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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, April 26, 2013


Deerfield Ranch Winery
Kenwood (Sonoma)



There are several new wineries new to the Kenwood area in the last few years that we have wanted to visit.  We stopped at a couple last weekend and while both were good I think one stood out.  Deerfield Ranch Winery sits on a beautiful piece of property on the left side of the highway as you drive north on Highway 12 from Sonoma.  It is one of those properties where just seeing it from the highway does not do it justice.  It is a large 47 acre parcel with 14 of those acres dedicated to wetland, the Kenwood Marsh.  I think as we pulled into the property we were not ready and probably did not take the time to really take in the sites.  There are two sixteen foot tall (metal) giraffes that live on the island in the marsh and the area is one of two homes in California of the Checkerbloom plant. 
 

Deerfield is owned and operated by Robert Rex and his business partner and wife PJ Rex.  Robert has been making wine for 30+ years.  Robert serves as the winemaker along with Cecilia Valdivia.  They produce about 15,000 cases from grapes grown mostly in Sonoma County.  The label has been around for quite some time although the current facility has only been open a few years.  Deerfield makes a lot of different wines in smaller lots.  I counted over 40 wines on their order form.  In addition to the Deerfield label there are two other labels, the Cove Wines (Help the Oceans) and the @WINE label, which tend to be a bit more bargained priced.  Our tasting included wines from all three labels.   


 
The Winery and Tasting facility are built against the mountains and the tasting room is actually deep into the 23,000 feet of caves.  While most cave facilities are usually long and skinny at Deerfield there is a pretty good sized tasting room carved out with a tasting bar and several tables.  We (the four of us) sat on facing couches with a large table in the middle.  We were hosted by Ben who was very knowledgeable about the wines and also displayed a sharp dry sense of humor.

 
The first wine we had was the Sauvignon Blanc.  We are fans of Sauv Blanc and this one was good but not quite as clean as I generally like.  Two Chardonnays came next.  We have found that we are starting to enjoy Chard’s a bit more this year but these two really did not hit it off with us.  I enjoyed the @Wine branded bottle at $24.00 more than the Blond Ambition (a fourth label) version at $35. Our resident Chard drinker enjoyed them both so maybe they were better than my palette was willing to accept today.  But the red wines were next and they were all good.  First we had the Merlot.  I gave it an 8.  Then we had the DRX which is the flagship wine.  This was a 2002 Bordeaux style blend that had spent 42 months on oak.  The wine scored an average of 9.13 for the four of us which is probably one of the higher scoring wines we have had in a while (at least this group of four).  Of course the wine was priced accordingly at $95.00.  I noticed that the 2005 version of this was priced at $85.00.  We finished with an @Wine Cabernet and a Cove Zinfandel and received a bonus pour (it was my birthday) of the 1999 DRX.  At this point we told Ben- No More, although I think he was done with us regardless. 



So the tasting was a pleasant surprise.  It is not often that you visit a winery that you are not familiar with, and does not require an appointment, where you get treated like quality guests, but this is how we felt at Deerfield.  I really wish I had done some research in advance as I would have paid more attention to those big giraffes in the entryway and really would have looked at the surroundings a bit more.  I guess one of the only negatives is that since you are tasting in a cave you really are not looking out into the grounds and you forget about the Giraffes and the Marsh and those kinds of things.  I guess the other comment would be that Ben was handling four or five other groups so he had to hustle but somehow he remembered where we had left off and was somehow listening to our comments and such and knew what our next pour should be. 

 
I would put Deerfield in the higher echelon of Kenwood area wineries (St. Francis, Chateau St. Jean, Arrowood, BR. Cohn) and would like to go back there and explore a bit more. 

 
What we liked- Ben, the wine in general, and the grounds.
 

What we bought- The 2008 Merlot at $38.00.  At this point I don’t think I am ready to accept the Cabernets at $40.00 and up and the DRX at $95.00 but we’ll see.

 
Vitals
Deerfield Ranch Winery
10200 Sonoma Highway
Kenwood, CA  95452
(707) 833-2570
www.deerfielranch.com

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousApril 26, 2013 at 10:29 PM

    The Gold 2005 dessert wine is excellent-hope you get to try this next time. :-)

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