BLOODROOT HOSTS A MUSICAL RAMBLE

ALT-COUNTRY LINEUP SPARKS WEST PLAZA PARK FEST ON SATURDAY

By Christian Kallen

Tucked into the calendar between the haute cuisine of the Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience and the musical mélange of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, another lifestyle festival hits town: the BloodRoot Ramble.

It’s conceived by Noah and Kelly Dorrance, the owners of the BloodRoot Wines tasting room at 118 North St. “We’ve been working on this for a while and we’re really, really excited,” said Kelly Dorrance. “It’s just, you know, it’s go time.”

Though not musicians themselves, aside from dabbling in guitar (Noah Dorrance) and piano (Kelly Dorrance), the two have long been passionate fans and supporters of live music, and launched a similar wine-and-tunes festival while at Banshee Wines several years ago. That culminated in Banshee Fest, in 2016, which featured Lord Huron and the Black Sheep Brass Band at West Plaza Park.

They’ll use the same venue for the centerpiece of this year’s BloodRoot Ramble, an all-afternoon event that begins at noon on Saturday, June 10. Featured musicians include the Lone Bellow, a folk-rock trio out of Nashville; Susto, the Charleston, South Carolina indie rock band fronted by Justin Osborne; and Cayucas, a poppy surf-rock band from Santa Monica led by twins Zach Yudin and Ben Yudin.

Spike Sikes and His Awesome Hotcakes will open with their local soul and jazz set, and DJ Ears of Maize will keep the music going. The show will fill the grassy West Plaza Park with music and merriment until 7pm. With the temporary vacancy at the former Bear Republic Brewery, attendees will be able to spread out onto the hardscape between that building and the Hotel Healdsburg next door.

“This is a pretty eclectic group of musicians, but it all kind of falls into like indie alt rock country,” said Kelly Dorrance. “I think it’s the type of music that will definitely translate across a pretty wide audience.”

Though the Saturday festival is the most public event, the three-day Ramble actually begins with a Friday 8pm show at Little Saint’s upstairs venue featuring Shannon Shaw (of Shannon and the Clams), and concludes on Sunday with the Marietta Farm house Jam and Wine maker Hang, from 1 to 5pm, with Cayiucas and the Sonoma duo Little Worth.

“It’s very ambitious, but, like I told you, it’s a labor of love,” Dorrance admitted. “I’ll report back to you on how well thought-out it was after we get done.”

Behind the Music

A lot has changed for Kelly and Norah Dorrance in the last few years. Noah Dorrance was one of three in the original team that created Banshee Wines, with its Center Street tasting room/record room/ hangout.

“I give Noah credit for that. When we envisioned the tasting room at Banshee, he was very adamant from the beginning to not have a bar, to make it feel more like you’re in the living room at a friend’s home,” said Dorrance.

“Now, that’s normal. It wasn’t back then,” she said. “You build relationships with people, which is ultimately what makes a business successful.”

They started their own wine side-label— Reeve Wine, which now has an open-air tasting room tucked away in Dry Creek Valley—even while still with Banshee.

In 2018, when Bill Foley bought out Banshee but kept on its co-founder, Baron Ziegler, the Dorrances went full throttle into their own wines, adding the value-conscious BloodRoot Wines to their portfolio and opening the Healdsburg tasting room in 2020.

Bloodroot, a common wildflower in their native Missouri, is said by some to have medicinal properties. But it seems to be a particularly apt metaphor for wine, said Kelly Dorrance. “It’s a name that my husband, Noah, was drawn to. And we thought it was a pretty easy name to remember,” she said with a laugh.

One thing that hasn’t changed for them is their love of music. Their tasting room on North Street, across from the Raven, is a relaxed place with good tunes on the sound system. On weekends, they often have live music on the patio, sometimes in association with their next door neighbor, Healdsburg Jazz.

But this coming weekend they get the jump on next week’s Healdsburg Jazz Festival with their own three-day music festival, termed the BloodRoot Ramble. The name is inspired by the legendary Midnight Rambles that drummer Levon Helm of The Band held at his Woodstock, New York home in the early part of this century. These were informal jams and song-sharing sessions originally held to stave off bankruptcy.

For the Dorrances, the music festival itself is another way of giving back to the community. They envisioned the Saturday Ramble at least in part as a benefit, and Corazon Healdsburg and the Farmers’ Market will see a share. Sunday’s jam-and-hang will benefit Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for gun control and against gun violence.

Friday night’s show at Little Saint will benefit Light-Catchers, their own non-profit formed in the wake of the death of Kelly Dorrance’s niece, Evelyn Dieckhaus, who was killed on March 27 at the Covenant School shooting in Nashville.

Last weekend, BloodRoot worked with almost 100 independent wineries to devote a portion of sales to promote gun safety, and raised nearly $90,000 to benefit Everytown Against Gun Violence through light-catchers.org.

BloodRoot Ramble, the homegrown music festival, includes three public concerts from June 9-11 and VIP-only events as well. Information and tickets available at bloodrootwines.com/ Wine/TheRamble.