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Paul Mathew Vineyards: The Graton Winery Where You Forage for Mushrooms Before Lunch

November 10, 2015 · Updated July 23, 2026 · 6 min read

Once a year, the wine club members of Paul Mathew Vineyards drive out to a seasonal bed and breakfast on 20 acres in Cazadero, meet a mycologist named David Campbell, and spend two hours in the Sonoma County woods looking for mushrooms. They come back wet, cold, and carrying armfuls of chanterelles and hedgehogs and whatever else the forest offered up that morning. Then they sit down to a hearty lunch — local mushrooms prepared multiple ways, paired with Paul Mathew wines — and talk about what they found. This is not a typical wine club event. It is, however, entirely typical of Paul Mathew Vineyards, a small-production Graton winery where Mat Gustafson makes Pinot Noir from the Green Valley sub-appellation of the Russian River Valley using indigenous yeast and low-input winemaking, and where Barb Gustafson has spent more than a decade building the case — one pairing seminar, one farmers market, one mushroom foray at a time — that food and wine are not separate pleasures but a single conversation.

Key Takeaways

◆Paul Mathew produces small-lot Pinot Noir from the Green Valley sub-appellation using indigenous yeast — no commercial shortcuts — Low-input winemaking with indigenous yeast and malolactic bacteria is slower, more labor-intensive, and more risky than conventional commercial winemaking. It is also, when it works, what allows the fruit and the site to speak directly in the glass rather than through the lens of commercial yeast character. The Green Valley sub-appellation of the Russian River Valley produces some of the most consistently cool-climate Pinot Noir in California — foggy, slow-ripening, and capable of real elegance.

◆The food and wine pairing philosophy is experiential, not prescriptive — Barb Gustafson does not tell visitors what pairs with what. She sets up four glasses of different wines alongside multiple preparations of a single local ingredient — Liberty Farms duck, Hog Island oysters, Dungeness crab, local cheeses — and lets guests discover the pairings for themselves. The consensus of the room is the answer. This approach, borrowed from their shared restaurant and sommelier backgrounds, produces more genuine wine education than any lecture could.

◆The annual mushroom foray is the most distinctive wine club event in West Sonoma County — Once a year, Paul Mathew wine club members forage for wild mushrooms with mycologist David Campbell on 20 acres in Cazadero, then sit down to a mushroom-focused lunch paired with Paul Mathew wines. It is exactly the kind of experience that cannot be replicated at scale and that defines what a genuine small-production wine relationship looks like. You do not get this from a large estate.

◆The tasting room in Graton is a genuine destination for anyone in West Sonoma County — Paul Mathew moved from Forestville to 9060 Graton Road in the village of Graton, open Thursday through Sunday. Graton is the informal capital of West County’s boutique wine community — a small crossroads town with an outsized concentration of serious small producers, excellent restaurants, and the kind of unhurried agricultural energy that the Russian River Valley wine tourism circuit at its best provides.

◆Mat and Barb met at a wine event in 2004 and between them have spent over 40 years in wine and restaurants — Mat began his career as a sommelier at John Ash & Co. in the 1990s and held essentially every wine industry job before starting Paul Mathew in 1999. Barb’s wine education began at a community center course in Vancouver at age 25; she applied to over 100 Napa wineries before staying in the industry long enough to meet the winemaker she would marry. Their shared background shows in every aspect of the winery — the food focus, the pairing events, the attention to hospitality as part of the wine experience.

The Winery — Indigenous Yeast, Green Valley Pinot, and Small Lots

Mat Gustafson started Paul Mathew Vineyards in 1999 after more than two decades in the wine and restaurant industry — as a sommelier, a restaurant manager, and eventually a winemaker at Sebastopol-Dutton Estate Winery and as co-winemaker at Moshin Vineyards. He knew every aspect of the wine industry before he started making wine under his own label. The name Paul Mathew is Mat’s middle name reversed — a small personal detail that sets the register for everything the winery does: quietly personal, not loudly branded.

The winemaking philosophy is low-input and deliberately unhurried. Indigenous yeast — the wild yeasts naturally present on the grape skins and in the winery environment — ferments all the wines rather than commercial laboratory yeasts selected for speed and predictability. Indigenous malolactic bacteria handles the secondary fermentation. The process is slower, less controllable, and more expressive of the specific site and vintage than conventional commercial winemaking. It is also, as any natural winemaker will tell you, significantly harder to manage. Mat’s twenty years of wine industry experience before starting the label is the reason it works.

The fruit comes from the Green Valley sub-appellation of the Russian River Valley — a cooler, foggier corner of an already cool and foggy region, producing Pinot Noir of genuine elegance and restraint. Mat sources from small family-owned vineyards in West County, keeping the connections personal and the fruit traceability complete. Pinot Noir is the primary focus, with Chardonnay, Rosé of Pinot Noir, and Valdiguié produced in small quantities alongside it.

The Food Philosophy — Pairings You Discover Yourself

Barb Gustafson’s approach to wine education comes directly from her and Mat’s shared restaurant background: show people, don’t tell them. The foodie seminars at Paul Mathew set up multiple preparations of a single local ingredient alongside a lineup of four different wines, then let guests work through each combination and reach their own conclusions. The consensus of the room — which pairing did people prefer? — is the lesson.

The ingredients are local and specific: Liberty Farms duck from Sonoma County, Hog Island oysters from Tomales Bay, Dungeness crab from the Pacific coast, local cheeses from West County creameries. These are not generic pairing examples. They are the foods that the wines actually live alongside in this specific corner of California — the same terroir argument that applies to the winemaking applies to the pairings.

Paul Mathew Food and Wine Experiences

Pairing Seminars — Multiple preparations of a single local ingredient paired against a lineup of four Paul Mathew wines. Guests taste every combination and reach their own conclusions. The goal, as Barb describes it: “We do not tell you what works, we let you taste it.” The best wine education is empirical.

Farmers Market Tastings — Paul Mathew participates in local farmers market events alongside food vendors and artisans, giving visitors the chance to discover wine and food pairings in a relaxed, interactive format. The same philosophy as the seminars — self-directed discovery rather than instruction.

The Annual Mushroom Foray — Once a year, wine club members gather at a friend’s seasonal bed and breakfast on 20 acres in Cazadero. Mycologist David Campbell leads the group — those who want to stay close and learn, and those who want to scatter across the land and bring everything back for discussion. Two hours in the forest, then a hearty lunch of locally foraged mushrooms in multiple preparations, paired with Paul Mathew wines. The most distinctive event in the West County wine calendar and the one that best captures what a genuine small-producer wine relationship looks like.

Barb’s philosophy on the food-wine connection is earned rather than theoretical. “When you experience great food pairings and enjoy both food and wine, you realize the experience can be so heightened by the right pairing,” she says. “A lot of people don’t have clear flavor distinctions or wide range of flavor interests, so it’s hard for them to get it. The best thing to get one started is to dine at restaurants with sommeliers and get them to pair for you.” The seminars at Paul Mathew are, in effect, that experience made accessible at the winery itself.

Visit Paul Mathew Vineyards

Address: 9060 Graton Road, Graton, CA 95444
Hours: Thursday-Friday 10:30am-4:30pm; Saturday-Sunday 10:30am-4:30pm
Web: paulmathew.com
Location: In the village of Graton, West Sonoma County, in the heart of the Russian River Valley wine community

For wine club membership and information about the annual mushroom foray, pairing seminars, and other events, contact the winery directly through the website. The mushroom foray fills quickly — if foraging for chanterelles in the Sonoma County woods followed by a wine-paired lunch sounds like your idea of a perfect day, get on the list early.

crushbrew featured home Wine and Food Pairing

Paul Mathew Vineyards: The Graton Winery Where You Forage for Mushrooms Before Lunch

The Winery — Indigenous Yeast, Green Valley Pinot, and Small Lots

The Food Philosophy — Pairings You Discover Yourself

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