Free Travel Info from the Amicis Winery Guides

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