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Napa’s Best Rainy Day Wineries

Wine country is a year-long destination and in even in December we’re still touring with clients, albeit not with the back to back scheduling common during grape crush. But late fall and winter is also the rainy season here, and wine touring is an outdoor activity in part, so when the skies open up it helps to know which wineries are the most fun on cloudy days.

“It doesn’t rain in the tasting room.” Ralph’s often heard refrain in winter time.

Being farther from the ocean Napa is incrementally drier than Sonoma, since it’s from the Pacific that the rain clouds roll in like roiling white express trains arriving from the far beyond. Being a broad, long valley Napa also offers better vistas on rainy days than Sonoma, so for the outdoor experience it is preferable.   

Another key is how far is the walk from the car? Wineries are food factories and often it is a hike from the parking lot to the front door. As a driver guide I deliver my clients as close to the front door as possible before heading off to the lot. Hiking is my job, not theirs, they are on vacation. In southern Napa on the Silverado Trail Signorello is a good example of a small winery with a short walk from the lot to the tasting room. The views over the valley are wonderful and the inside experience is intimate and friendly.

Farther north just before the Yountville Cross Road is the Robert Sinskey Winery. This is a favorite on rainy days, a short walk from the lot into their high ceiled tasting room fronting their winery, and the smell of wonderful, fresh made snacks in the air. They have a commercial kitchen in the tasting room and there’s not much that compares to those aromas for making one curious about their very interesting wines.  

Just a bit north Goosecross is another small family place with a short walk and a fun tasting room. The view is different here with the valley rising on both sides before you walk past the fermentation tanks into the barrel room to enjoy the wonderful variety of wines. For a bigger winery the new facility at Silver Oak is grand, all of those great stone blocks and stained glass. Those big, hefty Cab blends warm the soul on a cool, wet day.

A little farther north the inside tasting room at Mumm Napa is delightful in the cool weather, with its glass walls and comfy seating. Sparkling wines always stimulate the conversation and their world class photography gallery needs to be visited. Bring a glass of wine with you. Almost forgot! They have one of the most fun gift shops in the valley. Just to the south of them on the Silverado Trail ZD winery has a beautiful tasting room, high, airy and still cozy.

North of St. Helena the Rombauer winery is a just a short walk from the lot and the views from the covered porch are great, although so is their wine. Across the way Failla’s by appointment sit down tasting in their cozy cottage of their Pinots, Chards and Syrahs is perfect on a rainy day.

Around Calistoga the Summer Winery is such a homey place to taste, relaxed, delicious with the feeling of authentic wine country without the airs and ego that often fly around the valley. Surprisingly the four big destination wineries around Calistoga, Sterling, Clos Pegase, Schramsberg and the Castello de Amorosa are not great rainy day locations. They all depend on a lot of time outside. In that neighborhood we much prefer Frank Family, or Cuvaison, or even Revana with their by appointment tasting in their elegant little salon.

So much of wine country is made up of small, family wineries that finding places with a short walk and a cozy fire place is pretty easy. The tasting rooms are dry and the wine is wet, and when the mists cling to the verdant green hills of Napa you would think you were in Ireland, if the Irish grew grapes.

It is interesting how Blogs evolve. One of the books that got me started on our Amicis Tour blog was Taber’s ‘In Search of Bacchus, Wonderful Adventures in the World of Wine Tourism.’ It’s a great book following his year long journey around the world to twelve of the most interesting wine destinations. Not surprisingly he started with Napa, not only is it the most popular, but it also so easy to get to.

Not long after though he visits the Margaret River district about four hours south of Perth, Australia. I found that especially interesting in part because the area first became popular as a surfing destination, a sport I happen to love. Then the first wineries were all started by Physicians, and of course in my alter ego I’m ‘Dr’ Ralph, a Naturopathic Physician, so I understand that love of art and science that often lead Doc’s into the wine world. And of course I love all things Australian, even though I’ve yet to make it there. But the day is young.

So what is this all have to do with ‘now’? Yesterday I did a wine tour for one of the original winery owners from the Margaret River, Elizabeth Killerby, as she put it, “the fourth in at Margaret River”, thirty years ago. Like the others her husband was a Physician from Perth, and my impression is that even more than here, everybody knows everybody. She is in the states visiting with friends on the way to Whistler to spend the holidays with family, so it was just her and me driving around wine country, visiting tasting rooms and talking about the wine business.

This really is an international business, with many of the same players on the various continents. Anyone who follows the business knows the difficulties that the Aussies wine makers are having. There was a point last year where bottled water was more expensive than their jug wines. The high end makers are even more put upon, high labor costs make it very hard to compete with the infusion of other southern hemisphere wines with much lower costs. The strong tradition of the labor union in the Commonwealth spurred the use of picking machines years ago until now they are the norm.

Tightening immigration and financial regulations made Australia unattractive to their most dependable vineyard workers, the Italians, because of their preference to be paid off the books, aka tax free. Margaret River produces many of Australia’s most prestigious wines, the Bordeaux style blends. These are always the most revered because they age well, and improve over time. They are also the most expensive to produce because the long term investment and slow return on investment makes any CFO wonder, ‘Why are we in this business?’

What impresses me the most is when people make a choice and then point their lives in that direction. With vineyards and wineries that choice often is multi-generational and touches an entire community of people. Many times I pull into wineries with clients and I think the tasting room must be pretty busy, only to find out that the cars are from the workers, it takes a lot of people to run a winery and when that’s over thirty years just think of how many people that touches. To meet and talk with someone who was there at the beginning of a major wine region was a great Christmas present.

Grrr-gich is the Real Thing

I visited the Grgich Hills winery in Rutherford the other day with clients from Croatia (who now live in the USA). Now most folks from Napa know that Mike Grgich is from Croatia, but most don’t know what a big deal that is in a country that was under the soviet thumb for so long. To have someone leave that suppressed country so young and do so well is an inspiring story.   

My day was made all the more interesting because the Grandmother in the party spoke very little English, but she did speak Italian, so we were able to converse. She came from the wine country of Croatia and had lived in northern Italy so we had plenty to talk about. We were about to leave when Mike Grgich and his grand-nephew Ivo, who manages his Bio-Dynamic vineyards came down the stairs from their offices. They spent the next half hour getting to know their Croatian guests to the delight of everyone there.

I often feel that the tasting there is very low key, after all, the tasting room is really an extension of the barrel room with a couple of tasting bars and a little shopping. Then Lahni reminded me that the experience is similar to the tasting at Chris Loxton’s in the Sonoma Valley, a simple tasting room with the barrels over your shoulder. And clients love that! I admit to being a little jaded about wineries, after all I visit hundreds and my focus is often on the hospitality experience. For me the historic architecture, or the innovative facilities are the most interesting, but I am reminded that for the typical visitors barrels and tanks and the smell of fermentation are not everyday things.

The Grgich vineyards are BioDynamic, a natural system that works with the cycles of nature in a conscious way. It is not very far from the method that Mike Grgich learned as a young boy from his Grandfather in Croatia. It is very easy for farmers steeped in the chemical industry’s propaganda to think that previous farmers were ignorant rubes, who could barely scrape together a living from the bare earth.

The reality is that humanity is part of nature, and lives in a synergistic relationship with plants and other animals. The oldest book in the world is a 5000 year old Chinese herbal manual. Anyone who has every seriously studied anatomy, physiology or botany knows that as much as we research, living systems are always more complicated and remarkable than we can conceive. The whole idea of magic is that there are forces at work beyond our perceptions. Before Marconi radio waves would have been considered magic as would most of Astrophysics.

With as much as we know, what else in our universe is beyond our current perception? We may not understand completely how they work and yet the results are significant. The actions that winemakers take to make great wine are always done based on experience and with hope for the future. Ivo asked me something interesting, if the wineries that use chemical are so great why don’t they advertise that in their publicity? When a vineyard is organic they gain uber points with the green consumer. But when vineyards use chemicals they keep it to themselves. It makes you think.     

Fire Places in the Tasting Rooms

The other day Lahni was Tweeting and reaching out via Facebook in a survey of wineries that have fire places. What a great idea! Now whenever I notice a fireplace I text her and we add to the list. When we go wine touring in the cool weather visiting a tasting room with a warming fireplace is a treat. Darioush has a fireplace, surrounded by an enclosing seating arrangement. At the end of the mantle are two glorious bronze sculptures, Persian soldiers, bows on their shoulders, their heads supporting the stone of the mantle. In that wonderful Napa eccentricity this Persian dream has such a cozy, Californian luxury.

Lambert Bridge in the Dry Creek Valley has a fireplace in that beautiful ranch style building. I remember the first time I visited there on a tour on the Valentine day’s weekend, a little cold and wet, walking into the crackling warmth. Sebastiani in downtown Sonoma has two fire places, flanked by huge easy chairs in that cavernous tasting room.

Being a wine tour guide is about being on the road, and between the change of seasons and Daylight savings time the winter evenings come quickly and dark, because there are few street lights, and none down those narrow country roads. For the clients wine touring is a succession of tasting rooms, but for the guides it is a line of roads between familiar spots and friends.

As much as we vary our tours and include diverse wineries, just the volume of tours that we conduct means we will visit places multiple time. For a guide one of the attractions of small, family wineries is that visiting will mean seeing familiar, friendly faces. That is a special thing. Most people spend their work day surrounded by the same people. Salesmen are the bravest of working people because they have to encounter new people consistently and engage them.

A tour guide encounters new clients every day, and then spends the day figuring out what they want and how to provide that. The work is much easier in the long, warm summer days, It is harder in the wet and cool short days of Fall and Winter, but visitors come right through the year and it doesn’t rain in the tasting rooms and the hills are green and misty and filled with dreams of romance and wood crackling in the fireplace.

Reporting from the November Napa Tweet Up

Once a month a group associated with the wine and hospitality industry, who also work with social media get together at a gallery in Napa. The cost of admittance is a Twitter Address and a bottle of wine. Most months we have wine themes so it offers a chance to sample of wide variety in the course of the evening, so I bring my little spit cup along because I don’t want to miss any.

In case that sounds greedy please understand that as a tour guide I visit wineries all the time and don’t taste. I am being paid to drive and not drink. As I often joke with my clients, “If I could drive them around and drink, well, I would do that for free!” So many of the wines I taste at the Tweet Up are from vineyards I’m familiar with, but haven’t experienced as a finished product. It is a great educational opportunity.

It is also a chance to catch up with friends about what is happening in wine country. A couple of notes; even though harvests were down flavors were excellent so the vintage of 2010, at least on the shelves should be a good year. Good for the wine makers, rough for the growers. The Ceja family is breaking ground on their new winery building in Carneros this week. Wishing them good stars, that’s what Mozeltov means in Yiddish.

The price for top of the end Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa was topping $20,000 a ton in places. Absolutely excessive, but if you’ve got the market and the wine club you don’t want to let them down. We heard that the Cosentino Winery in Yountville is closing its doors with wine still fermenting in the tanks. That’s a shame, although I suspected some kind of management problem since every time I went there they had a new manager running the front of the house.

Considering the size of the great recession there have been very few winery closings. There has been some shifting around and tightening of belts but the smart money seems to be betting on wine country. The consensus seems to be that the winter and coming spring are looking good for Napa and Sonoma. A lot of east coast trips aren’t happening for Californians and as we all know our biggest numbers of fans come from the Golden State. Meanwhile the North East and Texas, the next biggest source of visitors are doing great with record brokerage bonuses and energy companies doing what they do.

This month the theme wine was ‘whatever you want’, so I had a chance to try lots of different things. Of course my favorite for the evening was what we brought, a 2005 Quixote Petite Sirah. It was delightful, rounded, deep, with good acid and profound color, satisfying and good natured. There were a bunch of good wines but I realized that I really have turned into a Sonoman, my two other favorites of the night were a Cline Zinfandel and a St. Francis Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast. But at least Quixote is firmly in the Stags Leap District of Napa, so all is not lost on me.

Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guide Books and Smart Phone Apps and owners of Amicis Tours which does both group and private excursions. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com. Their Apps can be found at http://www.sutromedia.com/apps.html

Planning Ahead in Napa and Sonoma

Over the years of touring with clients we’ve noticed that the more times people visit here, the more they plan in advance, and in detail. This is due two reasons, first, there is the joy of anticipation that planning to visit a beloved location feeds. Second, they recognize how complex this area is, how diverse and delightful. Even though we jokingly call it Disney Land for adults, it is so much more.

Part of the secret is that Wine Country exists on three levels. At its base this is farm country, abundantly fertile, with mild weather that promotes all kinds of natural prosperity. It is rolling hillsides crossed by tractors and trellises, tanned vineyard workers and pickup trucks. On top of that is the winery business, stainless steel tanks and imported oak barrels, pumps and hoses, pale people who hunch over barrels of must in caves. On top of that is the hospitality industry, a collection of incredible restaurants, hotels and spas, tour guides and caterers with remarkable wine lists, accustomed to taking care of people who have been drinking a little too much.

This combination makes it more than just a tourist area, this is a place where people are fed, physically and emotionally. I often joke that the only three topics of discussion are food, wine and the weather. I’m actually not kidding about that. In a world that is so consumed with politics and business, smart phones and stock markets, visiting a place like this restores the soul.

People plan ahead so they don’t end up with the default, wine country vacation program. A very large percentage of visitors go to a very small percentage of the wineries. In Napa about 20 wineries get the lion’s share of the walk in business. That’s because they are large, located on Highway 29, the main road, making them easy to pull into when you arrive, and they advertise everywhere. However 60% of visitors return to wine country, and the next time they want something more.

In our Amicis Winery Guide book and our Wine Tour Apps we list a not very comprehensive 250 wineries in Napa and 200 plus in Sonoma. We know about lots more, but many require the secret hand shake to get in the door, so we don’t include them. Still that makes 230 other wineries in Napa alone that do a great job, yet most visitors never see. There are so many wineries that are hidden gems, and when we go there with clients, more than half of their guests were driven there by guides like us.

That’s the real wine country, where the smell of fermentation is in the air, and the clothes of the person pouring for you might be speckled with purple juice. I’m writing this at the Vine Cliff winery just off the Silverado trail. I’m sitting at a small table under a grand olive tree, heavy with fruit. I’m watching the hummingbirds play among the purple flowers along the stone path leading down to their pond. Across the way the ivy covered winery building sits below the crush pad and tanks. Across the drive are their caves, located comfortably downhill from the tanks, so the wine hoses can run from the tanks above, to the barrels below for aging. The simple, graceful elegance of the site is all the more beautiful because it is authentic wine country.         

Wine Country Relaxation with Dinner Included

Vacationing is meant to be relaxing, but not boring. Wine touring fulfills that beautifully, but it can be demanding in odd ways. Often, after a day of touring my guests are surprised by how tired they are, so I explain that wine tasting is hard work, but somebody has to do it!

First, it involves plenty of walking; wineries are located at the heart of farms, big, spacious places, and the distance from the parking to the tasting bar can be far. Then, wineries are spread around wine country, so it requires driving down winding, unfamiliar roads and that can wear you out. Doing this with alcohol in the systems just adds to that. Having a driver that brings you safely door to door helps minimize the fatigue.

Alcohol tires you out, in a very nice way, but drinking little bits during the course of a day just repeats the process. The body has to process the alcohol through the liver and kidneys, but diluting it with water is the best way to make that easy on yourself. If you taste all day and shun the H20 then don’t be surprised when you fall asleep before dinner.

Speaking of dinner, if you are going to drink you have to eat, and wine country is home to great restaurants, famous for their fresh ingredients and enthusiastic approaches. The last thing you want to do after a day of tasting is drive a long way to dinner down dark, winding country roads, and then drive back after sharing a bottle of wine. That sounds stressful, and vacations are about relaxing.

The hardest thing for people to do these days is to not be up and running every minute of every day. To maintain your physical health and emotional and mental sanity you need to disengage. Allow yourself the luxury of relaxing, of not being in challenging situations and antagonistic relationships. Of not forcing yourself to drive down dark, unfamiliar roads simply because someone you told you that was the peak dining experience. Believe us, Sonoma and Napa are filled with great restaurants and wineries and the ones nearby are probably as good as the ones farther away, especially if a short walk, instead of a night time drive, gets you there relaxed.

This is why we recommend that visitors stay walking distance to their dinner restaurant: Downtown Sonoma, Napa, Yountville, Glen Ellen, St. Helena, Healdsburg or Calistoga. In our Wine Tour Guide books and Smart Phone Apps we offer articles and listings to guide you in choosing the best place to hang your hat in wine country.

Plumpjack Winery is Always Fun -  See the Video Blog Here

First of all, what about that name, Plumpjack? It was a nickname that Queen Elizabeth the First, good Queen Bess of England, had for a favorite Uncle who must have been a bit rotund. She convinced Shakespeare to write a play for him, the Merry Wives of Windsor. The founders of Plumpjack, which is a large brand that includes resorts, are big theater fans (Gavin Newsom and Gordon Getty), so Plumpjack seemed like a good idea. They have a sister winery up on Howell Mountain called Cade, open by appointment and possessing some of the most beautiful views in Napa.

Part of the charm is the feeling of intimacy, the winery is small, the tasting room the size of a two car garage, the patio is something you might have outside your house. The tasting bar can handle a dozen people although the winery often handles more, because it is a very popular winery. Truthfully this could be someone’s home, except for all the winery equipment sitting around.

Part of the reason for the popularity is the location; it is just off of the Oakville Crossroad, the heart of Napa. These might not be the most expensive vineyards in Napa but they are up there. They are also easy to fit into a tour, being five minutes from Silver Oak, Saddleback, Groth, Gargiulo, Rudd, Miner Family, Paraduxx, Vine Cliff, Opus One, Mondavi, Nickel and Nickel, Cakebread, Sequoia Grove, Sawyer Vineyards, St. Suprey and Peju. Honestly the list goes on and on. Not surprisingly we have included them on tours in our Amicis Winery Guide tour books and the Napa Valley Winery iPhone App. It is not easy to get on to one of our planned tours. A winery has to do a lot of things right and do it consistently.

What is funny is that I haven’t even mentioned the wines, the very, very good wines. Of course, considering their location they do a stellar Cabernet Sauvignon blend and a killer Merlot, but they also do an excellent Chardonnay. Their list isn’t big but it’s muscular. I think part of the popularity is that the gift shop sits right next to the tasting bar, so while you’re sipping the wine you can get a little browsing in. The tasting room is gently dim, pretty but subdued, except for the video screen that always seems to be running something about surfing, or another fun activity. The tasting room staff is thoroughly cool. I’m not just saying that because they’re always nice to me. I see the way the clients react and there is a fundamental friendliness that always comes through.

They are tucked down a narrow drive just off of the eastern end of the Oakville Cross Road. The drive is right at the bottom of the hill. Look for the Elizabethan Shield. The drive winds around a little bit but it is clearly marked. Enjoy!

Central Napa Tour from San Francisco over the Golden Gate

This is one of the tours from our Napa Valley Winery Tour iPhone App with some additions.

Featured Wineries: Robert Mondavi, Silver Oak, Plumpjack, Beringer

From San Francisco go over the Golden Gate on Route 101, exit at Hwy 37 east. Turn left at Hwy 121 (traffic light by the Infineon Racetrack, look for the turbo charged cow). You will pass Viansa, Jacuzzi, Cline and Gloria Ferrer. At the next light turn right following the signs to Napa.

After the next light you will see Domaine Carneros towering to the right. Continue on Hwy. 121 to the T intersection with Hwy 29. Turn left, go north into the Napa Valley which is about 30 miles long.

In 15 minutes look for the Oakville Grocery (7856 St Helena Hwy, Hwy 29, Oakville CA) on the right side. The building behind that looks like it was built into the earth is Opus One. Just past there are Robert Mondavi on the left, and on the right Nickel and Nickel, Sequoia Grove, Turnbull, Cakebread, Sawyer, St. Supery and Peju.

Turn left into the Robert Mondavi Winery. They have basic and reserve tastings and wonderful tours. Enjoy! From there turn right out of the winery and immediately turn left at the Oakville Crossroad. In 3 minutes look for the Silver Oak Winery on the right side (They are closed Sunday). Alternately, just past them look for the Plumpjack Winery sign on the left. To reach them you go down a narrow drive to the end, turn left and then right.  

Next return to Hwy. 29 and turn right and enter the parking lot for the Oakville Market for sandwiches and picnic tables out back. Alternately, go north and look for the V. Sattui Winery on the right side. They have a deli and picnic grounds but they get absolutely slammed on Saturdays and you can only eat their food there. Across the street is Dean and DeLuca, a world class food market. They have a small seated area, or take the food to Beringer.   

If you are up for another winery and some shopping go north on Hwy 29 through the lovely town of St. Helena. Just past town Beringer Winery is on the left-hand side. They do basic and reserve tastings and have wonderful grounds, history and tours. They also do great tours. Their picnic tables are to the left of the Mansion and very pretty, although not well known so it is easy to find a table.

Leaving Beringer if the traffic south looks heavy turn left on Pratt Street, just south of the Beringer entrance, to the Silverado Trail. Turn right and follow this to Trancas Street on the northern edge of the city of Napa. Turn right there to the entrance for Hwy 29 south. This is a scenic way to avoid traffic while seeing more of this beautiful valley.

Remember to drink lots of water and eat protein and fat to keep your energy high and your blood sugar levels steady. Always have a designated driver.

Downtown Sonoma History-Wise

When people first visit downtown Sonoma they are initially impressed by its high level of cute-atude (as in an attitude of cuteness). For those who live here it’s no surprise that Sonoma is America’s first member of the international Citta-Slow movement. This outgrowth of the Slow Food movement looks for like minded cities that value quality of life, culture, relationships and sustainability.

Of course our nickname for the town, Sonoma Coma meaning that people are sometimes way too relaxed might give you a hint about the pace here. This is actually a very industrious and hard working town that still finds plenty of time to chat with neighbors, or people walking down the street, or winery tasting room staff. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because the town began as a Spanish Pueblo. It was one of the six official cities or Pueblos in California.

It’s central location along the west coast also made it ideal for a military Presidio, or fort. So General Vallejo could drill the troops the Square was designed to be the largest in the west. Broadway, the road that leads to the southern border of the Plaza heads due south and at one time led to the docks on the Bay. The Square is aligned almost exactly with the Cardinal directions in the classic manner coming down from the layout of a Roman army camp.

Sonoma is also home to the twenty first and final Franciscan Mission. The missions served multiple purposes, church, agricultural center, trading and healing. San Francisco Solano was established in part to prevent the Russians from trading farther south from their base just north of the Russian River. The organizers sent a letter to Rome asking permission to set up the mission as they were setting out to establish it. Two years later the answer came, NO! Too late, it was already a going concern.

Sonoma is the only spot in California that was together a Pueblo, a Presidio and a Mission. That alone would be enough to make it historic but then the Bear Flag rebellion took place. On June 14^th, 1846 a group of American soldiers and locals (mostly from Sacramento and Napa) came into town and raised the Bear Flag on the Northeast corner of the Plaza, right in front of the army barracks and Mission. California was an independent nation for a month before becoming part of the United States.

General Vallejo was taken prisoner for six months, but later was released and became a state Senator. He was a native born Californian and more than anyone else decided by his actions that California would be aligned with the USA. He had been told by Mexico City to not let Americans settle in California; send them packing! But he didn’t have enough Mexicans to settle the area, so he ignored that directive quite actively, not only letting Americans in but helping them in numerous ways. It is one of the reasons why he is still revered and beloved in little Sonoma.

That other day I was at the Benziger winery and Mike told me that the Summer of 2010 has been the coolest in Sonoma since 1950 or so. Grapes don’t like the cold during the day, they don’t even like the cool that much. At night that’s different. An important ingredient for making a great wine grape is cool nights so that the grapes don’t release the acid that cleans the palate. Bu they need plenty of Sun during the day to make sugar, flavors and colors.

The harvest is late but this week the temps are in the 80’s and we’re seeing grape trucks all over the place. Be careful when you are driving because those big trucks filled with grapes and those little cars filled with pickers are all in a hurry. They also don’t get to sleep much because so much picking is done at night. Add that to the fact that tourists routinely come here to drink and drive on our little, twisting country roads and my advice to drive carefully becomes all the more important.

By the way, I’m not sure when this happened but we conduct informal surveys of our clients and something that we need to report is this: Frank Family Vineyards makes a great glass of wine. Every client we bring there is impressed and leaves the place singing its praises. Now they’ve always been good but they are on a roll. Our clients are not slouches in the tasting department. We bring them to some serious wineries. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t tasted at Frank Family is several years but I need to get back there, notebook in hand.

This long, stretched out season is hard on the grapes. I’ve seen a lot of raisins, and not the good kind. The other day I was watching grapes come in at the Deerfield Ranch winery. They scrutinize their grapes as they come down the conveyor, and it’s not just with field workers, but wine makers using their practiced eye. I saw them hand selecting grapes with partial damage that they were going to save by pruning. Meanwhile two pretty girl wine makers were in the cave turning over the forming cap by hand. I don’t mean with a paddle, I mean by ‘up to the elbows in grapes’ hand.

I’ve been told by people familiar with the Deerfield Ranch wines that their hand work was extreme, but the benefits were also over the top so it was nice to see them in action. I’ve been lucky that numerous times when I’ve been there recently they’ve been processing grapes, and some very good looking ones at that. Just another week in wine country!    

Audelssa Rocks

I have long said that the Audelssa Winery in Glen Ellen produces Cabernets as good as anything in Napa. They share terroirs with the famous Monte Rosso vineyards across Hooker Canyon from their perch at the top of the Mayacamus Mountains just north of downtown Sonoma. Their vineyards cascade down the hillsides in strands and terraces above the fog and soaked by southwestern sunshine. Getting there is not the easiest ride in the Valley of the Moon.

The other day I had a wine tour that didn’t cover even fifty miles, spent most of the time at two wineries but took six hours. In comparison a tour from San Francisco will take eight hours, touch in at five to six wineries and I’ll cover over 250 miles starting from my base in downtown Sonoma. What made this tour unique was that most of it was spent in the mountains. The clients were staying at the Moon Mountain Retreat, all the way at the top of Moon Mountain Road. So first I drove up that winding narrow road to pick up this lovely couple from Pacifica.

As I drove up I could see our next two destinations across the deep Canyon. Through the thick brush lining the road half way up were the vineyards and olive groves of the Petroni winery. At the top of the mountain where the road curves around the ridge I saw the cascading vineyards of Audelssa. After I picked up my clients we drove down the mountain, went north two streets and went back up the mountain on Cavedale Road. If there is ever a competition for the worst mountain road in the Maycamus Mountains Cavedale may not win, but it will give a good run for the money.

Not only is it winding, narrow and pot holed, but it’s long and confusing. Most guides don’t like going up there. Due to the nature of our tour company I spend more than my fair share of time on mountain roads so my description is probably kind in comparison. There are parts that are downright scary. Amazingly enough both Petroni and Audelssa make the ride worth it. Check out our videos keeping in mind that they don’t do these beautiful locations justice.

Audelssa is opening a new tasting room in downtown Glen Ellen in October 2010 so you won’t have to hire a driver to taste their wine, although if you’re going to drink then get someone else to drive.

Lahni was planning out a Russian River Valley tour for clients staying at the El Dorado Hotel in downtown Sonoma. Now Lahni loves to plan, she wants a map with instructions and well denoted alternatives. I’m a little looser in my approach, although a good plan never hurts. So I watched her work out her plan while adding in my two cents here and there. It sounds like a great tour for a number of reasons.

Most of the driving is at the beginning and end of the day. It is almost an hour from the Sonoma Plaza to the nearest Russian River wineries, so once she gets the clients to the neighborhood all of the wineries she included were close to each other. Her route goes up Highway 12 through the beautiful Valley of the Moon. Here she can offer the clients ideas of where they might visit on their own over the rest of their stay.

At Santa Rosa she stays on Hwy 12 over Farmer’s Lane continuing all the way to Sebastopol. There she turns right on Hwy 116, also known as Gravenstein (as in the apple) Hwy, up in to the heart of the Russian River Valley. Just past Occidental Road on the right side is the first stop, Merry Edwards. She said that the tasting was fantastic starting with Pinot and ending with Sauvignon Blanc. From there she went to the Inman Family winery and her buddy Kathleen the owner and wine maker was pouring. Her clients had a great time and bought a bunch of wine.

After that they went to DeLoach for a picnic in the beautifully redone gardens next to the fountain. After lunch they went in and thoroughly enjoyed a tasting. They had planned to go to Lynmar but instead headed to Ironhorse. There is just something about that open air tasting bar and those great views of the Green Valley that is hard to resist. It was a great tour.

As we work on our iPhone Apps and winery tour books one of the components that drive us a little crazy are downtown tasting rooms. These are store fronts where you can taste wines grown and made in different locations, usually not too far away. Sometimes it’s a way for a winery to put their toe in the water and see if the temperature is good. A tasting room is easier to set up than a hospitality center at your winery.

At the end of last season some things in Healdsburg Plaza shifted. Two big companies, Gallo and Souverain left the plaza and their places where quickly taken over by other contenders. Vintage Wine Estates is a collective tasting room operated by some larger wineries and including some smaller labels. Both Girard from Napa and Kunde from the Sonoma Valley are on the labels but their wines are not poured. Sonoma Coast Vineyards, Grove Street, Stone Fly, Windsor Sonoma and Fire Station Red are represented

I’m sure that there are some good wines in that list but like many collectives they need to go the extra mile to put the wineries in a context that customers can relate to. I was touring northern Sonoma with two charming couples from Seattle and brought them to a wine and food pairing at the Williamson winery just off the Healdsburg Plaza. Not surprisingly I saw my friend and fellow wine tour guide Jack Swanson there. His clients were tasting there too so we chatted for a while. I explained that Williamson was the only store front tasting room I brought clients to.  

We feel that people come to wine country to go to where the grapes are grown and the wine is made. Williamson is an exception because they do a remarkably educational food and wine pairing that clients adore. What many of the store front tasting rooms lack is the story of the winery, the people and the history. They create a slick environment suitable to a bar but completely forget the countryside where the grapes come from. They’ll put out some small bits and pieces of the story, but in today’s media crazy society they need to go over the top in the style of a major commercial convention. Trefethen does this well as does Rubicon at their wineries. Even Kunde tells their story well in their Sonoma Valley winery. But in the Healdsburg tasting room they need more, otherwise it’s just a room with some wine to sell, and you can find that in any town in America.  

Down the street Boisset opened a tasting room offering their DeLoach vineyard wines alongside their French labels and a tasting room only brand. It is very finished, very European with a neat turn of phrase. They offer little wine barrels for sale. You buy the barrel and they send you the wine in a box to refill it. This was the way that people stored wine before the popularity of the wine bottle in the 1700’s. That’s unique! 

I’ve often described wine country as being like Brigadoon, that mythical town that only wakes one day a year. For much of the year Napa and Sonoma isn’t quite a sleepy farming area, but it certainly likes to nap. That’s because the wine needs time to sleep, to age, to be gently topped off in the barrels to guard against too much oxygen, but quietly, because they are like sleeping babies.

Then the run up to crush takes place. Wine in the tanks is put into barrels; other wine is moved from barrels to bottles. The picking bins, the tanks and in fact everything is washed with steam and ozone enriched water. Cleanliness is one of the secrets of premium wine making. As the yeast works to convert the sugar to alcohol, carbon dioxide and heat you don’t want it competing with stray bacteria that do not produce such nice results. Later in the caves when they top off the barrels they wash the tops so that nothing can grow there in the splashed wine.

Then finally the grapes begin to arrive. This an exciting time, Brigadoon has woken up. One of the ways that you know this is happening is that there is barely any parking left for the customers. I was at Domaine Carneros the other day with a group of eight and all three parking lots were filled. But when we went to the tasting room there were plenty of open tables outside and the inside salon was empty.

Out on the crush pad they were dumping bins of Pinot Gris into the machines, pretty red and green grapes. So when you are visiting wine country during crush don’t assume the tasting room is busy just because it’s hard to find a place to park.

Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guides (Find them on Amazon), and owners of Amicis Tours which does both group and private excursions. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com. Their Apps can be found at http://www.sutromedia.com/apps.html

A client just reported on a brand new tour that the Benziger Family Winery focused on Pinot Noir. Coincidentally Pinot grapes are arriving at the crush pad, better late than never, so they could taste the juice fresh from vineyard.  This 1.5 hour tour went into the vineyards and a private tasting room where they enjoyed a large selection of wines. The presentation included Power Point and part of the focus was about recognizing the wine’s taste relates to the vineyards.

We are glad they dumped the excess wine out because they drove themselves. We did a San Francisco day tour and a Napa day tour but they had a free day before returning home and we recommended Sonoma Valley. They spent the whole day at Benziger; after the Pinot they did the reserve tasting in the main room.

Recognizing the wine related to the vineyard is something from a James Bond movie. Bond is dining with M and a minister and James identifies the wine by the year and the side of the hill the grapes came from. As a wine tour guides we recognize that wines smell like the vineyards they spring from and the winery where they are made. Cakebread chardonnay smells just like their wood paneled winery, even more than their Carneros vineyards next door to Etude.

The Benzigers wineries have their equipment outside so their wines are true to the vineyards and the diversity of flavors they deliver in their tasting rooms is wonderful. A winery that makes all of their wines in one building, like Squire’s Glenlyon, tends to have a signature flavor style established by the shape of the building, the yeast caught in the air, and the aroma’s that previous vintages have left behind. Fortunately in Glenlyon’s case it’s a great little building and wonderful flavors.

The Freestone winery makes wonderful wines and yet they haven’t hit their stride yet. Why not? It’s a new building, albeit a fantastic wine making facility, but it is going to take a few vintages before it develops its Joseph Phelps signature. Their Napa wine making building has a delicious scent that marks all of their wines for the better. Like everything else about wine making, the more vintages behind you the better the future.  

In the late 1800’s the area just north of downtown Sonoma was home to hot springs that drew visitors from far and wide. Towns like Aqua Caliente and Boyes Hot Springs were home to small hotels and resorts. In the early 1920’s the grandest of these was built ; the Sonoma Mission Inn with its signature water tower, beautiful grounds and extensive spa.

This was the era of great Inns such as the Desert Inn in downtown Palm Springs, unfortunately demolished in favor of shopping malls. I had family that lived and worked in old Palm Springs who told me about the place and the people and it clearly possessed a huge amount of charm that seems to have evaporated with the onslaught of swimming pools and lawn sprinklers.

The Sonoma Mission Inn has lost none of its charm and being owned by Fairmont it performs to those standards that you expect from a grand international hotel. I’ve noticed that my clients from there include a high percentage of internationals and New Yorkers.  Fortunately I work in five languages and having grown up in New Jersey and lived in Manhattan I speak that particular dialect.

This is a also an important convention hotel although it is a resort to its core, the extensive meeting space only matched by the huge spa, two great restaurants and a morning café and of course a great gift shop. Technology does matter. After the 1906 earthquake the hot springs began recede. Eventually the locals who wanted to maintain springs drilled to the depth they needed to reach the healing water so the Inn’s swimming is fed by mineral water.

SMI is a very busy place during the grape crush, when I pulled up to meet my clients the other day there were three black limos out of Napa in front of me meeting clients. I parked my silver Navigator at the back of the line and went inside. That welcoming courtyard says it all about the hotel, circular, welcoming, beautifully planted with sitting areas around a fire pit, and meandering pathways to the rooms and spa.

The Sonoma Mission Inn has a distinct place among the Fairmont chain, at least the last I heard. This is the only hotel building that Fairmont owns. Hotels operate but they lease the buildings from holding companies. Apparently the building was changing hands and the deal fell through and Fairmont stepped in and snatched it up a few years ago. They recognized a great place when they saw it.  

I was touring in the Sonoma Valley during the high season, crush, on a Harvest Weekend when visitors can purchase a pass and tour wineries all over the Valley of the Moon. The organizers supplied shuttle buses to connect the wineries together which made the roads much safer, thank you very much says the tour guide. My clients were tasting wine at the Imagery winery and I was all ready to go onto our next stop when they called me on the phone. They decided to picnic there on the patio because the visiting band had just gotten going and were sounding great.

Not surprisingly we went to Benziger because my clients wanted to do a tour and they still do the best one in either county. Out behind the winery Mike and Joe Benziger were carrying buckets and making Sauvignon Blanc. The grapes came in at 28 Brix which sounded wonderful to me because the grapes I’ve been sampling all over the place still have a ways to go with some hopeful exceptions. From what they told me this is the coolest summer here since 1950 so it’s a challenge to say the least, without heat the plant can’t make sugar that turns into alcohol.

Meanwhile the Benziger winery was hopping with visitors, groups of Generation Y friends traveling up and down the valley, tasting, visiting, picnicking and playing bocce. That generation loves wine country and the social nature of wine and a weekend event like this is custom made for them, not that all the generations weren’t well represented. From there we went to the B. R. Cohn winery. They were busy in another way, they were hosting a wedding, plus a collection of Shelby Cobras had lined up in the circle in front of the winery, and of course the tasting room was filled with guests.

There were people everywhere but no one felt crush or harried, it was like the most graceful festival where all of the various groups fit together perfectly. In other words it was a huge amount of wine country fun. I felt this way and I hadn’t even been drinking.      

Lahni and I were talking about possible wineries to visit and she mentioned that one of her clients had really liked the Summers winery on Tubbs lane in Calistoga. In thinking about it I realized that every client I had brought there had liked the experience, a big homey tasting room with views out on the vineyards, more country kitchen than bar room slick with a tasting staff that is friendly and feels very local.

Not surprisingly this is a family run winery with some of their vineyards just outside the door, but with the bulk of their vines to the north in Knights Valley just over the county line in Sonoma. Now having their vines in Sonoma is no shame, after all much of Beringer’s most impressive Cabernets are up in Knights Valley and if you ever travel through the area it has a magical quality that is hard to deny.

The point I’m making in my round about, let’s not leave out any colorful details kind of way is this; as a person who tours hundreds of wineries with clients and writes about them daily I’m a little jaded. So, a homey place like Summers doesn’t stand out in my mind. Yet my clients who don’t spend their days navigating these country roads love that kind of place. It comes back to what I’ve written about before, that long tradition where city folks would go out to the country, glass jugs in the back of the car, to buy their wine. 

As much as wineries like to sell that slick tasting room with its carefully selected gift shop sometimes I think that they forget to ask their clientele what they are looking for. Yesterday I did a tour with three couples. They gave me a list of big name wineries they wanted to visit and a last minute recommendation from a friend: Mondavi, Cakebread, Silverado and then Goosecross, a cute little family place that only sells their wine from their location or via their wine club. Those other wineries dump out more wine than Goosecross makes. Who was their favorite at the end of the day? Goosecross of course! I could have put money on that.

After them Silverado was their favorite because we got there late in the day and they were able to enjoy that wonderful patio that looks out over the valley. The staff was gracious, relaxed and they were there a long time catching up and getting to know each other. Silverado, for all of its wonderful architecture and well designed spaces is a celebration of nature that is spread out at its feet.

So many times clients will say that they prefer Sonoma over Napa, and especially northern Sonoma where the wineries are predominantly small and family owned. In their rush to be taken seriously and make a statement wineries can over reach and abandon the authentic experience that visitor’s desire. I don’t think that my little missive here is going to change that trend, but it’s something to consider.

Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guides (Find them on Amazon), and owners of Amicis Tours which does both group and private excursions. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com. Their Apps can be found at http://www.sutromedia.com/apps.html