local support. When it was able to be open again, people were more than ready to check it out.

“It’s been going very well,” Brenneman said. “Most everyone respects the rules, and knows it’s for everyone’s protection, including our staff.”

Baker Family Wines is producing around 1,200 cases of wine a year. It has expanded with grapes from other Northern California producers so it can make more varieties, but you will still get Baker’s grapes in the Dusty’s Vineyard Syrah. It also also now makes Zinfandel, some red blends including a proprietary red, an Albarino, a proprietary white blend, and is working on a rosé and a brut rosé.

“West Sac has been a perfect location, right in the middle of everything,” Brenneman said. It’s a central spot between all of the vineyards it gets varietals from.

Brenneman has developed his style of winemaking and refined his techniques. It is minimalist in the process, adding as little as possible to the wine but also using traditional techniques. Baker Family Wine chose to produce the wine to maintain control over that process.

“When it was in San Francisco, we couldn’t be with the wine everyday. Now it’s 10 minutes away,” said Brenneman. The proximity plays into Brenneman’s other winemaking motto, “keep it manageable.”

Baker Family Wine is available in a few area stores and restaurants, but mostly sales come from the traffic in the tasting room. Food trucks or vendors are often on site; when they are not available, Bike Dog offers hot dogs and brats. There is limited shipping available through their website at bakerfamilywines.com. Follow it on social media or check the website for upcoming events and current hours.

Baker Family Wines

Address: 2568 Industrial Blvd #120, West Sacramento

Phone: (916) 873-8863

This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 8:32 AM.