宇宁: Russian River and Sausalito Trip Day 2

Russian River and Sausalito Trip Day 2

Today is Easter and a few wineries are not open. So I choose to book all the wineries for tasting to make sure we have no surprises.

Santa Rosa Downtown Charlie Brown and Snoopy statue

Merry Edwards Vineyard

Another very friendly and beautiful tasting room by a woman wine maker. It's our first tasting at 10am (Don't judge us...)

We shared tasting but they are generous with the pours. They open with a $45 Chardonnay that's really nice. We tasted 8 out of the 11 pinots that they have. The Anderson Valley pinot is the first and it's right that it does have a funk that's characteristic of Anderson Valley. Our favorite is Russian River valley pinot retailing at $60 (again, warm climate). The Dach blends with Russian River valley pinot which makes it very nice but overpriced at $75. Their Meredith is a cab level pinot that's inky but again overpriced at $100. We finish with a very good sauvignon Blanc and we end up getting the 2 whites and the Russian River as we waived the tasting with 3 bottles purchase.

Chloe the vineyard cat sat with us for our tasting for the whole time =)

Merry Edwards winery

Joseph Swan Vineyard

This one is the most disappointing out of all the tasting. It came highly recommended on the internet and it's a small owner low key place.

I want to like it but having pinots aged 7-10 years and still not taste good is a sign that we shouldn't buy it. They somehow had old vines zinfandel that we didn't like as well.

View of Joseph Swan vineyards

La Crema

La Crema chardonnay is our go-to table wine. It made our list as other wineries near the area are not open that day. It turned out to be a good surprise as they have Chardonnay grapes that isn't found in stores. And it's also a beautiful restored barn for their tasting room and off-the-script tasting with Dave who is really fun. We had a welcome brut on level 1 that's really nice. Followed by a least 4 chardonnays tasting and really like Kelli Ann Chardonnay $55 which is the most expensive Chardonnay that we bought. We tasted at least 5 pinots with them but still prefer their Cabernet at $50. It feels like a lot of the pinots are too cold climate and not flavorful enough for us. We also got the tasting fee waived with 2 bottles purchase.

La Crema tasting room

Harvest Moon vineyard

This one made the list as 2 other ones are not open. It's another small winery who owns and make the wine He offers more varietals like Zin, Malbec, Syrah, Cab and Zin. But unfortunately we also didn't like the flavors. (My theory is the region is too cold to develop those grapes properly)

He does a lot of sparkling wine which is good and fresh but too overpriced at $55-$80 range that we didn't buy anything

Harvest Moon Winery

Inman Family vineyard

This is a woman wine maker and small business owner. Their pinots are really good and we enjoyed them as they are very flavorful and very close to Halleck. Unfortunately everything is overpriced at $75 that we choose not to buy the pinots. Instead we got a white blend which is 80% white pinot and 20% Pinot Gris that's retains the pinot flavor and have interesting palette with the Pinot Gris that's reasonable at $43. We also got their Grenache & Tempranillo without tasting as it's me/Bill's favorite grapes and they are selling out of those and its reasonable at $42.