Sonoma County Weekend- Part 1

Russian River/Dry Creek

 We spent the weekend in Sonoma County a couple of weeks ago because we got a great Travelzoo deal to stay at the Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa.  So we made it to a few wineries over the course of the weekend.  We drove home by way of Napa and made a couple stops there also.  This and next week we’ll talk about a couple of the Sonoma County stops we enjoyed.

We had an 11:45 appointment to meet up with some friends so we had time to make one stop before this.  I always enjoy the drive up the Westside of Santa Rosa, through Sebastopol and Forestville so we headed this way with our first destination being Hartford Family Winery.  I’m not even sure why we picked this spot as it is a bit out of the mainstream of the Forestville/Russian River area but it was a good choice.  It was not until today after studying their website that Hartford has a bit more background than we had realized.   

 

Impressive looking Hartford Family Winery

Hartford specializes in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Old Vine Zinfandel.  I used to really think that Zins were grown generally in warmer climates but I guess I am wrong on that because we had some nice Zinfandel here as well as at another Russian River spot.    The first thing we noticed when we drove up was that this was a pretty classy looking place.  The winery itself is just off of Highway 116 and is pretty remote from many of the area wineries.  It is a really beautiful property.  There were a couple of other groups in the tasting room but our host took nice care of us and when our glasses were empty he came to us when there was no space at the bar.  The wines are not inexpensive.  Most of the Chardonnays are $60.00 and were of 2008 and 2009 vintage.  The 2010 Four Hearts Chardonnay was $40.00.  They were well made wines.  Of course we were really here for the Pinots and Zin.  We tasted three Pinots and two Zins and they were all very good.  The Pinots were priced from $45.00 up to $85.00 and the Zins were all $55.00 so there were no inexpensive options here.  I think we surprised by the quality of the wines and if we had known that the wine was going to be so good we would have taken some better notes.  

The Tasting Fee was $15.00 and we paid the fee which would have been compensated for with purchases.  There is a nice patio outside and there are tastings available outside with prior arrangements.  We will definitely recommend Hartford and would definitely go back.  Oh, and the fact that we found out later is that Don Hartford, the president of Hartford Winery, is married to Jennifer Jackson Hartford the daughter of Jess Jackson. 

Caves at Thomas George

Our second stop was Thomas St. George Winery.  We have visited here once before and many times before when it was the site of the Davis Bynum winery.  The winery today looks nothing like the old Davis Bynum days.  Davis Bynum was a well respected winery that closed maybe 10 years plus back.  We originally visited this winery a little over a year ago because we had tasted their wines at some public events and called their Pinot one of the best of the event.  The tasting room today is a nice new high ceilinged tasteful room with a great view of the ‘Middle Reach’ of the Russian River valley.  The tasting room can handle quite a few folks and there were several groups there the day we visited. 

 

Their website says they focus on Chardonnay and Pinot but they were also pouring several other varietals.  They also produce Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Viognier, Zinfandel and Pinot Blanc.  We tasted the Pinot Blanc, a Chard, Pinot, Syrah and a Zin.  We liked all the reds.  For the Chardonnay and Pinot they produce a base Russian River wine and then several vineyard specific wines.  They were priced at $34.00 and $40.00 so a little bit of a step down in price from Hartford.  Again, we were not taking good notes but as I have mentioned before our focus of this blog is not in the details of the wine but the good wine experiences and Thomas George met the mark.  The tasting fee was $10.00. 

The modest Porter Creek Tasting Room

There are many other good wineries on Westside Road and you could spend a couple of days without hitting them all.  Over the years we have been to many of them.  On this day we also stopped at Porter Creek winery which borders the (Fred) MacMurray Ranch (Gallo owned) winery property (not open for tasting).  The Porter Creek facility is more of the bare bones type but the wines were also good and we were taken care of nicely.

 

What we liked- Hartford- Quality wines, Thomas St. George- The wine and the great views (everyone said you really cannot beat the view). The Fountaingrove Inn where we stayed is ideal.

What we bought- A Pinot from Porter Creek- One of three that we tasted.

Vitals:

Hartford Family Winery

8075 Martinelli Road

Forestville, CA  95436

(707) 887-8030

www.hartfordwines.com

Thomas George Estates

8075 Westside Road

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 431-8031

www.thomasgeorgeestates.com

Porter Creek Vineyards

8735 Westside Road

Healdsburg, CA  95448

(707) 433-6321

www.portercreekvineyards.com

Turkovich Family Wines

Winters, CA

A couple of weeks ago we were driving up Highway 505 just north of Vacaville and we stopped in Winters.  Winters is a small little town set against the eastern side of the Vaca Mountains and just five miles from the Napa County line.  We have taken this route a few times driving over Highway 128 and coming from Napa over to the central valley and for anyone that has not done this it really is a very pretty ride.  Off the Silverado trail you pass some big time wineries such as Chappallet, Nichelini, Kuleto and Brown, then past a portion of Lake Berryessa and then down into Winters.  Winters is in Yolo County and parts of Yolo County, especially the Capay valley just north of Winters, look very much like Napa.

We only had time for a couple of stops and with three tasting rooms open we chose Turkovich and a cooperative called Rootstock.  The other tasting room in town, and probably the best known tasting room, is called Berryessa Gap.  We’ll stop here another time as it was a good looking stop.

 

 

We first became familiar with Turkovich at last year’s Tapas (Tempranillo) Festival.  The Tapas festival had maybe 50 wineries pouring Spanish varietals and surprisingly Turkovich was one of our favorites.  The Turkovich tasting room is right downtown and easy to find as Winters only has a few streets downtown.  Winters is probably most famous for the Buckhorn Steakhouse and the tasting room is only two buildings down the road.  Winters also has a music venue called the Palms which gets great acts considering there just is not much to Winters.  The Tasting Room is in a cool old brick building with high ceilings and with the attached Winters Cheese Company.  In the late afternoon and early evening the room turns into a spot with some small plates and wines available by the glass.

 We sat at the bar and were initially the only guests so we were able to ask lots of questions regarding the cool spot and history of the winery and so on.  Christopher Turkovich is a third generation farmer who opened the winery in 2007.  Rhone varietals Syrah and Viognier are two of the key varietals along with Tempranillo, Petite Sirah, Grenache, and Mourvedre.   

We tasted the whole list which included a Viognier and Estate White Blend (Roussanne and Viognier) and three or four reds.  As always, when just starting off the whites always taste good.  It is really nice finding options other than Sauvignon Blanc, our favorite white wine, and Chardonnay.  The reds were all good.  We probably liked the GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre) best but still liked the Tempranillo that we had had several months earlier.  I think all the wines were priced from $18.00 to $26.00 or so.

 

We also stopped at Rootstock.  This is a cooperative tasting room and gift store featuring Yolo County products.  On this day there were six wineries represented.  My knock on cooperative tasting rooms is that you do not always meet the winery representative.  One of the wineries, Route 3 Wines, was represented by a family member the day of our visit.  Between the group of wineries there were probably 30 wines available for tasting.  We did find, on suggestion, a standout.  The winery was called Casey Flat Ranch and their two Red Wines, the Open Range Red at $18.00 and their CFR (Casey Flat Ranch) Red at $35.00 were excellent.    

So we were happy with our stop in Winters.  I think Turkovich is open late on some evenings and certainly if you have an hour on your hands when you are passing by or if you want to take a different route home from Napa I think Winters is a good stop.

What we liked:  Winters is a nice town and this may someday be a vibrant wine area.

What we bought: Turkovich Tempranillo, Open Range Red

Vitals:

Turkovich Winery

304 Railroad Avenue

Winters, CA  94694

(530) 795-3842

www.turkovichwines.com

Rootstock

22 Main Street

Winters, CA  94694

(530) 794-6013

www.rootstockgifts.com

 

 

The Halter Ranch (Experience)

Paso Robles, CA

 

We had the opportunity to stay at the Halter Ranch Vineyard Farmhouse while we were in Paso Robles a couple of weeks ago and it was one of the best wine country experiences we have ever had.  Halter Ranch is a ten year old winery in the heart of the Westside Paso wine country.  Their closest neighbors are Adelaida and Tablas Creek which were reviewed last week.  The Halter Ranch is a 1,000 acre property with 280 acres of vines.  The property dates back to the 1880’s when it was established by a San Francisco businessman as a cattle ranch.   A grand Victorian farmhouse was built on the property in 1881 which burned down in 1885 and was rebuilt.  This farmhouse with many improvements over the years is the first thing you see when you arrive at the property.  Farming and ranching were the mainstays of the property until June of 2000 when 900 acres of the property were purchased by the current owner Hansjorg Wyss.  Mr. Wyss had seen the area years earlier and had put word out that if a property like this became available that he would be interested as he had a strong desire to be a producer of world class grapes and wines. 



The Farmhouse

Hans is a Harvard educated Swiss born entrepreneur and the second richest person in Switzerland.  Hans put the property under the guidance of Mitch Wyss (no relation to Hans) with the goal of creating a world class sustainable vineyard property.  The property now has 20 different grape varieties planted.  The wine label was started in 2002 and the winery now produces about 8,000 cases.


We all have heard that it takes a bunch of money to get into the wine business and certainly a lot of money is being spent at Halter Ranch.   But I think they are very serious about doing everything right here.  I think a lot of thought goes into every aspect of the operation.  Sometimes there are these wineries that look like they have too much money but don’t get everything right.  This is not the case here. Every aspect of the property is tastefully done.  The Farmhouse while looking old is modern and tasteful on the inside.  The kitchen, bedrooms and porches were fantastic.  Some of the windows are original dating back to the 1880’s. 

The new wine making facility
 

But about the winery and tasting facility- I think this is one of those wineries where the Tour is a requirement (unless you just want to drink wine).  They offer tours on the weekends at 10am and 1pm and you walk through the ranch, across the bridge that spans Tablas Creek, and up the hill into the newly completed winery and caves.  The winery is state of the art and built to be able to handle approximately 48,000 cases (six time their current output).  The caves are the largest winery caves I have ever seen and at this point are not even ½ full.  You will be impressed.  We were there on a Sunday just a week after the last of the grapes had been brought in for the year and the winemaker, recently of Justin, (a highly touted Paso winery) was hard at work and we got to see some hands on winemaking in process.   Our tour guide had an intimate knowledge of everything Halter Ranch and answered every question our group came up with.  On the way up to the winery we passed a couple of old barns and other ranch properties that are in the process of being refurbished.  We also passed a couple of old airplane hangars the served as the original winemaking facility.  These originally housed planes that landed at the private ranch runway.

The tour ended with a stop at the tasting room.  The tasting room is located down below next to the Farmhouse and in another totally refurbished original ranch building.  The tasting room was busy but had lots of space both inside and outside.  Our guide served as our pourer for our group of ten. 

The tasting selection was mostly red wines.  The lone white, the Cotes De Paso Blanc, was a Rhone blend of Grenache, Roussanne, Picpoul (which I am not familiar with), Marsanne and Viognier.  It was refreshing and I’m guessing you will see varietal bottlings of these grapes in the future.  The reds included Syrah, Zin, Cab and three blends.  The blends were priced at $50.00 for the Ancestor (mostly Petit Verdot, Cab and Syrah) down to the Synthesis (mostly Cab) at $20.00.  The reds were consistently good although none of them stood out as being amazing.  I’m not sure the Ancestor is up to its price tag yet, especially in comparison to my benchmark $50.00 Napa Valley wines.  My guess is that the wines will improve over time especially with the arrival of Kevin Sass, the winemaker formerly of Justin, who arrived in 2011.  We had the $20.00 Synthesis at a family event recently and it was very good.

 

The bridge over Tablas Creek on the way up to the new wine facility

 

What we liked- Virtually everything about the place.  Like I said above, by taking the tour you really get to take in the whole place.  Everything, including the tasting facility, is very comfortable.  Everyone we met was professional, yet friendly.  But kind on a FYI- The Farmhouse is not for rent.  We were able to use it as we have some very good connections with someone that was the high bidder in a charity auction.

What we bought- Nothing this time but we will return with other tasters and would certainly buy wine from Halter next time we are in the area. I think in a couple of years you will also be able to find Halter wines on the retail market.

Vitals:

Halter Ranch Vineyard

8910 Adelaida Road

Paso Robles, CA  93446

(805) 226-9455

www.halterranch.com

Adelaida and Tablas Creek

Adelaida Cellars and Tablas Creek Vineyard

Paso Robles, CA

We spent last weekend in Paso Robles and for those of you who have not been to the Paso Robles Wine Country you will simply be amazed at the sheer number and variety of wineries.  I counted over 170 wineries on the Paso Wine website.  I am not sure how many of these have tasting rooms that are open on a regular basis but it is safe to say you could spend a week down this way and not get to most of the them.  Generally the area is pretty warm during the day but receives significant evening cooling since parts of the Westside area are not too many miles from the coast.  A wide variety of grapes are grown including traditional Spanish, Italian, Bordeaux and Rhone varietals.  We were not wild Wine Tasters on this trip but made it to a few wineries, some new to us and some that we had visited before.

Adelaida which focuses on both Rhone and Bordeaux varietals and Tablas Creek which is all about Rhone varietals are two wineries that we visited.  Both of these wineries are old-timers in comparison to most of the wineries in the area.  Adelaida has roots dating back to the 60’s and Tablas Creek’s vineyards date back to 1985.  Adelaida’s first vineyards were planted in 1964 by Dr. Stanley Hoffman.  His Hoffman Mountain Ranch label was established and his winery contains the first large scale modern facility in the area.  In 1973 Hoffman hired Andre Tchelistcheff, the pre-eminent wine making consultant in America (BV, Heitz, Grgich).  Wines were produced under the HMR label through the 90’s and wines under the Adelaida label were first seen in the late 80’s  Throughout the 80’s and 90’s the HMR Pinot Noir received several big time accolades.   Tablas Creek’s owners had connections with a family making wine in the Rhone region of France and purchased the Paso Robles property because it had similarities with Chateaunuef du Pape, an appellation in the southern Rhone region in France known for Grenache, Syrah and Mouvedre grapes.

 Our first stop was Adelaida.  We were surprised by the crowd at the winery at 10:30 in the morning but after a short wait we were provided excellent service with Todd.  There was a $10.00 tasting fee with each fee being waived with a bottle purchase.  We tasted a couple of white wines, a Viognier and a Roussanne.  I did not think the Roussanne was as fragrant as most we have tasted up north but it was good.  I really enjoyed the Roussanne and thought it was full of flavor for such a light wine.  We tasted the full slate of reds.  We were not aware that Pinot Noir was a specialty since Paso really is not an area that we thought was known for this grape as it is generally grown in much cooler climates.  It was much different than your typical Russian River/Carneros version, being much fuller and darker in color but very good.  The white wines were in the $30’s and the reds in the $40’s.  We had spotted a red blend (Syrah, Cab, Pinot and Cab Franc) that we wanted to try which was priced at $20.00.  We had this last and although it was the lightest of the reds, it was good, and at $20.00 is getting closer to an everyday wine price.

We visited Tablas Creek the next day and fortunately we had a wine club member along with us so we received the full complimentary tasting.  We have been to Tablas Creek before and been impressed.  I think there are thirteen different grapes primarily grown in the Rhone region of France and I think Tablas Creek grows all of these and more.  They have a few lines of blends (Espirit de Beaucastal, which is Mouvedre based, Cotes de Tablas, which is Grenache based, and Patelin de Tablas, which is Syrah based) and then they have quite a few 100% varietal wines.  We tasted a bunch of them.  The Roussanne and the blends were very good and then we also tasted a 100% varietal called Tannat that we especially liked.  The tasting room was full but as members, or friends of members, we received excellent service.  Tablas Creek has excellent picnic grounds and another thing I think is pretty unique about Tablas Creek is that they have various Rhone varietal grapevines for sale.

With all the tasting rooms in this area we will really need to spend some more time down this way.  So many of the wineries are unfamiliar either because they are very small or just do not distribute their wines as much up north where there is so much competition.  There will definitely be more to come from us with Paso Robles wineries.

What we liked- The area is really nice country.  Lots of rolling hills and lots of other orchards amongst the vineyards. 

What we bought- Adelaida- A Syrah/Cab blend and that bargain blend, Tablas Creek- The Tannat and one other (Must have been a blend?  We were tired and this was our last stop).

Vitals-

Adelaida Cellars

5805 Adelaida Road

Paso Robles, CA 93446

(800) 676-1232

www.adelaida.com

 

Tablas Creek Vineyards

9339 Adelaida Road

Paso Robles, CA  93446

(805) 237-1231

www.tablascreek.com    

Alpha Omega Winery

Rutherford (Napa), CA

Alpha Omega or AO is one of the best located wineries on Highway 29.  On any given weekend there is usually a crowd of people hanging outside in what is one of the best outdoor tasting spots you will find anywhere in the Napa Valley.  Oh, and the wine is really good also.

AO sits on the right side of Highway 29 right across the street from Provenance Winery as you drive north on 29.  This site has been the spot of many wineries over the past 15 years or so but I think AO is here to stay.  I remember, I think it was Quail Ridge Winery as well as Esquisse Winery being formerly located at this site and I seem to remember that Rusty Staub, the longtime major league baseball player, as either being associated with one of these or another winery on the site at one time.  We first visited AO maybe 5 or 6 years back and at the time when they opened the tasting room we thought it was going to be pretty good.

 

It turns out that the founders of AO actually have quite a background in the wine business.  One of the owners (Robin) originally developed over 800 acres in the Edna Valley in San Luis Obispo County along with Tolosa Winery and a custom crush facility called Courtside Cellars.  We have tasted at Tolosa Winery, in the heart of Pinot and Chardonnay country, and have been impressed.  We have also been to an open house at the custom crush facility and there are all kinds of good wines being made here.   The second owner (Eric) has been involved in Napa Valley grape growing for more than 30 years. 
 

They could not have picked a better spot.  The tasting facility along with the inside horseshoe bar also include several private tasting spots along with a large outdoor area outfitted with very comfy couches overlooking a man-made pond with a huge sprouting fountain.  The owners are striving for a high end (World Class) wine and tasting experience and they’ve hit the mark. 
 

The tasting fee is $20 for four tastes.  A bit on the high side but when you compare it to the price of the wine it works out.  On this day we tasted a 2011 Sauvignon Blanc, a 2011 Rose, a 2009 Cabernet and a 2009 Red Blend.  All wines were good although the Rose was nothing special.  The Napa Valley Cabernet at $88.00 and the Proprietary Red, a Merlot /Cab blend at $90.00 were excellent.  We also got a sneak preview taste of the unreleased 2010 Chardonnay ($330.00 for a six pack) and it was of the classic creamy/oaky/malo style that will sure to be a hit with that crowd.

Personally I think AO is worth a stop but unless you are accustomed to spending $90.00 for a bottle of red wine I would just come for the tasting and great tasting facility.  One other big positive about AO is that it is open to 6PM.  Most wineries close at 4:30 or 5:00.  And one other note that may just apply to this week is that the SF Giants announcers Mike Krukow and Duanne Kuiper are friends with Robin the owner (Krukow grew up in San Luis Obispo) and this week AO is offering a 10% off Giant World Series Winners special.

What we liked- Good wine, great place to hang

What we bought- Nothing- We are hoping our relatives will give us a taste sometime.

Vitals:

Alpha Omega Winery
1155 Mee Lane
Rutherford, CA  94593
(707) 963-9999
www.aowinery.com