What are thoughts on best winery in Sonoma for tasting? Heading up for a couple of days from Oakland. Spend most of my time tasting in Napa. Spend most of my dollars on Paso Robles. Don’t get to Sonoma much anymore. Have a reservation at Cyrus and want to taste at one place in Sonoma before dinner. Then headed to Napa for a day and going to Les Claypool concert at Silverado. Happy to hear thoughts on new places to taste in Napa. Feel like I’ve hit most of them. Have wine to pickup at Pride, so will stop there on the way over the hill.
Thanks for the ideas. I’ve been to Bedrock and Ridge. Maybe another trip to Ridge is in order? Ceritas looked the most interesting, but have lost the taste for California Pinot. Never been to Marcassin, but assume they will only give access to purchasers (don’t have much cred in Sonoma). Haven’t done Rafanelli in many years. Still worth a trip?
Two other thoughts (trying to stay away from Pinot) would be Arnot Roberts or Unti, especially if you can get hosted by Mick Unti. We spent a fabulous couple of hours talking to Mick about wine, baseball, and what he thinks wineries should be planting in California.
If you prefer Zins, I don’t know if Mike Officer does tastings at Carlisle, but if he does, that’s where I’d go, especially since you’ve done Bedrock already.
I would not presume to give advice on Sonoma Cabs since my knowledge there is limited. The only Sonoma cabs I own are Bedrock and Jordan if you can imagine that.
https://www.callunavineyards.com/ Has several Cabs - an Estate then the Colonel’s Block, plus Merlot, Malbec, Cab Franc and some blends. Amazing views from a top Chalk Hill as well. No Pinot here.
Ceritas was mentioned - though they have Pinot in the lineup they also have Chard and Cab and perhaps you can ask them to add in an extra Chard and remove 1 of the Pinots in the tasting (2 Chard, 2 Pinot and 1 Cab in the tasting when I was there last month).
Max’s tasting room at Shop — Reichwage Winery may be open by now - last month he said he was 3-4 weeks away from opening. Only 1 Pinot but the Zin and Carignane are fantastic. No Cab though.
1 last idea - head to The Barlow Market Area. You can do a tasting at Pax (You didn’t mention if you like Syrah) or you can go to Region which is a wine bar with ~50+ wines all from Somona and a mix of Cab, Pinot, Syrah, Zin, etc. Probably a dozen or so smaller wineries are being poured here and its all by your own and you can pick 1 of 3 sizes for your tasting.
We enjoyed Barlow on our trip. At region we ordered pizza from a nearby restaurant (cant remember name) and they delivered it to us. The one xatch was the cabs were limited IIRC. Pax was great also, walked away with some library wines.
I’ve seen few mentions in any threads of Repris, but one of my favorites throughout all of Napa/Sonoma. They are in Sonoma County up on Moon Mountain.
Mostly Bordeaux styles but do also has a Zin, a Malbec and a Syrah.