Wine tasting in Sonoma Valley

Back on track with yesterdays wine Tasting in Sonoma Valley. We had picked out 7 vineyards to visit, 4 before lunch and 3 after.

We started with the recommendation from Chef Dean at Loma Vista in Temecula. Gloria Ferrer has the sparkling wine and after a nice breakfast it was good to start the morning with tree glasses of sparkling wine. Not only the wine but also the most spectacular view.

Not so much for me, but Laila loves it and yes so do I. We tasted their 2007 Brut Rosé, a good sparkling wine that we enjoyed and bringing back with us a bottle, the 2002 Royal Cuvee was a bit to standard of a sparkling wine. The last we tasted was the New Va de Vi. A prior dinner wine, a gentle touch of pink color, not much but some due to its content of Pinot Noir.

Next stop was Chateau St. Jean. Not only great facility, but also some good wines, their Pinot Blanc Robert Young Vineyards 2009 was crisp and fruit-forward. The Chardonnay Cold Creek Vineyard 2009 was a lovely light wine they started with back in 2000.

The Pinot Noir La Petite Etoile Vineyard 2008 is one of the Chateau’s wines from the 70’s and nice and round. The pinot is from the Russian River Valley and filled with bright cherry, raspberry and lifted floral aromas.

We also tasted their Sonoma County Gewürztraminer, and ended up with a bottle to bring back home to Houston.

We dropped Arrowood and headed for the Benziger winery. This Biodynamic Family Winery was something special and need a separate introduction later a, some of the pictures I enclose, but the layout of the garden and information was great and we picked with us information for later.

They had some good wines too, but now we needed to reduce the amount of wines we bring back home so I will jump straight on to the two we brought with us back to the car.

2010 Signature Sauvignon Blanc with a special aroma and fruity taste that we could not leave without. The same was the 2007 TRIBUTE Bordeaux Blend for Sonoma Mountain. With predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon it is the first Demeter-certified Biodynamic wine from Sonoma County.

To taste some of the “ordinary” wines we can find in the shops we also visited Ravenswood, and to compare it with another “ordinary” wine we can find in Texas we liked the once at SEBASTIANI. Almost all of them Laila and I agreed upon that this would be the label we will look for when we shop wine in Houston. Seven different wines, 2009 Un-Oaked Chardonnay-Russian River, 2009 Sonoma County Chardonnay, 2009 Pinot Noir – Sonoma Coast, 2007 Merlot – Sonoma County, 2008 Zinfandel – Sonoma County, 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon – Sonoma County and at last 2007 Secolo – Sonoma Red Blend, a bit heavy, but working. The last taste room we visited, so we cut down the list to a number that was possible to handle.

More about our today’s trip in Russian River Valley later on