Aspiring Wine and Cheese Connoisseur: Sonoma Wineries

This morning we woke up and decided to go for a 5 mile run around the town area to get a sense of where we were. Here is the hotel we are staying at, I finally got a picture of it. It's actually like a mix between a hotel and bed and breakfast.

The run around the main town area was so beautiful. There are vineyards everywhere, hills in the distance, and the weather is simply amazing. When we left this morning it was a cool 50 - 60 degrees, which is such a difference from Texas weather. When we got back, there was a delicious homecooked breakfast waiting for us!

After breakfast we showered and planned out our day. To avoid any wine/driving mishaps, we are taking alternate forms of transportation to and from the wineries. Our hotel has 6 bikes they lend out and there are about 6 wineries within biking distance so we thought we'd give it a try.

I'm not going to lie, I haven't ridden my bike in probably 5 years or so, so it took some getting used to at first but was VERY nice! Biking was very relaxing and fun! About 10 minutes later we came upon our very first Sonoma winery...

Yay we were here!

Not only does our hotel have complimentary breakfasts, but they give out wine tasting coupons to some of the nearby wineries. We got a bunch for the day, and most of them were like a buy one get one free thing, which really helped with our costs. The tasting fees appear to be about $10 - 15 per person. Sebastiani had a regular tasting menu and a reserve one, but since it was just our first place (and had no coupon), we stuck with the regular one. Another reason is that those are the wines we can find in Texas, the reserve wines are at the winery only. Here I am drinking my very first glass here!

We tried 2 chardonnays, pinot noir, merlot, cabernet, and a red blend which were all pretty good. My favorite was the 2006 Cabernet, which I gave an A-. I am learning so much about wine here already! I thought wine all from the same region was pretty much the same, yet I am learning there are definitely subtleties and differences depending on where in the Sonoma valley it's grown. After we tried all those wines, we tried 2 sweeter ones and I LOVED the 2008 Symphony, which is like a moscato. It is sweet, refreshing, and at 12.5% alcohol, still enough of a wine for me (some moscatos are like 7 - 8%)! It was amazing and only $13 but we were on bikes in the sun, so had to pass it up for now. We still need to find a way to ship wines back to Texas. The lady here recommended we buy a secure wine box and check it as a bag on the plane and said she does it all the time... this makes me nervous though lol. Ok, on to the next place!

Our next stop was Ravenswood, where we had a very generous pourer who apparently "can't count" the number of pourings he gave us lol. This place is really known for the zinfandels and I think we tried like 5 or 6 different ones there. They are VERY delicious, especially their higher end ones.

There were a little too many reds for me, and they all started blending together after a while. Again, my favorite one here was the sweet dessert wine at the end they call "party in your mouth", which was 2008 Moscato Leggero. SO DELICIOUS!

Here we are looking at actual wine grapes!

Ok now this next place was my FAVORITE!

When we went in we were the only 2 tasters there, and got to talking to the people behind the counter about jobs. I mentioned that I would LOVE to work at a winery, and the guy invited me back behind the counter to try it out :o. I'm describing the wine to the customer (Stephen) ...

I got to see what's back there, and even practice talking about the wine and pouring it! SO FUN! He said I did a great job and obviously know a lot about wine lol!

They had decent wine there, but it wasn't my favorite. The best thing was their sauvignon blanc, which was the only one we had today I think. Their zinfandel, merlot, and cabernet were all pretty good too. The people here were really what made this winery so fun, I loved every second of it!

Bartholomew Park and Buena Vista are very very close if you take a shortcut, but a few miles apart if you have to go on the roads, so we attempted the short cut. The gate was closed, so we attempted a round about short cut, which ended with us being somewhat lost in the woods for a while :( with bikes :( oh well, we got back on track but by that time were mad at Buena Vista for being so complicated so decided to skip it.

On to the next place, is this not amazing?

We had QUITE a trek to the next place, and I had a scare as my camera, ID, room key, and $20 tumbled out of my pockets onto the ride mid bike ride! :( I got them all back though.

This place is pronounced Gun Lock Bun Shoe lol. They had some pretty good stuff here - their zinfandel was pretty good (not as good as Ravenswood), and we liked their mountain cuvee red blend. It was also getting to be around 4pm and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so we grabbed a cheddar cheese to eat, which was yummy. Unfortunately you can't eat WHILE you drink, which is a bummer. Apparently the wineries need an extra permit to do that.

Beautiful lake

Ok almost done for the day. We called Tin Barn and they were closed for some reason so we decided to go BACK to Buena Vista since we had talked to lots of people and they said it was so good. I was so tired I forgot to get a pic of the sign, but here's the place.

This place had the best Syrahs. The 2005 Ramal Vineyard Syrah and even the Rose of Syrah were both excellent. Unfortunately I also gave 3 out of the 8 wines Ds. Look they have my aerator!

Ok done with the wineries! We bike back to our hotel just in time for wine and snacks, which we promptly devoured since we were starving. Weren't too interested in the wines, but tried them anyway just to taste.