The wine world in California — and Sonoma County in particular — is a close-knit community. It tends to be a bit like pulling on the thread of a sweater. The more you tug on one connection, the more you find it’s related to the fabric of the entire garment. And so it was with meeting the winemaker from Sonoma’s Blackstone Winery, Gary Sitton.

Gary has spent his entire winemaking career in Sonoma. In one small world coincidence, his last job was making wine with Joel Peterson, the head winemaker and founder of Ravenswood Winery — the subject of my column several weeks ago. Before that, Sitton worked at Sommer Vineyards, whose wines I covered in a previous column.