Mike & Joel's trip to the wine country

California Wine (take 3) Joel and I decided it was time to visit the California wine country again (for obvious reasons). This was our third trip together to the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento and Brian traveled with us. Once again the weather was in our favor it was sunny and warm the whole time. We visited some new wineries and some old favorites. Need I mention - we had a great! time. A few snaps from the trip are captured below along with some comments about the wine I purchased. Several of the wineries have better pictures and more information posted on line. In case you missed the pictures from last trips they are posted at Mike & Joel's trip to the wine country #1 Wine Country Take 2
Unified Wine and Grape Symposium What fun! Hundreds of exhibitors, selling everything from grape harvesting machines to wine-making yeast. I love this show. Always something new and different. Yes - the My favorite toy was still a copper-pot brandy still (at about 10,000 Euro) and was only large enough to make about 1 bottle of brandy at a time. I really want one of these for Christmas (hint) Take a look at the distilleries on the manufacturer's web site.http://www.a-holstein.de/
Food Bear Republic Brewing Co, Healdsburg. Lots of good brews (try the Hop Rod Rye), creative burgers and excellent pasta. This brewery is on our must-do list each time we go! It's the best reason to stay in Healdsburg. Healdsburg also has many other good looking restaurants, but somehow we just haven't had the time to check them out. http://www.bearrepublic.com/

Location Once again we stayed in Windsor. It's a few miles north of Santa Rosa on Highway 101. The location is perfect. Lower prices, fewer people and many places to eat in Windsor and a little way up the road in Healdsburg. Windsor is in the middle of the Russian River and Dry Creek wine areas and less than an hour drive from the Alexander, Sonoma and Napa valleys. Since wineries don't open until 10:00 we had plenty of time to get the old bones on the road and still make it by first bell.
Tasting: Yes once again we managed to find some time tasting wine. In addition to some of our favorites, we found some new treasures worth remembering. News Flash! Prices are rising rapidly. If you are going to go - do so soon. Most of the wineries we visited we charging $10 to taste a flight of the wines they were pouring. Several advertised $15 for tasting. Most will refund the fee with a purchase - but bottle prices are way up as well. Prices were all over the map, but by sticking to smaller ones, we did find some very good values. A lot of the wineries were selling wines in the tasting room that are only available there. We only bought what we could carry and stopped when the credit card melted. I've include a few notes about what we tasted below. Darn the bad luck! Looks like you may have to make the pilgrimage to get a taste. By timing our visit to the slow time of the year we had a chance to meet some of the staff and have a much more relaxed and cost-effective experience. We only imagined how crowded it can be during the summer until Bill at Domain Chandon told us they get over 70,000 visitors per year (since there is almost none there during the winter -summer must be a zoo). Before I forget to mention it - the weather was awesome! Sunny and 60 during the day and 40 at night, no rain and just a little fog. I used to live just north of this area and my favorite time of the year is the early spring. January is a little iffy, but March is just about perfect. Not too many people and green.
Here are some of the places we stopped and some of the purchases I made. Not as many pictures this time - sorry.
Hartford Court Family Wines A beautiful morning after a drive to the coast in the Russian River area we visited a new winery for us. www.hartfordwines.com John Sims – Cellarmaster took a few minutes to give us a tours of this very pretty facility with barrels stacked to the ceiling. I purchased the '04 Fanucchi zinfandel and the '04 Dina's zinfandel. Traveler note: The Russian River wine area maps show much straighter roads than they really are!
	Korbel Korbel Natural Sparkling Wine and Korbl Brandy are two of my long time favorites. I purchased some VSOP Brandy - since they can't ship it to us.http://www.korbel.com/default.aspx

Hop Kiln winery http://www.hopkilnwinery.com/ A beautiful old building and lots of interesting items in the gift store. Sold out of anything I really wanted to taste - so I purchased a rose - just for the label.

Wine Clubs? Don You don't need to ask - yes I joined a few more wine clubs. But I can quit any time! Seems like everyone had a club. Someone selects a few bottles of wine that you probably can't yet buy retail then ships them to you AND offers a discount on purchases. What could be wrong with that model? Yep, I agree, so I joined one, or two and saved some money on purchases. O.K., so I joined more than that. The good news is that I might take some interesting wine to the next dinner party. The bad news is that I'll have drink a lot if wine to keep up. Drat, I hate it when that happens! Reality check: The Domain Chandon wine club is 7,000 members... I feel so inadequate.


Domaine Chandon This was 1st on our 'must hit' list. Wonderful dry champagne, an amazing tasting room. Of course Bill was still there and of course he remembered us. The Tasting room and retail complex includes a huge tasting room, many large decks, nice (but expensive) restaurant. I'm in their wine club so get all the bubbles I want (or can afford). I purchased the '04 Chardonnay and marked the Blanc de Blancs for future ordering. www.chandon.com . Bill said they make about 300,000 cases of champagne a year and have about 140 employees. We could hear the noise but missed the tour. I think I want the golf cart tour.	Is 10:00 in the morning too early to taste Champagnes? Nah!

V. Sattui Winery Yep, yet again we stopped for Lunch at Sattui. The have some wonderful vine covered buildings and large tasting room. I purchased another bottle of Madiera but with the price increases - couldn't justify too much more. www.vsattui.com .

Only in California would you find someone taking his lizard for a walk on the street. This fellow walked past while we were in the Lake Sonoma tasting room.	Grgich Hills www.grgich.com We had a great time at Grgich Hills. We spent quite a bit of time chatting with a French worker who took a shine to us. I really like their wine and purchased an '03 zinfandel and an '05 Fume Blanc. Sorry - no pictures, but this winery at the South end of the Napa valley is worth stopping at! Thumbprint Cellars www.thumbprintcellars.com Downtown Healdsburg has many wine shops and a lot of store-front tasting rooms. One of the wineries chosen at random was Thumbprint. Didn't find anything there I liked too much although I purchased an '05 Viognier. Limerick Lane www.limericklanewines.com We drove out of town near Healdsburg and found this little winery in the hills. I really liked their '04 zinfandel. I also purchased their new blend release, the '05 1023

Lake Sonoma www.lakesonomawinery.com On our last trip we visited the beautiful Lake Sonoma Tasting room at the top end of the Dry Creek Valley. Well, they've sold it and moved the tasting room to downtown Healdsburg. Fortunately the tasting room manager remembered us and we remembered him. I like the '04 barberra the '04 zinfandel and the '04 Sauvignon Blanc. Important note: Lake Sonoma is part of Heck Estates so with my wine club membership I can order Kennwood, Lake Sonoma, Korbel and Valley of the Moon. Worth checking at the wineries because discounts and purchasing power can sometimes overlap. Quivira www.quivirawine.com We went out of our way back to the Dry Creek Valley to visit Quivira again. Last time we didn't have enough time to do it justice and this time we were glad we stopped. Much more relaxed and more time to chat and taste some wonderful wines. '04 Syrah, '04 Steelhead red, '04 Zinfandel and 05 Sauvignon Blanc we on my list. No petite Syrah this time - but it's coming. Sorry - no pics this time either.

Signorello Vineyards www.signorellovineyards.com A chance stop in the eastern part of the Napa Valley. Looking for zin - but alas they were sold out. We were impressed with the cooking area and I purchased an '04 unfiltered syrah. Based on the syrah, I really want to try the zinfandel. Funny - several of the wineries we stopped at or had planned to stop at were sold out of zinfandel. Must have been a good year.


We stopped, we looked - we didn't stay. No zin and a $15 tasting fee. I don't even remember the name - sorry.	Rutherford Hill http://www.rutherfordhill.com/ http://www.twg.com/ Terlato Angel’s Peak This winery on the east side of the Napa Valley, I do recommend stopping. We were very well received, had a good time chatting with the sales staff and tasted some good wines. '03 Port, '03 Malbec and '03 Terlato - Angels Peak.

Vineyards One of the fun facts you learn when traveling with a winemaker is the difference in pruning and trellising techniques. In these pictures you can see several different styles. Could be the grape variety, the water, how they plan to harvest, the amount of sun and even the orientation of the rows. A good topic of conversation. Each winery owner has a reason for why they did it that way.
Early Spring is my favorite time of year in Northern California. Cool, some rain (a lot of rain this year), everything is lush green and very few tourists. Around March the wildflowers will start blooming and it will be even more beautiful. Plan lots of extra time to stop and see the flowers!

While looking at the web sites I found this link which has better descriptions of many wineries: http://www.wineontheweb.com/index.html

After a long day we kind of ran out of steam. Can you tell? We again stayed near Healdsburg on Highway 101. We like staying in that area instead of the Napa valley. Prices are lower and with just a few minutes travel you can be in any of the many wine regions. Since most don't open before 10, it's an easy schedule. This time we stayed at a condo in Windsor just south of Healdsburg. Nice place!