A Sonoma Adventure

We've been to lots of places in California to drink wine.  We've done wineries in Santa Barbara, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, and Napa.  Somehow along the way we had just missed Sonoma -- and it was time to change all that.






The trip did not start off terribly well.  Indeed, it was a misery.  The 90 mile or so trip from SFO to Sonoma took us 3 1/2 hours.  Traffic across the Golden Gate and up 101 was insanely bad.  Adding to our unhappiness, when we arrived at our B&B (Auberge on the Vineyards) we were ... displeased.  Both of us thought the room smelled as though some animal had come in to piss inside.  Not a great end to a long day.  [To be fair, however, to the Auberge, it had great views and our breakfasts were very fine -- but that didn't quite make up for the accommodations -- we slept with the windows open for a reason.


Happily, the rest of the trip was much better.  The wine and the food were interesting and different.  Herewith a report.

Let's start with the wine.  To understand Sonoma you have to know that it is really a great deal larger and more diverse in climate than Napa.  We stayed in Cloverdale at the far north end, and the distance south to Santa Rosa at the bottom is more or less 45 miles.  Lots of micro climates around.  By way of example, Knights Valley, in the south, gets fog up from the Bay every morning -- the wines there are fuller and more fruity because of the water content.  Similarly, Alexander Valley in the north is a big wide valley with a flat floor -- again creating richer, wetter wines.  By contrast on the west side of 101 over the ridge is Dry Valley -- and as the name suggests it is much hotter and drier and the wines are hence more concentrated -- the fruits get sharper (think blackberry instead of cherry). 

The other big difference from Napa is that, at least in our perception, Sonoma is a lot less corporate.  Many more small vineyards with oddities of style.  Many fewer of the very large wine tasting rooms where the people are herded along like cattle.  Much more attention to detail in the wine making (at least that is our sense).  But also a LOT harder to wrap your hands around -- in two days we barely scratched the surface because the wine making is so diffuse and spread out physically and so varied stylistically.

We began our first day in Sky Pine Vineyards – which styles itself as the highest (in altitude!!) Bordeaux blending vineyard in the Alexander Valley.  The owners, Tim and Kandy, are a hoot.  Tim is a lawyer who has no filter – he will say just about anything that crosses his mind – including, for example, trash talking other vineyards in the area.  They served us a vertical of Cab Franc (2010, 11, 13 and 14) that really showed how variable the wines could be season to season based on weather, etc.  We found the 2013 particularly rich and well-rounded with a bit more depth than the other years.  All, however, were quite good and who could dislike a wine whose name is “BobDog” (after their dog … yes, named Bob).

Our next stop was a bit disappointing.  The J.K Rickards vineyard was nice enough and the tasting room was professional if a bit antiseptic.  The wines, however, were only so-so.  We did find two that were worth mentioning --- a 2014 Zinfandel that had nice fruit and notes of chocolate; and the 2014 Petite Syrah that was inky rich in color and taste – and had the distinction of being made with a  wild yeast.  Overall, nice to stop at but no miracles.

The surprise/winner of the day was a collective tasting room in Geyserville.  Geyserville is a small (two road) town off of 101.  Several dozen of the very small boutique wineries in the Alexander Valley have gotten together and started a place known as “Locals” (of course – what a perfect name) where they don’t charge a tasting fee and have an unusual variety of things to try.  If you can’t find something new here then you are far more sophisticated than we were. For us, the really odd discovery was the Sargentino grape – a rare Italian varietal (we were told) that was being cultivated by the Dernier-Hadal winery.  How do we know this?  Well, the person doing the pouring was Mr. Dernier – we had the pleasure of his hosted tasting of several of his varietals.  In addition to the Sargentino, his Petite Syrah was stellar – complex fruits with a certain sharpness that we found appealing.  And we also found a really fantastic Cabernet Sauvignon from Pendleton that we brought home with us.

One fun fact about Locals – they have a club.  They will send you two (or 6) randomly selected bottles from their dozen or so consortium members every quarter.  Our sons don’t know it yet, but their birthdays are coming early this year.

Sunday saw us go in a different direction – to the Dry Creek Valley.  Hoping to recreate the magic of the day before we stopped at a roadside collective tasting room known as “Family.”  Here we didn’t have vintner to chat with but we did have two servers and nobody else in the room for the entire time we were there.  Needless to say, they were happy to pour and keep on pouring and we spent a boozy 90 minutes with them. 

Happily, it wasn’t just about the alcohol – we found a couple of other small gems.  Again, none of these are available in DC, or frankly anywhere other than this one tasting club.  But they do ship .. .so … we ordered some.  Winners in this category – a 2015 Viognier from Philip Staley that had some wonderful fruit; and a 2014 Vino Tinto that mixed Grenache, Carinena, Mataro and Tempranillo), also from Staley; the 2014 Pinot Noir and the 2012 Merlot both from Mietz Cellars (HT: Steve V for the suggestion); and our favorite in the group, the meritage “Comet” from Dashe Cellars.  This last one had a particularly earthy tone to it that brought out much of the dry and dark side of the wine.

The other joy of the day was finding Thumbprint Cellars.  Once again, we lucked in and found the owner, Scott (that's him to the right), at home and he spent a long while pouring for us. Thumbprint has a tasting room in down town Healdsburg, but it has no grapes of its own.  Instead, Scott takes his grapes from other places, and just makes really really good wine.  His 2012 Petite Sirah uses grapes from Smith Ranch and came out of the bottle nearly black.  I tasted blueberry, cherry and a bit of dirt or dust.  We also loved the 2013 Carignane from Angeli Vineyards – berrys with a spice and floral riff that was wonderful.  Katy loved the 2014 Viognier and Paul was partial as well to the 2013 Cabernet Franc (which even had a whiff of sage to it, I think).  To all this add the story of the cellar and the name (an accident) and you get a great time with good wine and good company (and also live acoustic guitar music).

Our food experience was almost as good as the wine (if that is possible).  We began with a coffee shop – we took a long walk into Cloverdale each morning and found Plank – the artisanal coffee shop – waiting for us at the end.  Well brewed coffee with a barrista flair if that is what you want.

We had three very nice dinners while in town.  The first was at the Healdsburg SHED – essentially an organic food store with cooking gear and a kitchen.  It’s the type of place that a bouquet of fresh herbs and spices sits on the counter top and the kitchen staff picks from it to garnish as the plates get prepared.  The appetizers were great – Paul had an heirloom beet salad and Katy had roasted carrots with dates.  The mains were a little less perfect – Katy’s duck was just too dry.  But the wine list was pleasant and we had a nice glass.

Our second night was at Café Lucia also in Healdsburg.  Lucia is a Portuguese restaurant so, of course, we went in that direction.  There were several good, unusual Portuguese wines available in 3 oz pours (at least to us – we’d never heard of them) so we had fun trying out a bunch of new tastes with new vintners and grapes.  It was actually a welcome change from the heavier fruityier California wines we’d been drinking all day.  And Paul’s Linguisa sausage was …. Just perfect.

The star dinner, however, was at Willi’s Wine Bar (HT: Reg B).  We started with a flight of bubbly of which the Iron Horse Russian Cuvee was the best (crisp and fruity but with a “tang”).  We followed with tastes of the Malat Grunier Vetliner from Austria and the Black Kite Pinot Noir from California.  The Black Kite, in particular, stood up to the spice of the meal surprisingly well.  The two food highlights were a Curried Crab Taco and Lamb Tartare.  We had great seats outdoors and it was a great way to end the trip.

Monday on the way back to the working world was magical.  We left very early (6 AM) with Plank coffee in our hands.  And Mr. Waze detoured us through the wetlands at the north of the bay to Vallejo and then across the Napa River and down south on the outer loop 660.  With fog rolling in and wildlife flying it was quite saddening to leave Sonoma behind.  We expect to go back though.