I’d like to give a quick shout-out to Navarro Vineyards and Winery in Anderson Valley. I’ve been a loyal member for many years, though I rarely visit since I live in Southern California. But in early July, my girlfriend and I planned a week-long trip to explore the California Redwoods—and I made sure to schedule a tasting to revisit an old friend: Navarro.
Before our tasting, we checked into the Boonville Hotel, which deserves its own post entirely. If you’re looking for a true farm-to-table experience and long, lazy afternoons in a hammock with your favorite summer read, it doesn’t get much better than Boonville Hotel.
Navarro—and Anderson Valley in general—is a place where time seems to slow down. You hear the wind rustling through the vines, feel the sun on your face, and take in the golden hills and gently rolling vineyards. It’s a reminder of how wine and nature can still feel grounded and unhurried.
We were treated to a private tour of the winemaking facility, which looks much as it must have in 1974, when the winery was founded. This is a truly family-run operation, started by Ted Bennett and Deborah Cahn, and now led by their children, Aaron and Sarah. Don’t expect gravity-flow architecture, precision fermentation systems, or gleaming laboratories. Navarro is a working throwback: steel and concrete tanks, pumps and hoses, manual punch-downs, and the familiar mingling scents of wet concrete, redwood, oak, and fermenting grapes.
The tasting room also feels largely unchanged over the past 50 years—in the best possible way. We tasted through their entire flight of 14+ wines, along with a few special pours. One of the things I’ve always loved about Navarro is the variety: from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Noir to Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and Gewürztraminer. The White Roan and Barbera were particular highlights for us. There’s truly something for every palate.
Even more refreshing is their commitment to value. At a time when many wineries charge $50+ a bottle, it’s reassuring to know I can get an excellent Navarro wine for $18 or $20—and even their top-tier offerings rarely cross the $35 mark. And then there’s the personal touch: each biannual wine club shipment arrives with a small, thoughtful gift—sometimes a jar of homemade preserves, a coffee mug, or a wine stopper—along with a handwritten thank-you note. That kind of connection is rare these days, and something I appreciate.
Our visit reminded me of another reason why I’ve stayed on Navarro’s list all these years; it’s a feeling of nostalgia. A visit here feels like stepping back in time—to a 1970s California when things were simpler, warmer, and a bit more human.
Michael Chabon captured this feeling perfectly in a 2017 New Yorker piece, writing:
“Nostalgia, most truly and most meaningfully, is the emotional experience—always momentary, always fragile—of having what you lost or never had, of seeing what you missed seeing, of meeting the people you missed knowing, of sipping coffee in the storied cafés that are now hot-yoga studios. It’s the feeling that overcomes you when some minor vanished beauty of the world is momentarily restored, whether summoned by art or by the accidental enchantment of a painted advertisement for Coca-cola, say, or Bromo-Seltzer, hidden for decades, then suddenly revealed on a brick wall when a neighboring building is torn down. At that moment, you are connected; you have placed a phone call directly into the past and heard an answering voice”.
That’s what Navarro feels like—a brief phone call into the past. And I hope the line never goes dead.