Korbel and Coppola

Sonoma County

These two wineries have a lot of history.  Although they may not be the typical wine tasting spots for seasoned wine tasters, I think it is good to visit some of the real winery destination stops from time to time.  Many of us think that we don’t need to go to these wineries because you see all their wine in the stores and when you go wine tasting you only want to go to the smaller or the secret  wineries.    We generally go by this rule also but sometimes you miss some pretty good stuff when you take on that attitude.   While Korbel  has lots and lots of history dating back to the 1880’s, Coppola and the site of the present day Francis Ford Coppola winery has  some pretty cool history also.

 

 

We first stopped at Korbel because champagne is always a good way to start.  At Korbel they are actually allowed to call it champagne.  I think the fact that they have been around so long must exempt them from the rule that what we think of as champagne but made in California has to be called sparkling wine.  Korbel really has some pretty interesting history.

 

 

 

Three Korbel brothers arrived in San Francisco in the mid 1800’s.  Eventually their interests moved beyond the city to the Russian River area of Sonoma County and they got into the lumber business and eventually became farmers.  In the late 1870’s the first vineyards were planted and in 1882 they began producing wine.  Their wine was so well received that they then planted all their orchards lands to grapes.  By the 1890’s they were producing their first champagne.  The winery flourished until prohibition.  Fortunately because of the diversity of the Korbel’s business ventures the family was able to still prosper.  The three founding brothers died during prohibition but when prohibition was appealed the winery was set to take on its second life.  The second and third generation grew the winery until in 1954 when they sold the winery to Adolph Heck.  The winery has been in the same family since and is now run by Gary Heck.

We arrived just after the tasting room had opened and the parking lot was full.  Since the facility is large there were numerous activities going on.  There was some kind of special event going on where you paid a fee ($25 I seem to remember) and were provided food samplings and different wines.  We headed instead straight to the tasting room.  There were lots of people in the room but probably 4 - 5 people pouring.  This is not the kind of place where they spend several minutes detailing each wine.  With probably 100’s of guests each day this would be impossible.  I think you are supposed to keep yourself to five tastes (there is no fee) but again with 4-5 people pouring you could exceed this number easily.  I counted 14 champagnes available along with 7 wines.  The champagnes are listed from driest (Le Premier at $24.99 and the most expensive) to sweetest (Sweet Rose at $14.99).  I think Korbel says they sell 1.2 million cases per year but this is concentrated in 4 or 5 types and most of the wines open are fairly small production wines.  We liked all of the drier champagnes up to the Brut Rose.  The Rouge was a special that day at $8.39 and was almost a sangiovese color.  This was not our favorite.  We also tried the Pinot Noir as after all the winery overlooks the Russian River and we like RR Pinot.  It was good and at a nice price of $16.99. 

What amazes me most about Korbel is that you can really get some great deal.  If you buy 3 cases you receive a 40% discount.  At this discount you can get a bottle of Korbel Brut for $6.59.  You cannot come close to beating that anywhere.  Like I mentioned in the Kenwood review, the Heck organization sure knows how to give you a good value.  Kenwood Winery is owned by the Heck family.

Our second stop was Francis Ford Coppola Winery (of movie fame) which is now located at the old Chateau Sourverain facility in Geyserville.   For those of you who have not heard about this place it is really a first of its kind.  Coppola moved his winery operations from Napa to here.  He left behind in Napa his highest end wines I think all carrying the Rubicon label.  This facility now is a wine resort.  In addition to a tasting room there are all kinds of things to be found on the property.  The most interesting is the Pool and Cabines.  For $125 a day four people get use of the pool and are provided a cabin (for dressing and includes a shower) along with some other goodies including wine tasting.  Of course there is a poolside bar and food available. It actually looks pretty cool.  There are also bocce courts, a very nice restaurant, a movie gallery and of course lots of Coppola themed retail items (with a heavy dose of Godfather stuff).

 

We had a free tasting coupon which provided us four or five tastes.  I believe there are several tasting levels available starting from a free single taste to a $10 tasting and up from there.  The tasting room included a full horseshoe bar surrounded by more movie themed exhibits.  There were several pourers.  Coppola is very marketing oriented and they have several  wine groupings or levels.  I think most of them you do not see in general distribution.   I think to taste some of the reserve wines you probably have to move up from the $10 tasting level.  Coppola sources grapes from all over northern California although the higher end/reserve wines are of Sonoma County grapes.  Coppola is successful because of their artful and creative marketing (there seem to be a story behind every wine) and because the wines are a pretty good overall value.  The reserve cabernet and reserve Pinot are priced at $38.  There are a couple of special blends above that but in general the wines are in the $15-$25 range.  And more than likely you can find real good bargains on these wines at your local grocery.

And what did we taste- We tasted several reds.  None of them stood out as ‘wow’ but they were all good.  We also tasted the Sofia- Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine as well as a Su Yuen Riesling (marketed to match with Asian foods).  Thumbs up on the sparkling wine but not too far up on the Riesling.   

I think Coppola is a great spot for the very occasional wine tasting taster and great possible spot to hang for a day.  There is a lot of wow factor and I think a great spot to take out of town guests.   You can though find some pretty good Coppola wine bargains out on the street.

 

What we liked- Great tourist destinations. Great scenery at both spots. 

What we bought- Nothing but if we had a special event coming up we would certainly drive to Korbel to pick up some cases of Brut.

Vitals:
Korbel Winery
13250 River Road
Guerneville, CA  95446
(707) 824-7000
www.korbel.com

 

Francis Ford Coppola Winery

300 Via Archimedes
Geyserville, CA  95441
(707) 857-1400
www.franciscopollawinery.com

Sierra Oro Farm Trail- Passport Weekend

Chico & Oroville, CA

We spent last weekend in Butte County.  For those of you who know us, we have a long association with Chico, CA and there has never been a year in the last 35+ years that we have not visited Chico. Even better, we now have family living in Chico, which gives us even more reason to visit.  We hardly go anywhere without searching out the wine tasting possibilities and when the opportunity to taste in the Chico area presented itself, we jumped at it.  2012 marked our third year at this event and I think it was the best so far. 

A non wine stop (But Sierra Nevada Beer)
 

 This is a Farm Trail event, so in addition to wineries, there is an array of other venues along the trail.  These include rice and rice products, a mandarin orange farms, olive and olive oil producers, nut producers and one of my favorites, The Worm Farm.  For the most part we stick to the wineries but we always make it a point to stop at Maisie Jane’s, which sells various locally produced food products but also samples a specialty made Passport Weekend beer produced jointly by Sierra Nevada Brewing.  The event runs both Saturday and Sunday and since there is a bit of distance between some of these stops two days is required to make a pretty good dent.  There are four wineries in the Oroville area and eight wineries in the Chico area including New Clairvaux which is actually a pretty good ride north of Chico.  Along with these twelve wineries there is about another fifteen of the non-wine businesses open.

The farmhouse at Emerald C

In general the wines are not going to be as good as the wines you are going to find in Napa and Sonoma.  I think there are probably a lot of factors and certainly weather is key.  Chico tends to run in the 90’s and low 100’s through much of the summer and does not get much of the cooling influences from the fog that you get in other areas.  The hillside vineyards of Oroville are really the northern extension of the gold country of Amador and El Dorado counties so I would think they probably have a lot of potential for creating good wine. I think partly because this area if off the main path of the wine industry, it may mean that the wineries do not get some of the same winemaking talent you are going to find in areas south.  Still we tasted some pretty decent wine.

This year we visited just two wineries in Oroville and most of us went to five wineries in the Chico/Valley area.  Grey Fox was our favorite Oroville stop.  We had last visited this winery two years ago and since then they have built a large tasting room and outdoor patio.  The Oroville wineries are in the hills at about 900-1,000 feet and have nice views of the central valley.  We liked the Sauv Blanc, Sangiovese and Cabernet ($16.00). 

 

In the Chico area we visited-

 

Roney- Really the best wines to be found. Roney has a bit of an advantage as they tend to have great sources of outside grapes.  They were pouring a Cabernet made from Howell Mountain (Napa) fruit as well as a Stags Leap District Cabernet ($38.00) from the same vineyard Nickle and Nickle (a well-known Napa winery) sources from (and sells for about $100). They also had two Zins, one from Amador County and one from Butte Country.  We really liked the Butte County Foothills Zin and plan to open it side by side a Napa/Sonoma Zin because we think it will do just fine ($17.00). 

Bertagna- Specializes in Italian varietals.  We like the light bodied Sangiovese. Pretty consistent wines here.

Emerald C- We have become fans of Emerald C over the past year.  Steve and Ned are great guys and striving for quality wines and I think they are starting to get there.  The winery is located in the basement of a beautiful 30’s-40’s farm house and surrounded by 65 acres of Kiwi fruit and five acres of grapes.

In the heart of the valley at Gale Vineyards
 

New Clairvaux- Located on the grounds of a “Trappist” Monastery about a half hour north of Chico in Vina, CA.  In the late 1800’s this was the home of the world’s largest wine operation (seriously).  This winery has hired a professional winemaker and I think will be better and better wines.

 

Gale Vineyards- Gale is located in Durham just seven miles south of Chico and is located in an oasis of oaks, sycamore and bamboo (yes, smack in the middle of the Sacramento valley).  The owners are Steve and Creasia Gale.  When we visited, Steve was handing out food samples and Creasia was pouring the wine.  The wines include Tempranillo, Sangiovese, Primitivo, Cabernet and a blend and all were pretty good.  Even if you are not a wine drinker this is a good stop just to see the grounds.  This day there was a local artist displaying her paintings in one of the small rental buildings on the property.

 

Check out the website for information on all the wineries (and other spots)

www.sierraoro.org



De La Montanya Estate Vineyards and Winery

Russian River/Dry Creek Valley

We purchased one of those Sonoma Passports late in the year at a discounted price.  If you visit two or three wineries, they definitely pay for themselves.  And if you commit to visiting only the wineries on the passport you will end up going to some wineries that you likely would not have gone to otherwise.  We were unfamiliar with De La Montanya but we were on one of these passport-only outings and after doing a little bit of advanced planning on the internet this winery made the list. 

De La Montanya is just off Dry Creek Road but you have to make a couple of extra turns to get to it.  You would not see it by just driving down the road, although the road is literally 20 feet from the property.  We found it though and to our surprise there were a bunch of cars in front of the winery.  We entered the small tasting room and found a room full of folks; I think it was a group of twelve.  But Jarod spotted us and escorted us outside for what was a very private and quiet spot at a table under an apple tree.  It turns out there was another big group in the area past us. This area was a very nice picnic spot with lots of tables and a bocce court. 

Although Jarod was juggling several groups he spent plenty of time with us telling us about the winery, the property, and the wines.  We got to know him pretty well.  On this day they had just brought in a load of Viognier and Gewürztraminer grapes and we watched the de-stemming process and tasted the grapes that were falling out of the catch bins.  They were delicious. 

De La Montanya has 270 acres of grapes planted throughout Sonoma and Lake Counties and since their case production is at around 4,000 they are selling a lot of gapes.  Their signature wines include Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Gewurztraminer and we tasted them all.  Their order form lists 25 different wines indicating quite a few small batch items.  The bulk of their wines are reds which suited us fine but they do have a Chard, Viognier and Sauv Blanc and a late harvest white on the list.

 

We tasted the Solstice (a white blend) and the Viognier and a Rose and were very happy.  Being very near the Russian River we were looking forward to the Tina’s Russian River Pinot and again gave it two thumbs up.  I thought their Zins were the highlight.  We tasted three (one labeled a Primitivo) and I liked the Felta Creek best, which is from the vineyard surrounding the property; this was the lowest priced Zin at $30.00.  We also tasted a North Coast Merlot and a Cabernet.  All wines were of high quality. The Cabernet’s top out at $55.00 and there are blends in the $25.00 range but most of the reds are in the mid $30.00 range. 

By the end of the tasting we were thoroughly satisfied and although our initial plans were to hit one more winery after De La Montanya we decided to pack it in for the day and end the day on a high note.

We did not pay a fee to taste because we had our Passport but I think the fee would be reasonable in the $10 range.  No appointment is necessary.

What we liked- This was a nice unexpected find.  We liked the smallness of the winery along with the friendly service.  The grounds are great and not a bad taste in the group.

What we bought- The Felta Creek Zinfandel

Vitals:

De La Montanya Winery and Vineyards
999 Foreman Lane
Healdsburg, CA  95448
(707) 433-3711
www.dlmwine.com  

 

Brown Family

Saint Helena, CA

Tasting Room at the end of the cave

We discovered Brown Family Wines during the half price wine month at Lark Creek restaurant in Walnut Creek.  All the wines are half price in July each year and this wine was the suggestion of Kurt, our local Lark Creek restaurant bartender.  The first wine we tasted was called Chaos Theory and is actually a blend of mostly Zinfandel and Cabernet; it is also Brown’s least expensive wine we found out later, but it was really good.  Several months later we were at the annual ZAP (Zinfandel) tasting in SF and asked our local Bev Mo wine consultant what wines were the best to taste at the event which included over 200 wineries.  He suggested Brown.  Brown had the longest line at the event, even longer than the Zinfandel heavy hitters like Ridge, Ravenswood and Rosenblum, so apparently the word was out that Brown made good wines.

Restored House on Property

We inquired about visiting Brown and possibly joining their wine club.  Unlike most wineries, we needed to be vetted first.  The process was not too difficult but it did involve a phone interview. They kind of asked who we were, what we knew about Brown, where had we tasted it before, that kind of stuff.  I guess we gave good enough answers because they signed us up for our preliminary (get to know you) visit to the winery and to pick up our first club shipment of wine. 

 

Getting to Brown is a chore in itself.  The winery and facility is located way up highway 128 (Sage Canyon Road) and is probably a good 20 minutes off of the Silverado Trail.  For anyone that has been to Nichelini Winery, Brown is an extra five minutes.  The winery and estate vineyards are located on gently rolling property an elevation of about 1,100 feet (possibly more).  The property includes a beautifully restored house, a small winery facility/tasting rooms and extensive caves.  It is definitely away from the hustle of the Silverado Trail. 
 

Brown is mostly about Zinfandel.  Most of the fruit comes from these mountain vineyards and I believe them to be all in the Chiles Valley Appellation.  Virtually everything is estate grown and they are all good.  At a recent tasting at the winery, a pick-up party, we tasted three of the Zinfandels along with the Chardonnay.  The pick-up parties are very organized events; you reserve a time and when you arrive at the winery you are greeted and shown where to park and receive your name tags and your glass.  You enter the cave at one end and go from station to station, eventually ending up in the tasting room.  First stop was the Chard and this was the kind of Chardonnay I like.  Good fruit but not the over the top malolactic stuff.  Each stop was paired with some food.  We were hoping stop two would have the melted cotswold cheese served out of a mini crock pot and they did.  Two more Zinfandel stops and then we ended up in the Tasting Room where we had the Rosemary’s Zinfandel, our favorite.   The flavors of the Rosemary’s Zin were fun, complex and full. 

Brown makes at least six different Zins priced between $40.00 and $55.00.  The Chardonnay and Petite Sirah are $55.00 and the Cabernet is $60.00.  These are special wines in our wine cabinet and the real special wines are the magnums that are special priced from time to time. 

Brown is open to non-members through appointments and the tasting fee is $50.00

What we like/liked- Brown is a special experience.  We definitely feel like we are part of a unique group when we are there.  And everyone is so nice.

 What we bought- In addition to our pick-up we purchased a Napa Zin Magnum.  We have plenty of Brown wine to last us a while.

Vitals:

Brown Family Vineyards

3233 Sage Canyon Road

St. Helena, CA 94574

(707) 963-2435

www.brownestate.com