California Wine Country: Day 2 in Sonoma

If you missed it, the recap of our first day in Napa is here.

After a wonderful dinner and a good night's sleep, we woke up ready to drive to Sonoma from Napa. I found the rolling hills and grape orchards of the California countryside to be so beautiful, even when the sun's not out!



Guess we started out a bit early, because they were still setting out the "Open" sign at the first tasting of the day!

Winery #5: Audelssa Estate Winery (13647 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen)
This was the one of the only tastings we went to that was in a tasting room, rather than at the winery itself. The decor was beautiful with heavy, dark wood tables and they had fun music playing, which made it a great experience for all. Audelssa only has reds, and after a day of sauv blancs in Napa, our group was thrilled.

Since they just had their fall 2009 releases a few weeks ago, we got lucky and they had 7 wines open for us to taste:

• 2006 Tephra
• 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon (Not too tannic like a few of the cabs we tasted in Napa the day before, and not too fruity either. A nice balance.)
• 2006 Summit (a blend of Bordeaux varietals, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot. Beautifully complex and fruity at the same time. I loved this. I could drink this all day.)
• 2007 Zinfandel (They called this the Zin for Pinot drinkers, and that description is spot on. The grapes come from old vines, but it's not as tannic as traditional old vine zins and has much more berry. It's nice -- kind of a novelty though, like "Oh! It's a zin?")
• 2006 Zephyr (a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre)
• 2006 Alder Springs Vineyard Merlot (I'm definitely not a merlot drinker, but this is a great example of a good merlot. It's earthy [I could smell the dirt] and elegant.
• 2006 Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (This has a much silkier mouthfeel than the previous cab we tasted at Audelssa. It had the same good qualities, but amplified, if that makes sense.)

They mentioned that someone close to the winery goes to culinary school, and she provides the tasting room with cupcakes! We all shared a plate of mini savory cornbread chorizo cupcakes with chive-sour cream "frosting" and mini chocolate cupcakes with ginger buttercream.

We ended up purchasing the Summit, while someone else in our group purchased the zin.

Note: You can find Audelssa on Twitter at @discovaudelssa. That's how I found them!

Winery #6: Valley of the Moon Winery (777 Madrone Road, Glen Ellen)
Valley of the Moon wasn't in the packet as a scheduled destination, but as we had time and it was on the way, we decided to stop. I had heard mixed reviews on it (I know someone who loves their sangiovese), so I was intrigued to taste it for myself. The tasting room has a long bar and lots of staff to help, though I would have liked a chair. It felt somewhat rushed without it, if that makes sense. VOTM offers 2 types of tastings: the standard tasting and the reserve tasting (both include 5 pours off the menus of about 9). We chose to taste some wines off of the reserve menu, and at the encouragement of the woman helping us, we chose to compare the same or similar varietals.

• 2005 Russian River Brut sparkling wine (This was a bright and fresh sparkling wine, and fun to drink. Plenty of bubbles. Would be a great aperitif with some blue cheese to play off the tartness of the green apple flavor.)
• 2003 Valley of the Moon sparkling wine (This was a bit more like champagne than the Russian River Brut sparkling wine. Cory and I both preferred the other one.)
• 2005 Sonoma Valley Estate Old Vine Zinfandel (Neither zin was particularly remarkable.)
• 2006 Saini Farms Old Vine Zinfandel
  
• 2006 Cuvee de la Luna (a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. I found this to have many of the same qualities as Audelssa's Summit blend, though this was a bit sweeter and a little more chocolatey.)

Our friends also chose to taste the 2005 So Co Port. I have never really been a port drinker, but this was so chocolatey and fruity that I couldn't resist. We ended up buying a bottle of this, as well as the Cuvee and the Russian River Brut sparkling wine, since they had a ridiculous sale that we split with friends (buy 4, get 2 for 50 cents).

Valley of the Moon was the first winery where we actually got to see grapes up close! I did the honor of tasting one (is that allowed? We couldn't come to a consensus. I decided to be a risktaker anyway). It was much sweeter than I expected.



Winery #7: Cline Cellars (24737 Arnold Drive, Sonoma)
I was so excited to stop at Cline -- I was ready for some zins! As a rule of thumb for the trip, I wanted to stay away from wines that I could readily get in Texas, but someone advised me to go to Cline because they have so many other offerings other than their somewhat ubiquitous Ancient Vine Zin. I'm so glad we did!

Cline has a free standard tasting, and tastings from their reserve menu are $1 each (though they waived our tasting fee for the reserve menu items). Definitely try a few wines from their reserve menu. They're worth it!

We tasted:

• 2008 Oakley Four Whites (a blend of Sauvignon Blanc, old-vine Palomino, Malvasia Bianca and Semillon. This is a quite drinkable wine that has the crispness of a sauvignon blanc but the depth from the other varietals. As a fun aside, this was the white wine we served at our wedding!)
• 2008 Pinot Gris (reminded me a lot of a sauvignon blanc)
• 2007 Oakley Five Reds (I didn't care for this one too much. Felt like an ordinary table wine without much body.)
• 2008 Cashmere (a blend of Mourvedre, Grenache, and Syrah. The pourer told us that this was originally made for a charity benefit, where it went over so well that the winery decided to produce larger quantities of it. Now, some of the proceeds from sales of this wine go towards a breast cancer charity. Luckily, it's good!
• 2007 Ancient Vines Mourvedre
• 2007 Cool Climate Syrah
• 2007 Big Break Zinfandel (finally, the zinfandel I had been waiting for! Maybe it's because we were tasting so many blends, but this had lots of nice tannins.)
• 2006 Late Harvest Mourvedre (a really wonderful dessert wine. The pourer used an aerator like this one when pouring the wine to open it up a bit. As I tasted it, I found myself craving a piece of flourless chocolate cake to go with it. It reminded me a lot of the Valley of the Moon port that we bought.

In general, we found the wines to be well-priced for the quality. We ended up buying the Cashmere and the Late Harvest Mourvedre. And taking a picture of this guy:



This might be common knowledge, but the bigger wineries we went to had tents set up for weddings and other events. How fun to have your wedding there! I thought this tablesetting was great for a laidback rehearsal dinner.



Especially given the beautiful grounds.



Note: You can find Cline on Twitter at @clinecellars.

Winery #8: Viansa Winery and Marketplace (25200 Arnold Drive, Sonoma)
I had heard from a number of people that we had to go to Viansa at least for the beautiful views. They had a deli on-site, so we decided to stop there for lunch.

The pizza was cooked in a wood-burning stove on the patio.



And the deli inside had lots of Italian treats. A bit pricy though.



The pizza came with a glass of Viansa's wine, so some got the sanviogese and some got the primitivo. Honestly, no one really loved their wine and the whole place had a bit of a touristy feel, so we decided not to stay for a tasting.

The views were fantastic though, despite the ominous clouds.



And the grounds were covered in beautiful flowers here, too.





Our last stop was just up the road, which was a good thing because the clouds were getting darker and darker!

Winery #9: Gloria Ferrer Winery (23555 Arnold Drive, Sonoma)
Like Viansa, this had quite a touristy feel. I had been encouraged to take the tour to see the champagne caves, but we were so disappointed! I guess after the incredible tour the previous day at CADE, we had been spoiled. The most interesting part was learning about the methode champenoise.

We tasted:

• 2004 Blanc de Blancs
• 2002 Royal Cuvee

Gloria Ferrer is owned by Freixenet and the Ferrer family is from the Spanish region of Catalonia, so I wasn't surprised at all that both of the sparkling wines we had tasted a bit more like a cava than a champagne. They also served a pinot noir, but I didn't try it.

Can you tell I was getting tired by the end of the day? Five wineries in 1 day was a lot to taste and take in. Four is probably the ideal number for me.

After checking into our cute hotel right on the square in downtown Sonoma, we took a quick nap and then headed up to Redd in Yountville for dinner. While the food was fantastic (I had a glass of a French grenache blend -- so mad I didn't remember what it was! -- with a foie gras tasting, a panzanella salad, and homemade linguini with pesto and roasted cherry tomatoes), the service was absolutely atrocious. We had a 7:45 reservation and didn't leave until 11. Unfortunately, I think the food suffered as a result (the risotto was quite mushy, though the linguini was less so, most likely because it was left under a heat lamp for too long). I surprised Cory with by getting a local bakery to remake the top tier of our wedding cake. They sort of got it right. It was covered with ganache and it was square, but they took liberties with the decorations (sugar roses and buttercream borders galore!). Luckily, we were able to scrape it off and salvage the cake.

We left wine country Monday morning after a stroll around downtown Sonoma and breakfast at a local boulangerie. The drive back to the airport was beautiful. How is it that the weather turned beautiful only when we were leaving?



In the end, we had a fantastic time and can't wait to go back. Next time, we'll probably concentrate our time in Sonoma and the Dry Creek and Russian River valleys, and definitely spend more than 2 days!