Sonoma County winery pairs tastings with falconry vineyard tours

Hawley Winery has turned a Dry Creek Valley vineyard into a working lesson in falconry, pairing a guided tasting with a close look at the birds that help keep starlings off the grapes. The experience puts John Hawley, who became a licensed falconer as a teenager, at the center of the visit and makes the birds part of vineyard management rather than scenery.

What guests actually do

Hawley lists the Falconry Experience as a weekly Friday program that begins April 3, 2026 and runs about 60 to 90 minutes. The visit includes a focused tasting of current-release wines, a guided walk through the estate vineyard and garden, and discussion of organic farming techniques. Hawley’s booking page lists the price at $85 per guest, or $65 for wine-club members ages 21 and up who provide membership information, with reservations handled through the winery’s estate visit system.

The structure matters because this is not being sold as a stand-alone bird show. Guests are invited into a working estate setting where the tasting room, the rows, and the birds all point back to the same operation, and the winery frames the encounter as an introduction to the art of falconry alongside its own current wines and organic farming practices.

Why the birds belong in the vineyard story

Hawley says the falcons are part of vineyard bird abatement, especially as harvest nears and starlings descend on ripe berries. The winery also says flying falcons over acres of vineyard for a few weeks is more cost-effective than covering the rows with bird netting, which gives the experience a practical edge that goes beyond atmosphere.

That is the point where the public image question gets sharper. Hawley’s own language presents falconry as a sustainable option for keeping birds and other pests out of the vineyard, which places the birds inside the farm system rather than outside it. In other words, the experience is built around an actual vineyard use case, not just a romantic backdrop for a premium pour.

John Hawley’s credentials give the outing weight

John Hawley is not a novice leaning on a novelty. He has been a commercial winemaker since 1980, with earlier work at Clos du Bois and Kendall-Jackson, and Hawley Winery was founded in 1996 in Dry Creek Valley by John and Dana Hawley. The winery is now run by John with sons Paul and Austin, which helps explain why falconry returned to the foreground only after the family business shifted more of the production load to the next generation.

The falconry page gives the strongest answer to questions about bird welfare and training time. Hawley says he spends hours every day with his birds, with a morning training session, an afternoon bath, and evening free flight in an open field. The same page says he has trained kestrels, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks and goshawks, and has rehabilitated peregrine falcons and raised hatchling peregrines for release. That is the kind of detail that tells guests they are seeing husbandry, not decoration.

Conservation is part of the pitch, not a side note

The family has also tied the program to direct conservation support. A winery announcement says Hawley has donated more than $15,000 to raptor rescue and rehabilitation groups, including the Bird Rescue Center of Sonoma County, the California Foundation for Birds of Prey, and the California Raptor Center at UC Davis. That donation history strengthens the case that the falconry offering is being presented as an extension of an existing conservation ethic, not a one-off marketing stunt.

Dana Hawley’s presence in the business adds to that family identity. The winery’s materials and events pages place her artwork in the tasting room, while the broader family story centers on organic farming, art and bird rehabilitation. For visitors, that combination makes the falconry program feel rooted in the Hawley family’s actual work rather than imported as a theme.

A Sonoma setting built for close-up visits

Sonoma County Tourism places Hawley Winery on Bradford Mountain overlooking Dry Creek Valley, in the middle of the Hawley family’s 10-acre organic vineyard. That scale keeps the experience intimate and estate-based, which suits a falconry tour much better than a large commercial attraction would. It also helps explain why the winery can fold birds, vines, and tasting into one visit without losing the sense of a working farm.

The broader calendar shows the winery using that same estate identity to pull visitors through the season. Hawley’s events page lists a Viognier release party on June 27, 2026 at the Hawley Tasting Room & Gallery in Healdsburg, signaling that the falconry program is arriving alongside the winery’s other club-facing events.

For anyone weighing whether this is genuine outreach or luxury theater, Hawley’s answer is in the mechanics. The birds are working the vines, John Hawley’s daily handling and rehabilitation routines are front and center, and the tasting is built to pull visitors into the vineyard story rather than away from it.