The Town of Carmel is known for Bing Crosby, Clint Eastwood, cozy cottage homes, tiny shops, and a beautiful beach next to Monterey Bay. Carmel is well-visited but 11 miles up the Carmel Valley is the Village of Carmel Valley with 9 tasting rooms!

The Heller tasting room in Carmel Valley

Heller Estate is in this nest of tasting rooms and we’ve discussed their Cab Sauv before. This is the winery with the smoked grapes from the huge 2008 wildfire in the Big Sur area and the nearby Ventana Wilderness.

Some of their wine comes from vineyards in the upper Carmel Valley and some from the Salinas Valley / Santa Lucia Highlands on the other side of those huge mountains above the village. This winery is known for their organic wines but not all their wines are organically farmed.

Katya and I just finished a bottle of their 2003 estate Cabernet Franc. Spicy, robust, and dry, just the flavor profile we love. This is one of those wines that is a bit hard to find among hundreds of wineries but at least for us is a real treat. We are waiting for the smoked wines to be bottled later this fall for another treat. It will be interesting to pair those wines with food.

- jim

I love this annual event at San Francisco’s Fort Mason. Over 400 wineries pouring their wines in one long warehouse pier. It is nuts! This is primarily a trade event, as for business wine buyers and those of us in wine media, but they let the public in the door on Sunday afternoon from 3 to 6, and for only $50. How long would it take you to spend $50 for wine at dinner or in just tasting fees?

Info and tickets at: FamilyWinemakers.org

The variety is outstanding from these small family-owned wineries and the retail prices range from $8 to $200 a bottle.

While you have paced yourself wine tasting before, it is very important to be careful here. Just breathing the air will put your BA level at .03. Narrow your tasting to only what is most important to you. I roll with only dry robust Cabs – and still can’t make it half-way though.

- jim

We visited this winery last weekend in Santa Cruz, CA. It is a tiny working winery in an industrial park building. Nothing romantic but Bill Miiler, the vintner, is enthusiastic and the barrels are there for an impromptu barrel tasting.

This evening we are drinking his 07 Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot. The nose is outstanding and complex. While the finish is softer than we usually prefer it lingers instead of dying out fast like many Pinots. We will buy his Pinot again and want to return soon.

He doesn’t have a Web site so you will have to visit his winery. It is near seven others in Santa Cruz so plenty to do there!

Chuck Meeker’s tasting room is in little Geyserville in California’s Alexander Valley. Geyserville is one of our favorite wine country hangouts but avoid the place at night if you want action. In the evening it is a place for quiet conversations with the local winery folks at the restaurants and that is about it.

However, during the day the little agriculture town is booming with several quality restaurants, four tasting rooms, and now art galleries. One of those tasting rooms is in an old bank building and that be Meeker.

Meeker doesn’t make soft wines with taste that disappears when you swallow. His Syrah is a fine example. It doesn’t burn going down but it is robust, fruity, lots of nose, and a delight to drink if you really want to taste wine. We found it much more interesting than most of the Syrah we drink.

Now back to the tasting room. They retained the bank’s caged off interior and vault. Of course they still have the vault. They would have to blow up Geyserville to remove it. Anyway, Meeker’s “hand painted” bottles are a treat in vintner art and decorate the tiny tasting area. The tasting room is also one of the few “party” T/R’s in California.

The tasting room staff is a joyous bunch and it gets infectious. By afternoon the place is packed with tasters and no one is in a hurry to leave. During region events it is packed all day and tasters are having FUN! If Chuck Meeker is pouring then the decibels are ramped up a bit.

While all the other tasting rooms in the beautiful Alexander Valley are wonderful to visit, go to Meekers for a more social experience, and you’ll leave with good wine at a good price.

- jim

Heller Estate is known for their Carmel Valley, Monterey County, CA organic wines. They have a nice tasting room in the Village of Carmel Valley about 11 miles up the valley from the Pacific and the famous town of Carmel.

We were testing our iPhone app and doing a little videography in the area not long ago and noticed temporary signs on Carmel Valley Road to Heller’s mountain winery, not the tasting room in the village. We decided to follow the signs and see what’s up.

They were having a wine club event and barrel tasting and Katya and I crashed it. Fortunately we were welcomed and joined the tastings. Also fortunately we were spending the night at a nearby cottage. There was a lot of wine to try and lots of lively conversation and interesting people to share it with.

The winery is located at the end of a long twisting drive off a long twisting road that branches from another long twisting road – Carmel Valley Road. It is off Cachaqua if you must know and is rarely open to the public. We got lucky. It is soooo beautiful up there!

We tasted who knows how many wines from bottles and barrels. Their rich, bold, and complex 2004 Cab really stood out and we would buy again. We tasted it at home over 2 days and it tastes great, but a bit different, each day. I was tasting chocolate which for me is a special treat in Cab.

Heller’s vineyards are near last summer’s huge wildfire in the Ventana Wilderness. During barrel sampling we tasted smoke and we are really excited about their 2008 vintage. A little smoke in the back-taste is a treasure!

- jim

Bent Creek Winery has a small tasting room and nice picnic areas at the end of a long driveway off a Livermore Valley, CA back road. The trouble with visiting Bent Creek is that it is wildly popular. The wines are good but it is also the romantic setting in a small canyon with an intimate and friendly tasting room that draws us, and so many others, to Bent Creek.

Katya and I recently visited a few Livermore Valley wineries with some popular wine Twitters. The tasting bar was crowded but the staff put our small group at a table on the back deck with a view of the little canyon and vineyards. I could have kicked back there all day. We were served a nice variety of their wines but for us one really stood out – their Cab / Syrah Red on Red blend.

I’m not sure where the subtle coffee comes from but we love it! Others in our group didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we did. We tasted Red on Red again at home over the next few days and it remains interesting each day. It is definitely on our to buy list the next time we are in the Livermore Valley. We’ll enjoy a picnic lunch there on our next trip.

- jim

Winery Quest is the best winery map yet and we were getting close to releasing a few of our apps to beta testers when Apple announced that the new, much improved, and free iPhone 3.0 operating system is to be released June 17.

The software development kit for the new OS has some very nice enhancements for using Google Maps so we decided to re-write the code and make an app that has a brighter future.  Hopefully we’ll have it in testing in a couple of weeks.

The big issue is getting it approved for the App Store.  There are lots of horror stories about Apple denying good apps but approving ones like Farts.  Winery Quest should be fine but we won’t have a release date until it is in the store and ready to download – for a price.

Features in version 1.0?  Google Maps with our markers and some profile data for 20 California wine regions and about 650 wineries.  You will see your location on the map so you can navigate unfamiliar regions.

The California winery pak, all regions, will probably cost $4.95.  If this is successful we’ll offer Oregon and Washington paks next year.  We have 4 versions planned so the app will get more exciting with time.

The app market for Blackberries and other phones is too small to make the investment now.  Each has its own operating system and code specs so development requires learning yet more stuff.  We aren’t going to rush into that.  We will make a mobile version of WineQuesters.com for these phones when their app market is big enough to be worth the cost of creating apps.

- jim

15 wine regions, 1,500 miles, 7 days. WOW did I see some beauty!

This shot of lupines along the Carmel Valley Road is common right now!

I started shooting spring scene photography April 11-12 in the Sierra Foothills wine regions of Calaveras, Amador, and El Dorado Counties.  I’m shooting for our Discover California Wine Regions video library.

High winds early the following week kept me off the wine trails but on Thursday April 16 I headed down Highway 101 and in two days shot spring scenes in Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley, and Monterey County in both the Santa Lucia Highlands and the Carmel Valley.

The weekend of April 18-20 we stayed at the Meritage Resort and the Napa Marriott in the lower Napa Valley.  Katya and I shot the Napa, Sonoma, Dry Creek, and Alexander Valleys and the Carneros region near SF Bay.

This shot of a huge field of wildflowers is from just south of Ledson winery in the Sonoma Valley.

Since we have traveled and photographed these regions extensively it doesn’t take long for us to photograph the highlights of each region – IF we avoid tasting rooms.  So I limited my tasting room allowance to two a day.  Not easy to pass about 500 tasting rooms and only hit 10.

Most regions are drying out as I write this but Carmel Valley Road is still a good bet and Sonoma Valley may still have great fields of flowers if you are quick.  The poppies in this Dry Creek vineyard may still be waiting for you if the grower hasn’t turned them under yet.   Every other row of two vineyards along Dry Creek Road are stuffed with poppies. Poppies are available into October.

So wine tasting road trips isn’t just about wine, people, and tasting room ambiance.  Photography is a fantastic pastime in wine regions and spring is an ideal time to click your way along the wine trails.

I would really like to photograph the beautiful women of California wine regions but that project will have to wait.  That will be a more interesting blog post

- jim

Last Friday April 2 at 6 PM Katya and I hosted a Wine Questers SF Urban Meetup at the Winery Collective in SF near Fisherman’s Wharf.  Attendance was not outstanding, only 6 of us, but the conversation and wines were excellent and we had a great time by including hapless tourists.  The engaging tasting bar staff deliver a diverse selection of wines in a variety of flights for a good taste adventure.

We bought:

1. Sol Rouge Gypsy Blanc, and interesting white blend.
2. Sol Rouge 06 Napa Valley Cab – this one we have raved about before.  The nose and taste has more than hints of Kalamata olives.  The vineyard soil does this.

We spent Friday and Saturday nights at the adjacent Argonaut Hotel. Hotel management gave us a great deal on a room looking west to Ghirardelli Square, the Hyde Street cable car turnaround (entertaining) and the Golden Gate Bridge.  This hotel is nautical themed in keeping with the maritime museum in the same building. Actually, the building is owned by the National Park Service.  Great place to stay!!!

We wanted to spend the weekend resting but that never happens.  I looked out the window on Saturday morning and the weather was warm and sunny.  There was also no line for the cable car that goes over the hills to Market Street. We grabbed the cameras and spent much of the weekend shooting video and stills for a future Discover SF Urban Wine Region video.  We had a mostly empty cable car and a cooperative driver so we got some good shots.  We also shot from the ships in the historic park.

The Winery Collective isn’t the only wine thing to do around Fisherman’s Wharf.  We wandered into Ghirardelli Square for some reason (chocolate) and happened upon a wonderful wine store and tasting bar.  Cellar 360 has a huge selection of wine, incredible view of the Bay, a well-stocked deli, friendly and informative staff, and a nice patio. We picked a few munchies from the deli, bought glasses of wine at the tasting bar after they let us taste a variety, and relaxed in the warm sun on the patio. Lazy and hedonistic, just our thing.

As we wandered toward the famous chocolate store we were in for another surprise.  Alexander Valley’s Wattle Creek has a tasting room there and not in AV. I had never heard of them and we hang out in Geyserville in that Sonoma County valley, only minutes from their winery.  I’ve been tasting in Alex Valley since the early 70′s and love the wines there.

We bought Wattle Creek’s:

1. Yorkville Highlands “The Triple Play” red blend.
2. Alex Valley 05 Cab Sauv.
3. Yorkville Highlands “Focus” red blend.

We would have bought one of everything but we have a budget and no room to store them.

On Sunday we found Wines of California wine bar on Pier 39.  Their wine list is interesting and they have a patio overlooking the marina.  It also looked like they were preparing to BBQ. We had enough wine for the weekend so a visit there is on our to do list.

We hit many restaurants in the area.  Our favs are The Blue Mermaid for nautical ambiance and chowder in the Argonaut Hotel and McCormick & Schmicks at Ghirardelli Square for interesting seafood dishes and VIEW.

Our Discover SF Urban Wine Region video is a future project.  We’re just collecting what photography we can for now.

We only ventured a few blocks in each direction from the hotel but had a busy and interesting weekend.

- jim

We intended to ride out last weekend at home working, as usual.  However, on Wednesday I noticed that the Sonoma County tourism guy posted a real bargain on Twitter.com.  Rooms at 50% off at the stunningly beautiful Victorian-era Madrona Manor in Dry Creek Valley.  Rooms there are normally $350 a night on average and not the investment we need right now.  However, for $350 for the weekend …

Katya took Friday off and we made a lazy trip north up Highway 101 from San Jose, through San Francisco, and on to Healdsburg.  We dropped by the new Winery Collective tasting room near Fisherman’s Wharf for a visit and a little tasting.  This is a winery tasting room, actually owned by wineries, but is like a tasting bar in that you can taste from dozens of wineries from all over California.  Great ambiance in an old historic building with huge timbers, a nautical theme hotel, and one of my favorite restaurants – Blue Mermaid.

Later that afternoon we arrived at the Madrona Manor and checked into our Victorian style room with a wood fireplace – which we used often.  We had a little view of the surrounding gardens which are just starting to bloom.  LOTS of oranges on the orange trees and Katya picked a few with permission.  The landscaping there is famous in the area.  Spring and summer would be better but still beautiful.

It was strange that they had rooms available as this was the Russian River Wine Road Barrel Tasting weekend #2, one of the biggest local events of the year.  We avoided the event and tasting rooms so we could relax and enjoy the room and gardens for the weekend.  For us to avoid tasting rooms is a real adjustment.

We dined at our favorites, Santi in Geyserville on Friday evening and Ralph’s on the Healdsburg Square Saturday.  While we avoided tasting rooms we did meet up with wine bloggers in Healdsburg on Saturday afternoon and helped deplete their large collection of wines.  Rowdy bunch!

On Sunday Katya wanted oysters for lunch so we we packed up and drove along the Russian River to the coast and then south on Highway 1 to Tomales Bay.  Oysters are everywhere along the bay, in cafes, restaurants, stores, and many oyster plants. While I’m not into oysters at all I love to drive through the dark redwood forest along the Russian River and the expansive views and rocky Sonoma and Marin coast.

We love to stop at the little cafes for apple pie, rock cod tacos, hearty clam chowder, and of course oysters.  We bought whole milk from a dairy store in a real glass bottle and a variety of local cheeses are available.  Munching your way down or up the coast is a great way to get to or from wine country!

- jim