We slept great; we had the windows open because of the daytime heat, and the ceiling fan, but the evening cool snuck in and made things nice and comfortable.
Awoke slightly before the alarm when an IM came in (note to self: mute phone at night.)
Got up, and headed down for breakfast. The breakfast at Hope-Merrill House is a one-sitting affair at 9 a.m., but the food was plentiful and wonderful. We had about a dozen folks around the table, including a quartet of ladies from the Netherlands, a couple from Boston, and a couple from Ohio.
As breakfast wound down, Cosette, the hostess, came in and gave us our wine-tasting touring lecture, which can be summed up as, “Don’t go to the large, flashy, big-name places you can get at your local supermarket. Go to the small, interested, interesting, limited bottling-size places that care about their craft and that you can’t find anywhere else.” It took about an hour of (interesting) conversation for that lesson to be completed, but it was a worthwhile one.
Fortunately, the majority of places we’d already penciled in to visit were on her short list of good places to go, so obviously we were in sync.
And so we set out.
Unti 
is listed as open by appointment only, which seems to be winery for “We really don’t want to pay someone to stand in the tasting room waiting for folks to show up, but if you’re interested we’d be glad to have you visit.” Margie, bless ‘er, took point on calling a few places up for appointments, which was quite nice of her, and got us to some good places.
I can summarize Unti by saying it’s like Tablas Creek, wine-wise, while still being small and non-commercial (if clearly dedicated to their wines and to presenting them well). Lots of GSMs and other yummies, and while we didn’t join their wine club (on my short list), we did buy some bottles. Tasting was, I believe, complementary, and the staff was friendly and helpful. And, as I said, very tasty wine. Highly recommended.
Dutcher Crossing 
was our next stop, back up toward the top of Dry Creek Canyon (just a hop away from glamorous Ferrari-Carrano). Tasting was either complementary or a nominal fee. It’s a new tasting room, with a nice view. Wines were nice but undistinguished; I think we bought a bottle of something. The tasting lady was very pleasant — and, in fact, moved out there from Centennial a few months ago (she stared at me when I gave my zip code, which sparked the conversation).
Heading back down the valley, David Coffaro specializes in Zin and had some decent bottles — though the pricing was much more reasonable with an end-of-vintage 40% off sale going on. They do some interesting things with Tannat there, though the tasting was marred slightly by a coffee roasting incident. Tasting was a nominal fee, I believe, and the tasting help was politely convivial.
We crossed the valley and drove up to Bella 
, which is recommended in some books and pooh-poohed in others. They have a fairly unique tasting room inside of their cellaring cave in a hillside, but the whole thing felt like it was more show than go. Tasting was the normal $5/person, and we slipped away amidst a demanding crowd of limousined young ladies.
Preston is an old school tourist winery, to wit it has a large grounds for picnics, food for sale in the store, and decent if not spectacular wines. We bought a couple of bottles, then broke out the food and had lunch. Recommended as a place for it.
At Bear Republic for lunch the previous day, I’d had an excellent Monga Zin, which a bit of research indicated was from Carol Shelton . She’s down in Santa Rosa, and we called for an appointment, getting down there (thanks, Sheila) at almost precisely 2 p.m. It was in a light industrial warehouse complex in a residential area, with generic drywalled office, lobby, etc.
I had very mixed feelings about Carol Shelton. On the one hand, the color scheme — all purples and pinks and etc. — felt vaguely too bright and Amwayish, and the sort of Cult of Personality around Carol (an independent winemaker who does stuff with harvests from around the state, and is frequently referenced as being the “most award-winning winemaker in California”) felt cloying and suspicious. On the flip side (a) we met Carol and chatted with her and she seemed charming and genuine (as were the other folks there), and (b) the wine was just darned good, mostly Zins, but some others, too. So net-net, we bought wine and (ahem) joined the cult.
We had seen Harvest Moon dessert wines on the menu the previous night, and it was on our way to the next “real” stop, so we pulled in there. And, damn, it was another fine windery, in the rural outskirts of Santa Rosa, and while their desserts were good, they had some excellent Zins. I didn’t trust myself enough to join yet another wine club, but we bought some wine and I made a note to consider that in the future after tasting it again. We had a free coupon for a tasting (normally $5, more for the reserve list), and they were generous with pouring comparisons between the two and multiple vintages. The winemaker signed our bottles, and everyone was friendly and helpful despite the large crowds.
Scherrer had been recommended by Margie’s Uncle Joel, and while they don’t have a tasting room per se they were having an open house this weekend, so we called up, got ourselves invited, and showed up. They’re just north of Sebastopol, and we followed small signs around back to their winery/warehouse.
They had some bottles out, and were doing some barrel tastings, too. It was end of the day, so the catered food for the open house was past its prime, but the wine was quite nice, with both of their Zins (and, I thought, their Cab) quite drinkable. Couldn’t bring myself to pony up the (bargain) price of $240 on a wine-future for a case of one of the as-yet-unreleased Zins, but we did buy a few bottles, and I promised Margie I would get her a bottle of the barreled stuff when released, so we’ll see.
Driving back up to the B&B, we were pretty wined out, but Armida 
had cropped up favorably in a few conversations, painting it as a fun-loving place that made great wine, and so when we drove past, we decided to hop in.
Big mistake, in retrospect. Evidently, the place has changed in the past few years, and the commercial glitz has gone way up, along with the prices. They have a complementary list of 7 and reserve ($10) list of five, and we drank tastes from both. Neither list was bad, but neither had anything we felt was particularly noteworthy except for one reserve Zin that was quite bgood, but not $85/bottle good. Nor was their signature “Poizin” (get it) wine worth $60-90/bottle, no matter how good it was (and they weren’t tasting it).
Though there’s a nice view, they seemed more interested in high markup, gimmicky fun, and selling tschochkes than actually making good wine. Evidently that’s not always been the case, which is a shame.
So that’s a lot of wineries, yet we didn’t feel particularly sloshed or out of it even after we got back to the inn. Our secret?
- Share a tasting. Though in some cases we did separate ones, usually we shared a class, which cuts consumption in half.
- After you have a taste, if you’re not so in love with it that you need another sip, toss it. That’s what the dump buckets are there for. Proper wine tasters actually don’t even swallow, which is a higher standard than I can live to, but dumping the excess is a good idea.
- Eat. Drink water. Keep snacks in the car and chow down as you go. That can dramatically slow the rate of alcohol absorption (though not stop it), which keeps you on a more even keel
- Take breaks. Eat lunch. Take a walk. Include some long drives between stops.
Nine places was probably (esp. with Armida) too many, but that was also spread out over 7 hours of tasting. Worked okay for us.
We also had a wine tasting back at the inn. Hope-Merrill sometimes invites local wineries to do tastings on the weekends; in this case, though, they drew on their own supply. They have a very keen “wine making” program that people can sign up for — stay a couple of days in the fall, making wine on the equipment they have here, then come back in the spring for wine tasting, mixing, and bottling, and go home with a case of your own. Looks like fun …
Anyway, they pulled out some bottles of stuff they’ve done for the residents back in the garden, and we chatted about the local wine industry, wine making, etc.
Margie and I had planned on a less formal dinner down in Healdsburg, but a couple was going to cancel their reservations for Santi , an Italian place here in Geyserville, so we took them instead.
Yum. Excellent Italian cuisine, which I would stack up against any other restaurant in the area or back home. Great wine list, and a menu you can use for everything from a full 4-5 course dinner to “just” something relatively simple. I had a delightfully spiced chicken minestrone, and an excellent osso bucco. Margie’s meal was even more sophisticated and well done. We split a split of Scherrer Zin, and it was … well, more than we needed, but quite good.
Back to the hotel now. We have an early morning of it, for reasons that will be clear once I post pictures …