While driving around searching for wineries with tasting rooms regularly open to the public we wander into some wonderful settings.  Maple Creek Winery is one of our favorites for picnicking.  It is located along the mountainous Mendocino County part of Highway 128 in the Yorkville Highlands AVA area west of Cloverdale in the Alexander Valley.  Route 128 snakes through Napa Valley, Alexander Valley, and the Yorkville area into Anderson Valley then on to the coast.  It is an amazing wine trail and the mountain section in Mendocino County is fun to drive and explore.  

The 180 acre mountain ranch is a terrific setting for a relaxing and scenic winery picnic and we’ve picnicked there twice.

Vintner Tom Rodrigues is a painter and stained glass artist and displays his crafts in the rustic barn tasting room.  Tom and his wife Linda are gracious hosts at their winery events in front of the tasting room and anchored around an old farm truck.

Their 2007 Chardonnay is French oak fermented and rather soft with moderate aroma and finish.  We paired it with sea bass for a nice meal.  For desert we opened their  Artevino brand Cowboy Red blend of Zinfandel, Merlot, and Carignane which is a nice full bodied aromatic wine.

The 180 acre ranch has edible mushrooms, wild boar, orchards, vineyards, 2 miles of creek and 7 springs.  They can live, and drink, off the land in their wild mountain retreat.   You can drop by, enjoy a wine tasting and picnic, and savoir their lifestyle for a few hours.

- Jim

Husch is a small family owned winery in Mendocino’s Anderson Valley.  The winery was founded in 1971 and is the oldest in the Anderson Valley.  The setting is one of our favorites with a tiny rustic tasting room in an old farmstead and a lawn with picnic tables on the mowed grass or on the deck.  It is calmly romantic and the staff is always delightful.  They produce a couple dozen wines with their estate Mendocino grapes so there is plenty to taste.

While Anderson Valley is well known for Pinot Noir there are many varieties produced in the valley and nearby AVA’s.

We purchased a half dozen bottles of wine and enjoyed each with various foods.  The 2010 Sauv Blanc was big for peaches and aromatics.  Really a delight.  The 2007 Cab Sauv was aged 14 months in French and American oak and is a big Cab but with soft tannins and a nice long enjoyable finish.  We did a comparison tasting of their 2008 Special Reserve Mendocino Chard and the 2009 Vine One Anderson Valley Chard. Both are French Oak aged and are big tasty Chardonnays with great aromas and finish but distinctively different.

Husch is a great place to enjoy a wine picnic on a warm sunny Anderson Valley afternoon.

- Jim

The Graziano tasting room is beside Highway 101 in tiny Hopland in southern Mendocino County.   Hopland is becoming a wine town with almost a dozen tasting rooms to welcome you to the county.  The area is best known for wine originally with Fetzer Winery.   The tasting room is small and friendly with a variety of their brands available to taste.  The Graziano family winemaking heritage goes back to their native Italy but in 1918 they planted their first vineyard in Mendocino County.

Their focus is on unusual varietals from Tuscany and Piemonte such as Cortese and Arneis, two white varieties that are close to Pinot Grigio in taste and dryness. Graziano also produces the local red bend called Coro Mendocino.  We brought home the Cortese and Arneis wines to sample.  Both are light nose, body, and finish with slight differences between the two that makes tasting both at the same time interesting.  We loved them with halibut and sea bass, both light flavor and rather delicate tasting fish.

We found their pricing to be nicely lower than usual and a good place to stock up.

- Jim

I’ve previously blogged about the intimate and friendly Route 128 tasting room and the wines from the Opatz Family Winery.  Their tasting room is in the Alexander Valley, the vineyards just north of there in the Yorkville Highlands AVA, and the winery is near Hopeland in Mendocino County.

We wandered into the tasting room recently and noticed cases of wine in a corner and labeled “Fire Sale – $50 / case”.  Our kind of price.  Lorna poured their 2008 Pelu Rouge red which is a hearty blend of Viognier, Zinfandel and Syrah.  Except this time there was an additional dimension – smoke.

On June 24th 2008 a lighting storm ignited over 1,700 wildfires in California.  This overwhelmed even international wildfire fighting capacity and the fires burned for up to two months.  The smoke blanked vineyards in over a dozen California wine regions.  Many vintners tried to salvage the vintage in various ways but many ended up dumping the wine.  Pete Opatz didn’t.

We enjoyed the smoke with an excellent wine and bought two cases.  We like it even better now and have paired the wine with a variety of meals but mostly red meats and sausages.  It is a bit of an acquired taste but if you like smoked cheese, salmon, ham, etc. then try a 2008 wildfire smoked wine wherever you can find them.  While Route 128 will probably be sold out by the time you read this Heller in Carmel Valley, Monterey wine region, may have some left.

We also brought home a bottle of Route 128 2009 High Five Bordeaux blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 5% Malbec, 3% Petit Verdot.  It is a big and interesting wine with not much of a tannin bite.  No nearby wildfires in 2009

- Jim

A few years ago I was shooting photography in the Anderson Valley and discovered the beautiful Goldeneye Winery tasting room and back patio.  Goldeneye is a species of wild duck and this is an appropriate name because their sister winery in Napa Valley is the also beautiful Duckhorn.   Both have excellent landscaping, serve wine at tables, and are a classy experience.

For a $10 tasting fee they serve you four Anderson Valley Pinot Noirs on a patio table with a great view of the vineyards and redwoods.  A fountain adds a lively waterfall sound for exceptional relaxing ambiance while you focus on the wines, friend, or whatever.

On a warm fall afternoon in 2011 we were seated at a patio table and presented with four local Pinots – 2009 Gowan Creek Vineyard, 2009 The Narrows Vineyard, 2009 Goldeneye from several vineyards, and 2009 Confluence Vineyard.  We love horizontal and vertical tastings so we can compare vineyards by year or a vineyard over many years.

All the wines were lightly oaked and aged 16 months in French oak, medium body, soft Pinot aromas, and top quality throughout.  Not a long finish but that’s Pinot.  We could taste subtle and interesting differences between the vineyard designate wines.  To keep you oriented they provide you with detailed tasting notes from the winemaker on each wine plus a good description of the vineyard.

For a great laid-back tasting experience both their patio and indoor sofas and fireplace locations are a cut above most other wineries.

- jim

PS:  Several days after writing this post we paired the 2009 Goldeneye Anderson Valley Pinot with a roasted duck.  We were disappointed. The wine was boring and not worth the price.  We finished only half the bottle.  The next evening we were watching a movie and the wine was very nice.  Go figure.

I was driving along the backroads of El Dorado County’s Fairplay area and found the delightful little Mellowood Vineyard winery and woman winemaker Linda Neal. The tasting room opened in July 2011 in the small wood barn style working winery. Linda explained that she was making wine in Napa Valley but now doing her own thing in the Sierra Foothills.  What I love about the site is it is well off the main road and up a hill in an oak and pine forest.  Really a romantic location.  

Linda is an interesting and informative winemaker to engage with so I shot a video interview with her for our Discover El Dorado County Wine Region video.

I had little time for tasting but later tried Linda’s 2006 Sierra Foothills Zinfandel.  It has big flavors and aromas with a medium weight wine and no alcohol burn.  The oak was noticeable, which we like, and reflected the winemaker’s Napa roots (not the Zinfandel’s roots).

I strongly recommend a visit to Mellowood and hopefully you’ll catch Linda in the tasting room.

- Jim

Corison Winery is located just south of St. Helena on Highway 29 in Napa Valley.  This is the most crowded section of road in all California wine regions because it is where many large and famous wineries are located.  Visitors often overlook the small wineries along this route but there are real treats here.  Cathy Corison’s winery is one of them.  You taste in the working winery with barrels stored all around you.  Nothing fancy.  I even caught Cathy doing her own weeding of the very limited landscaping.  It is a superb old-time winery experience among the big high traffic wineries.

I dropped by to interview Cathy for our Discover Napa Valley Wine Region video and picked up a bottle of her 2002 Napa Valley Cab for our wedding anniversary dinner.  Still a bit of a tannin bite when first opened but with a little air it opens nicely as a full bodied Cab but not heavy. The nose is almost delicate and softer than most Napa Cabs. Light oak. Very refined and upscale taste. Cathy’s Cabs are in the $75 and up range.

We paired it with lamb chops, mashed potatoes with caramelized onions and broccoli then followed up with a selection of Lindt chocolates, raspberries, and apricots.  At the end of the meal the bottle was empty.  Very nice!

I first met Cathy a few years ago at a wine blogger’s event.  She was pouring her Cab next to those of other  well-respected Napa Valley vintners.  I was impressed with her style and deep knowledge of the local earth.  She has been working this area for decades and seems to know every row of Cab in the Rutherford area.  Cabernet Sauvignon is her whole focus.  A visit to Corison Winery will put you deep into the Napa Valley Cabernet experience.

- Jim

We recently visited the new winery location for Las Positas Vineyards in the former Deer Ridge Winery.  They remodeled the tasting room but left the grounds and architecture as it was.  Very nice mission style ambiance and extra friendly staff with a nice courtyard style picnic area and view.  Wines are excellent.  Las Positas has been in business for a few years and now have a full time tasting room.  When we arrived the owners were pouring which is a special treat.  Lots of info with the tasting.

We like vertical tastings of the same varietal from the same vineyard but different years so we purchased their 2008 and 2009 Livermore Chardonnays and tried them at home.   We paired them with thin sliced BBQ filet Mignon tacos and table grapes on our patio for a light lunch. There wasn’t a big difference in the wines considering the varied climate in those years.  Both were aged in French oak, the 2007 for 8 months and the 2008 for 10 months, so the 2007 had lighter oak flavor and aroma with the 2008 being medium.  Overall the 2007 was lighter but both had a good lingering finish, big vanilla nose with the usual apricot, apple and for me banana flavors.  We love the Burgundian style Chards and these are right in there with the top quality wines at $22 a bottle.

- Jim

Roth Estate doesn’t have a tasting room of their own and such wineries are usually outside of our scope.  However, this family owned winery is related to Lancaster Estate on Chalk Hill Road so when wine distributor Wilson Daniels offered to let us try some of their wines we agreed.

I’ll start with their 2009 Sonoma Coast (basically west Russian River Valley) Pinot Noir.  It opened for us with a BIG raspberry nose and a medium body with gentle fruit and a mild finish.  We prefer the more intense, well, intense for Pinot, Santa Cruz Mountains Pinots but a big raspberry nose is a hit with us.  Unfortunately the nose died down quite a bit on the second and third days but the flavors stayed fresh.  We pumped the air out and used argon to remove the oxygen to store it overnight.

The wine was aged in French oak for 18 months but the oak is in the background.  It is 100% Pinot as most Pinots are although we tasted a Lake County Pinot last night that seemed to be blended with Syrah of all things.  The price point is $27 which is probably about right but we would prefer bigger flavors for that price.  A LOT of people prefer the mellow Pinots and this wine should appeal to them.

The Roth 2010 Alexander Valley Sauvignon Blanc is a medium body wine with a very light color, big nose full of flowers and citrus, and that New Zealand type of grassiness that we enjoy.  Recall that the 2010 harvest was late due to cool weather but had that grape killer hot spell in August.  In spite of the challenges this batch of Sauv Blanc did very well with the longer hang time.  There is no oak here, just the fruit, and the acidity is comfortable for the varietal.  Suggested retail is $16 which is reasonable but a bit on the high side.  We sampled this wine with friends over a chicken dinner and the reaction was favorable.  The finish was decent but longer would be nice.

We tried the Roth 2008 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon for desert with friends after dinner.  It is a medium body Cab with plum aroma and soft tannins and a light oak backdrop. The finish lasts a while which for us is critical in all wines but especially for the big reds.  I expected a bit more oak since the wine is aged in French and American Oak for 18 months.  Maybe there is more there than met my palate after dinner.

I love big oaky Alexander Valley Cabs.  This wine is not that robust and should appeal to a much larger market.  It is softened with 17% Cab Franc and Merlot.  The suggested retail price of $28 is spot on. It doesn’t have the complexity of other AV Cabs but it is drinkable right now and smooth enough to pair with most dishes such as red meats and pastas and good conversation.   Good wine and I consider it a buy.

- Jim

Lancaster Estate winery is rather newly open to the public and is located at the southern end of Alexander Valley on Chalk Hill Road.  Normally I only blog about wineries that we’ve visited but in this case we’ve only visited the driveway entrance.  The winery is by appointment only and we often don’t have time for appointments.  The entrance is impressive though and the rare photos of the winery on their Website are intriguing.  We intend to visit sometime this winter.

Lancaster’s wine distributor, Wilson Daniels, sent me their 2010 Sauvignon Blanc to try.  We paired it with a Trader Joes chicken salad nested in grilled endives for an appetizer and for dinner Katya grilled turkey and ham kabobs.  The setting was our patio on a warm summer evening with hummingbirds watching us carefully as they drank their “estate bottled” sugar water from our feeder. 

Recall that 2010 was a tough year in the vineyards.  Although mostly an unusually cool summer there were a few surprise days of high heat that burned a lot of grapes all over California.  Lancaster’s grapes survived because the canopy wasn’t trimmed back to expose them to more sun, a common strategy at the time with the prevailing weather so cool.

This is a big fruity full nose wine, pleasant oak in the background that reflects being aged in new and used French oak for only 20% of the 7 month aging process.  Yes, it is bright and crisp without the grassiness of some Sauv Blancs.  Alexander Valley wines are almost always on the upper end of a scale from soft to robust and this one is no exception.  As a full fruit wine there is a complex assortment of citrus, pear, and our favorite, fresh flower aromas.  The supplied tasting notes mentioned peaches and lemons.  They may be there but we didn’t notice.  We taste with food and conversation, like most people drink wine, and unless a flavor is outstanding we don’t bother to hunt for it.  This blog is for regular wine travelers, not the small niche who has to discern every nuance.

At a suggested retail price of $28 this Sauv Blanc is a buy.  Not a steal at the price but worth trying. We loved it!

- Jim