Kenneth E. Harker
2005 Sonoma County Wineries

Jen and I visited Sonoma County, California in October, 2005. It was our first trip to Sonoma wine country. We flew into San Jose airport on Saturday, and spent over three hours driving north, through San Francisco, to get to the wine country. We spent all day Sunday tasting wines. I think the Dry Creek Valley is now my favorite appellation to visit, and I definitely want to go back and try more Zinfandels there.

These photos are copyright © 2005 Kenneth E. Harker. All rights reserved.

	On Saturday afternoon, we only had time to stop at one winery. Ravenswood Winery is one of our favorite sources of daily wines, and I wanted to try some of their reserve and single-vineyard Zinfandel bottlings. They were all very tasty, but not quite worth the extra price. I did buy a cool T-shirt.
	Our first stop of the day was the Rosenblum Cellars tasting room in downtown Healdsburg (where I forgot to take any photos.) The staff there was very friendly and gave us a free map of the county that was much, much better at showing where the wineries really were than the map we had. Our next stop was Seghesio Family Vineyards, also in Healdsburg. The winery building is in a Tuscan style and surrounded in landscaping that made it hard to photograph.
	Jen, in the yard in front of the Seghesio winery. In addition to Zinfandel, Seghesio makes several Italian varietals, like Sangiovese, from Sonoma grapes. I like the basic Seghesio Zinfandel bottlings, but none of the higher priced stuff really appealed to me enough to buy.
	This was an olive tree growing next to a small show vineyard at Seghesio. Jen wonders if we could grow olives at home, too.
	Our next stop was Simi Winery, just a little north of Healdsburg. The tasting room was in its own building next to the road. Unfortunately, everything we tasted at Simi was universally disappointing.
	The working winery at Simi looked like a huge facility, and was just on the other side of a small creek from the tasting building and another event center building.
	Jen, standing in front of one of the redwoods at Simi Winery.
	Our next stop was Quivira Vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley appellation. The winery building is covered in solar panels. This was my absolute favorite wine of the trip. All of the Zinfandels we were poured were stupendous. Their Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel ($20) was very, very good for the price, and their single-vineyard bottlings were even tastier.
	A view of the vineyards at Quivira. The Dry Creek Valley is one of the most gorgeous places I've been in California. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day. The drive to Quivira was also very pretty, crossing over the creek on a small one-lane bridge and driving down narrow country roads.
	I love fall colors on grape leaves.
	Most of the grapes at Quivira had been harvested in the week or two before we visited. There are still some raisiny clusters on these vines.
	Our next stop in the Dry Creek Valley was Teldeschi Winery, a small producer.
	This is the spectacular view from the front door of Teldeschi Winery. The building on the left is the Dry Creek General Store. Just before we visited Teldeschi, we stopped for lunch at the General Store. They make wonderful pannini. We ate at a small table on their front porch, watching the cyclists and trucks full of grapes passing back and forth while the sunshine just dripped off the grape vines across the road.
	This is the front door at Teldeschi. Dan, the winemaker, came out chasing a spider with a broom just after this photo was taken. Dan was an awesome host. He'd been punching down the wine all morning. Teldeschi has some great wines: Zinfandel, Syrah, and a Carignane-based blend that we really liked. Dan keeps the wine he pours for tasting in very small bottles, 187 mL for example, to prevent having the wine sit open overnight or for long periods of time between visitors.
	Another vista from the little hill on which Teldeschi is located. This is looking northwest, up the Dry Creek Valley.
	You can tell it is harvest time when people are driving around with crates of grapes in their trucks.
	Some of the winemaking machinery at Teldeschi, where the crush had just been completed. Teldeschi is a very small, family operation with only two full-time employees. Dan poured some old wines for us - several were approaching ten years old.
	A few clusters remain on the vines at Teldeschi, although most of them were raisiny. These particular clusters looked good - they might not have been ripe enough when the rest were picked.
	Our last stop in the Dry Creek Valley was Dry Creek Vineyard, which was across the street from the Dry Creek General Store.
	Dry Creek Vineyard was a very large operation compared to Teldeschi. This is some of the equipment at the winery. We liked their Zinfandels very much.
	Back in Healdsburg, we visited the shared tasting room for two small wineries: Sapphire Hill Vineyards and Holdredge Wines. Together, they must have poured us about 16 different wines, everything from Chardonnay to Pinot Noir to Syrah to Zinfandel, and almost all of it was single vineyard or small production bottlings. We ended up buying a single vineyard Syrah from Holdredge.
	Driving out into the Russian River Valley, we visited Hartford Family Winery where we had heard the Zinfandels were good. The building and grounds were very expensive looking. It would be a great place to host a fancy wedding.
	A view of the vineyard in front of the Hartford Family Winery. The winery was in a really pretty little dell surrounded by woods. The wines were tasty, but not quite as good as the Dry Creek Valley Zinfandels we tried, and quite a bit more expensive.
	Our final stop of the trip was back in Sonoma Valley at Kenwood Vineyards. Kenwood was only pouring their basic bottlings, and over half of what they had to taste was from their very-low-end "Yulupa" series. I think they hope you'll believe that Yulupa is some exciting, undiscovered Sonoma wine appellation, when in reality it's a local Native American word that means "bright and shiny," and the grapes for the wine actually come from places like Palo Alto. I was not so impressed.
	There was a small pond in the middle of this vineyard at Kenwood.
	The grape vines at Kenwood Vineyards in Sonoma Valley were beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine.