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Northern California
Our Story and Mission- Ever since we were old enough to drink wine, we have been frequenting winery tasting rooms throughout California. Our trips in the late 70’s involved stops at 6-8 wineries (or maybe more) in a day. My first date with my wife was a day of wine tasting in Sonoma 31 years ago. So we are experienced with this stuff. I think there are several ingredients to a satisfying Tasting Room experience. The wine has to be good for starters and generally the known wineries all put out pretty decent wine. But there are other key factors in making the experience memorable. Sometimes a classy tasting room works for us, but sometimes standing around a barrel outside does the trick. At other times it is just good service that pleases us. Certainly one of the keys is the person serving the wine. So there are a whole bunch of things that make visiting a Tasting Room a positive experience. The point of this blog is to talk about and recommend Winery Tasting Rooms where we have had good experiences.The blog was conceived after spending a weekend with my sisters who normally do not frequent wineries and running into a couple of disappointing stops.

Friday, November 30, 2012


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


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2 comments:

  1. UnknownDecember 14, 2012 at 7:32 PM

    Love your blog! My husband and I are both retired and enjoy tasting wine frequently. A friend of mine pours at Biale, so I am familiar with the wine, but have never visited.

    Thanks for all of your updates! Can't wait to try new wineries!!!

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    1. The Weekend Wine TasterDecember 17, 2012 at 12:18 PM

      Thanks Sue for the nice words. And please subscribe if you don't mind receiving a weekly email with the new post information.

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