Category: Wineries

As these things often do, our interest in Benovia began in a restaurant.  We wanted a Pinot Noir to go with dinner at Willi’s Seafood in Healdsburg.  Our server suggested Benovia, saying it was the only wine that had been on their list since the restaurant opened.  We were impressed and decided to visit their winery in the Russian River AVA the next day.  We did call in advance, since their website says tastings are by reservation only.  We were told they could squeeze us in.

The Benovia “ranch”.

The road to Benovia is not as picturesque as in other parts of Russian River, more industrial than rustic.  As we approached the winery (in November) through the vineyard, we noticed that there was still fruit on the vines.  Or more accurately, there was fruit rotting on the vines.  Evidently the sales of lesser-known premium wine are depressed.  The owners decided it was smarter to feed grapes to the birds than to make wine that wouldn’t be sold.  To say the least, this is a sad trend.

The interior of the Benovia winery, with our server named Izzy.

Beyond the vineyard, we encountered a large factory-like building and then, just beyond it, a rambling ranch house.  On entering, we found an empty tasting room, with one group of people sitting on the patio.  Squeeze us in, indeed!  Nonetheless, we were welcomed warmly and were seated in front of a fireplace (no fire) in a living room setting.  In fact, that typified our visit to Benovia; it’s like visiting friends with a nice house and good taste in wine.

Benovia is a relatively recent arrival in the world of wine, having opened in 2005.  The owners purchased the vineyard around the winery, as well as several other Russian River terrains.  As a result, most of their wines are estate made, which we always consider to be a plus.  Of course, since they’re situated in an area famed for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, that’s what they make.  They also sell a few wines made from other grapes, which we didn’t taste.

The wines served at the tasting were a good representation of Benovia’s wines.  In many tastings, visitors are offered the bottom of the winery’s list.  A tasting at Benovia spans their price points.  The wines served are a mix of single vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, from both Russian River and Sonoma Coast.  Power Tasting doesn’t review wine, but we can say that our favorite was the Pinot Noir from the Martaella vineyard, which was the one we drove through to get to the winery.

Benovia is a small winery, producing only 4,000 cases, an amount that is being reduced due to market pressures, as described.  We hope they survive the slump, because we enjoyed the tasting experience there and we also like the wines we tasted, including the one that we had at dinner. 

Many Sonoma County wineries are the result of generations of farmers who grew grapes for making wine.  Benovia isn’t like that.  It’s more 21^st century, a winery opened by people who made their money elsewhere.  That’s not necessarily bad and if they are committed to quality winemaking, we’d like to see them encouraged.

It all started at Baci, a restaurant in Healdsburg.  [If you visit Healdsburg, we recommend you dine at Baci.  Ask for Lisbeth, the owner and the hostess, and by the time you finish dinner you’ll feel like you have a new friend.]  We thought that Zinfandel would go well with our meal but didn’t recognize any on the list of locally made wines.  When we asked the waiter for a recommendation, she immediately said, “Saini”.  We ordered a bottle and loved it, so the next day we drove to the winery to see what else they had to offer.

The Saini tasting room.

We found an attractive wooden building, at once rustic and modern, a theme that is continued inside.  The first two things we saw as we entered was a long granite bar, perched on wine barrels, above which was a huge, elegant chandelier.  The other was a small brick shack, of which more later.

The chandelier above the bar has more than 1600 Swarovski crystals.

There is a high likelihood that you will meet a member of the Saini family when you visit.  We got to meet the owner John Saini (pronounced SA-ini), his daughter-in-law Laura and his grandson Angelo.  Three generations at one time!  John is there often and sometimes leads tours of the vineyard.  We had a chance to chat with him and his business manager, George Christie.  We learned how his grandfather established the vineyard in 1917 and planted vines that are still producing.  He had built a brick shed for storing his wines.  When the current tasting room was built, it was hoped to incorporate the old shed, but it was structurally unsound.  So they demolished it and rebuilt it into the entrance of the building out of the original bricks.

John Saini with his grandson Angelo.

It is evident that family means a lot at Saini.  But it’s more than genealogical heritage.  John Saini refers to George and Lisbeth of Baci as “family”.  We happened to be there for a member event, and all those guests were family, too.  We believe we are now, too.  That sense of connectedness – to the soil, to the vines, even the trees and the Dry Creek neighbors – suffuses the Saini experience. 

The sense of family is even there in the wines.  The list includes Nonno’s Bianco and Rosso (Nonno being Italian for grandpa).  There’s Valentina Marie’s Rosé and Angelo’s Paintbrush, a blend of just about every grape they grow.  Even the trees get into the names: Apple Block and Olive Block Zinfandels, the latter being the one we tried at the restaurant and still our favorite.  Overall, there is an Italianate tinge to the wines, one more connection to the Saini heritage. We can’t guarantee that anyone else will get to meet so many family members as we did, but it’s a high likelihood that every visitor will encounter the warm welcome we got at Saini.  We at Power Tasting don’t review wines, although we can say we enjoyed what we tasted at this tasting room.  We do write about the wine tasting experience, and all we have to say is that we left Saini Vineyards with big smiles on o

This article is meant to be the companion piece to “Freixenet, Back When”, published in the Experiences section of Power Tasting’s April 2025 edition.  As published, we had consistently misspelled the name of the winery, which we have since corrected.  And while we’re at it, the name of the winery is pronounced FRESH-eh-net. We apologize to our readers and to the people at Freixenet.

There are often wine tasting destinations near big cities.  Napa Valley is an hour or so from San Francisco.  It’s a few hours’ drive from New York City to Long Island’s North Fork.  Wine is being made inside Vienna’s city limits and nearby as well.  And just outside Barcelona, there’s Penedes, where Cava is made.  An easy train ride from Barcelona to the village of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia brings you directly to Freixenet.

The Freixenet winery.

In case you weren’t aware, Cava is Spain’s sparkling wine.  At Freixenet, it is made the same way as French Champagne, except that the primary grapes are Macabeo, Paralleda and Xarelo (or Xarel·lo, as the Catalans spell it).  Their wines range from the well-known Carta Nevada and Cordon Negro to some interesting wines at the other end of their spectrum, such as Gran Reserva Brut Nature (with no dosage) and an Extra Brut.  They also have a rosé sparkler that is made of the Trepat grape.  Finally, there is a dessert sparkling one made from Malvasia grapes. 

Reproduction of a Freixenet advertising poster of another era.

All these are the wines served on their wine and cheese tour, which we recommend.  If you do take the train there, you will find the winery right at the station.  Externally, it looks very much like a Spanish hacienda, which we guess isn’t unintentional.  The area in front of the winery has some ancient presses and a golden 1950 Chrysler.  Once inside, the reception area is sleek and modern, decorated with art that recalls Freixenet’s history.  There’s also the Freixenetmobile, in the form of a bottle of Cordon Negro.

The Freixenetmobile.

The tour begins with a film about Freixenet’s history and current presence in the world.  Not only are they the best selling Cava, the company sells more sparkling wine than any other producer globally.  They have a long history, having been founded in 1914.  They survived the Spanish Civil War that took the lives of the founder and his son.  His widow kept Freixenet going through the Franco years.  In 2018, they were bought out by the German Sekt maker, Henkell, so now they are not just Spanish but international

If you’ve seen how Champagne or California sparkling wine is made, there’s not much new on the tour of Freixenet.  One fun extra is an array of antique bottling equipment.  The high spot, naturally, is the tasting.  There, Freixenet flexes its muscles a bit and shows of what Cava is capable of.  As always, Power Tasting doesn’t review wine, but we can say that we did enjoy what we were served and were quite delightedly surprised by Freixenet’s range. 

Sadly, their better Cavas aren’t available in the United States and only sparingly so in Canada.  So there’s nothing else to do than travel to Spain and take the Freixenet tour.

Somehow, in ten-plus years of publishing Power Tasting, we’ve never gotten around to writing about Trefethen.  Shame on us, because Trefethen is a great winery, a pioneer in Napa Valley and a winery that offers a memorable experience to visitors.  We have tasted there numerous times over the years and are pleased to look back on our visits there.

The Trefethen winery.  Photo courtesy of Trefethen.

Trefethen is located in Napa Valley on Oak Knoll Avenue, just off of Route 29, and is one of the first wineries encountered as you drive north.  (Think of that, day trippers.)  As you approach the winery, you see a very large farmhouse, which is a tale in itself.  There has been a winery on this property in this building, off and on since 1886.  The building you can see today has been used, abandoned and restored several times.  When the Trefethen family took over the property in 1968, they had to restore a bat-infested, leaky old edifice.  There they made wine and welcomed the public to taste it.

Then in 2014, the old winery was badly shaken in a 6.0 earthquake.  Rather than tear it down, the Trefethens decided to make heroic efforts to restore the building once again, in a more seismic-protected manner.  They significantly changed the tasting room as well.  Prior to 2014, the Trefethen tasting room had a rustic look and several bars, dispensing generous pours to visitors.  While the restoration work was going on, we once had a tasting under a plastic tent, which was not the ideal tasting ambience.  The décor of the rebuilt tasting room has gone from rustic to what we would call elegant antique.  And like almost all Napa Valley wineries, tastings are now sit down affairs.

A legacy tasting.  Photo courtesy of Trefethen.

One of the reasons we are including Trefethen in this issue of Power Tasting is their commitment to sustainability.  They have actually won awards in that regard.  As an organization that has thrived under three generations of the family, they express a desire to keep it going for at least another three.  They encourage biodiversity with resting places for native species of birds (including those old bats, even if they’re not birds).  It works out well, because the flying friends capture rodents and insects who would like to make a meal out of grapes.  They keep much of the area where they have vineyards wild and free.  Trefethen is also invested in carbon capture to keep the air fresh and soil controls by composing everything but the grape juice.

Does any of this show up in the glass?  We’re not viniculturists and Power Tasting doesn’t review wines, but we know that Trefethen’s wines have been award-winning for decades.  They do make whites and a rosé, but Trefethen has built its reputation on wines made from Bordeaux grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon (it is in Napa Valley, after all).

As most wineries do, Trefethen offers some reserve tastings of older and limited distribution wines as well as a tasting of recent releases.  With no disrespect to the quality of the reserve wines they serve, we have found that the overall experience of wine tasting at Trefethen is more pleasant in the big house with the newer wines.

There’s a wide variety of wine tasting experiences that one can experience.  They include from quiet, almost meditational tastings in ancient facilities.  Others are like a night out or a visit to a family home.  And some just seem dedicated to fun, however one defines that word.  Brick Barn, in our opinion, fits into that latter category.

One of the patios at Brick Barn, showing the Spanish influence on the architecture.

The winery sits in Buellton, nestled in the Santa Rita Hills.  It is a new operation, founded in 2018.  The winery itself is a handsome, Spanish mission-inspired building, with a very large capacity for tasting visitors.  That size, and the variety of venues at Brick Barn define the wine tasting experience there.

The bar area at Brick Barn.

Let us describe several different experiences to be had at Brick Barn.  The first is a rather traditional.  There’s a tasting room with a bar, where you can enjoy a selection of their recent bottlings.  The selection of wines is quite varied, about which more later.  The tasting room itself is beautiful, with a large bar decorated in tiles reflecting both Spanish and Native American heritage.  The chandeliers and the assortment of interesting shopping add to the pleasure of the room.

The lounge area.

Visitors can have their wines served in another large room, decorated to resemble a private club.  It invites consideration of what’s in the glass and low-voiced conversation about it.  We have reason to believe that there is no rule of silence, however.

Tasting, picnicking, trees and views.

Then there are the three patios outside.  Here you can sit under umbrellas and spreading trees, admiring the views of Brick Barn’s vineyards and the Santa Ynez mountains beyond them.  (The parking lot in between doesn’t spoil the pleasure.  After all, the cars have to go somewhere.)  Visitors are invited to bring picnics, enjoy their tastings of a buy a bottle, and simply relax.  If that’s your idea of fun (and it is ours) Brick Barn is the place for it.

Finally, there’s party time.  Brick Barn is open most days from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.  In other words, it is the place to go for tourists and locals alike at the end of the day.  Happy hour can be very happy there and the tasting facilities can become a bit crowded.  There’s live music on weekdays and we’re told that the joint rocks until closing time.  It’s not our thing, but if it is yours, party hardy.

Brick Barn makes an enormous variety of wines: ten whites, two rosés, four sparkling wines and eight reds, plus four that they consider their top-tier wines, which they call Fatalist.  (In our opinion, that’s not the most alluring name for a wine.)  This variety is both a strength and a weakness.  It pretty much assures that any visitor will find a type of wine that they enjoy.  But, as we have said before about other areas of Wine Country, making too many types of wine often  undercuts the ability to make anything particularly well. 

We fear that that’s the case at Brick Barn.  Their wines aren’t to our taste, but that’s unimportant.  We write about the tasting experience, which is excellent there.  We’re not wine critics and evidently many people like the wines there.  So, if you’re in the Santa Rita Hills, you can have fun at Brick Barn.

In thinking about Heitz Cellar, our memories break down into two periods: when Joe Heitz was alive and afterwards.  Let us be clear that in both periods to vineyards produced world-renowned wines, particularly their Cabernet Sauvignons.  But the wine tasting experience became very different once Joe passed away.

Heitz – the winery and the man – are true pioneers of Napa Valley winemaking.  He founded the winery in 1961.  To put that in perspective, that was 15 years before the famous Judgment of Paris put California wines on the oenological map.  Heitz Cellar’s 1970 Cabernet Sauvignon was one of the American wines tasted on that historic occasion.

For most of its existence, the Heitz tasting room was an unassuming, sparsely furnished stone building on Route 29 in St. Helena.  The winery was generous in pouring many of their best wines, including the most famous one, the Martha’s Vineyard.  Joe Heitz believed that wine was for sharing and so tasting at his winery were free.  That remained the case until Joe’s heirs sold the winery to the Lawrence family in 2018.  But Joe lives on, on the Heitz Cellar labels, checking out his wines in the aging room.

The old Heitz Cellar winery, circa 1990.  Photo courtesy of Wine Spectator.

The Heitz winery today has been rebuilt as a sleek building and tasting room, not a Napa Palace but a long way from two barrels and a plank.  As is the case everywhere in Napa Valley, the tastings are sit-down affairs and there is a fee, one consistent with other top-end vineyards in the region.  Tastings are available at the original location, now called the Salon, and in the Vaca Mountain foothills, at what they term the Estate.

Tasting at Heitz’s Salon.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

The wines available for tasting lean heavily towards the Cabernet Sauvignons that made Heitz so well-known.  Martha’s Vineyard is still the flagship wine, and now has a picture of the old winery building on the label.  (Sadly, a former favorite of ours, the Bella Oaks, is no longer made.)  Some of what makes a visit to Heitz so exciting is that all their wines are sourced from single vineyards, so one can taste the regional variation in Napa Valley in the hands of a single winemaking team.  Oh, yeah, they have some Chardonnays and a Rosé too.  They’re not the reason to visit Heitz Cellar.

Power Tasting isn’t qualified to compare the wines the way Joe Heitz made them to those made with his name on the label today, but we can compare the experiences.  Previously, visitors were made to feel like Joe’s guests, sharing in the bounty of his vineyards and his winemaking skill.  The wines were and are powerful and elegant, but the experience was casual and down-to-earth.

A visit to Heitz Cellar today is more like dinner at a four-star restaurant.  It’s classy and makes one feel special, but it’s removed from the earth the grapes grew in.  (There is a vineyard tour available, so we guess that isn’t always the case.)  Honestly, we preferred the old way, but those days are gone and we enjoy the way things are now.

A word about the name.  It’s Heitz Cellar (singular) although we’ve always pluralized it.  We don’t know any other singulars.

We have been visiting Napa Valley wineries for some years – decades, in fact – before we even heard of Viader.  A colleague at work who also enjoys wine tasting put us on to it, with the warnings that it was difficult to find and difficult to get a reservation.  Perhaps we hadn’t heard of Viader because we had never passed it on Route 29, the Silverado Trail or the roads between them.  That’s because Viader is perched 1,400 feet above the valley floor on Howell Mountain.  You have to want to go there to go there; you won’t just be passing by.

The view from Viader Winery.

As to the difficulty of finding the winery, our colleague overstated the case.  You simply have to turn off the Silverado Trail at Deer Park Road and then keep climbing until you’re there.  It’s a bit tricky recognizing that you are there, as the winery tells you to “look for the rust-iron gate before the sharp, 15 MPH, hairpin turn”.  It’s worth the journey.

Power Tasting doesn’t review wines but rather the experience of visiting wineries.  So suffice it to say that Viader makes excellent wines from red grapes.  They don’t make a lot, so their wines are rather exclusive.  If you are a lover of big California reds, you’ll be happy with what you get to taste there.

However, what we remember most from visiting Viader is the ambiance and in particular the view.  For your tasting, you sit on a terrace overlooking the valley below, with vines in front of you and forest on the sides.  A server appears from time to time with another wine for you to try but you are left pretty much alone to soak it all in, feeling very happy to be left alone sipping the wine and admiring the view.  The prospect before you doesn’t overwhelm the wines.  Rather, the wine only enhances the experience.

Viader has an interesting back story.  Delia Viader founded the winery in the 1980’s, when female winemakers were virtually unheard of.  She saw the potential for wines made from grapes grown on Howell Mountain and took advantage of it.  She is still very much involved in the winery, but today her son Alan is the winemaker.  They suffered a tragedy in 2005 when an arsonist destroyed their entire 2003 production.  Fortunately, Viader bounced back and are very much in business today.

Viader doesn’t make very many wines.  Their annual production is around 4,000 cases and it consists of red wines made from Bordeaux grapes, in particular Cabernet Sauvignon.  (It is Napa Valley, after all.)  Cabernet Franc is also included in their flagship wine, known simply as Viader Proprietary Blend.  Other wines also feature blends of those grapes with Syrah and Malbec.

It is true that reservations are needed for a visit, as is the case these days at nearly every Napa Valley winery.  However, we have found that a same-day phone call can result in a tour of the vineyards, a tasting and that marvelous view.

Schramsberg is a multi-faceted winery.  It is famous for its sparkling wines but also produces, through a sister winery, Bordeaux-style wines and Pinot Noirs.  It boasts a history that extends back to the 19^th century but is really a product of the 20^th (surely a pioneer in Napa Valley terms).  They once called their wines “Champagne” but now refer to them as sparkling wines, although they were legally permitted to use the French word.  Here we will focus on visiting Schramsberg in Calistoga to sample their sparkling wines.

The grounds and house at Schramsberg.  Photo courtesy of WineMaps.

The property was indeed established as a winery in 1862 by a German immigrant named Jacob Schram.  Schramsberg actually means Schram’s mountain, which is a bit of an altitudinal exaggeration. The winery ceased operation in 1912 and wasn’t used for wine until Jack and Jamie Davies bought it in 1965.  (The sister winery is named Davies.)  A few years later they issued a sparkler labeled as “Napa Valley Champagne”.  Wineries that had used the term Champagne prior to 2006 were allowed to continue using the term; but the Davies, respectful of France, stopped doing so.  Their sparkling wine achieved prominence when they were the first American wine to be served at the White House in 1972.

All this history is an interesting background to a visit to Schramsberg. The first thing visitors see is an attractive garden, with a large Victorian house behind it.  These too were restored by the Davies, and it must have been their pride and joy, as well as their home.  It is overall a visual reminder of the winemaking history that Schramsberg represents.  Beyond the house is a stony entrance to the caves where the sparkling wines are aged.  Some of them are from the 19^th century winery, expanded by the Davies in their times.

The entrance to Schramsberg’s caves.  Photo courtesy of Self Tour Guides.

Touring the caves is a high point of a visit to Schramsberg, along with a tasting, of course.  There are 2½ miles dug into the hill, the first half-mile attributable to Jacob Schram.  Much like the French Champagne houses, Schramsberg ages its wines extensively, two years or more for their commercial production and up to eight years on the lees for their top wines, the Tête de Cuvée that they name for Herr Schram.  Using the French term for their top wine indicates that they still remember that they used to call their products Champagne.

The tasting consists of five sparkling wines, including – depending on the day – a blanc de blanc, a blanc de noir and a rosé.  Often there is a little something extra thrown in.  There is also a tasting available with three sparklers and three reds, which we’ll skip over for now.  Power Tasting does not review wines as such, but it is no surprise that these are among the best sparkling wines made in the United States.  They are definitely Californian, since neither the soil nor the caves have the chalk that give true Champagne its distinctive taste. 

It is best not to compare Schramsberg to a French Champagne.  Take pleasure in it for what it is, rather than for what it is not.  That’s good advice for enjoying anything, not just wine.

Generally, when we think of a winery, the image that comes to mind is a tasting room that is elegantly furnished with views of endless vistas of grapevines.  Or urban tasing rooms that are clubby and well-decorated.  There are two wineries in Santa Barbara that break that mold: Jaffurs and Carr.  These two are unmistakably operated in a factory-like setting.  They are in a light industrial section of Santa Barbara; there are no vistas at all, grapes or otherwise; and one of these is minimally furnished, if at all.

The entrance to Jaffurs Wine Cellars.

Jaffurs Wine Cellars makes Rhône-style wines in a facility that was purpose-built for winemaking by Craig Jaffurs in 2001.  It has a garage door opening, with an iron table just inside where they serve tastings.  The trend towards seated tastings by appointment only has not yet reached Jaffurs.  Visitors enter, wait for some employee to notice them and then are served a selection of Jaffurs’ rather extensive list of wines.

Just beyond the, er, tasting room, visitors will see the crush pad and beyond that fork lifts tending to the barrels of wine waiting to age and be bottled.  Unsurprisingly, Jaffurs does not get many visitors and so the vibe when people do come is real pleasure to show off their wines.  And we did find Jaffurs’ wines quite enjoyable.  Jaffurs sources all of their grapes from vineyards from the Sants Rita Hills to as far north as Santa Maria County.  Many of them have significant reputations, most notably the Bien Nacido in Santa Maria.

Jaffurs doesn’t make very much wine – only 5,000 cases annually – and so is not widely distributed.  Although the specialty of the house is Rhône grapes, which we liked, we found that we most enjoyed their Pinot Noir.  They don’t make a big deal of it, so you have to ask to try some

As for Carr Winery, we are being a bit unfair when we say that it  is a factory, although wine is made and aged there.  Their facility was originally a Quonset Hut in the same industrial area as Jaffurs, and was used to repair World War II aircraft.  There is a terrace outside but it is often used by a mah-jongg club, so we found it better to taste inside.  This is nicely furnished to look something like a trendy cocktail lounge.  There are artworks scattered about as well.  Visitors can easily forget that they are in a working winery in a factory district.

The Carr Winery tasting room.

Almost all of Carr’s wines are 100% single varietals.  There’s a little secret there: Ryan Carr, the owner and winemaker, also has a vineyard management business.  With the insight gained from that enterprise, he buys grapes – ostensibly the best ones – from his customers.  Accordingly, Carr makes wine from a wide variety of grapes, including the usual (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah) and some that are less likely to be found elsewhere (Sangiovese, Cabernet Franc).  Winemaker Carr has a definite style; there is a clear consistency in all his wines, regardless of the grapes used.

So if anyone would ever get tired of beautiful scenery and surroundings, we recommend a trip to the East Side of Santa Barbara, where Jaffurs and Carr will show you wines with an industrial ambiance but countryside quality.

You can visit wineries in Bordeaux that are still owned by original families, but the Rothschilds of today, for example, are the descendants of the founders.  Even in Napa Valley, Robert Mondavi, Warren Winiarski and their like are no longer with us.  But one of the things that makes wine tasting in Santa Barbara County, the Santa Rita Hills in particular, is that the founding fathers (and mothers) are still making wine in their namesake wineries.

One such is the Melville Winery, owned and operated by Chad Melville.  The winery even offers a private tour and tasting with Mr. Melville himself.  You won’t get that at Château Latour!

Located in the Santa Rita Hills not too far from Buellton (although the address is in Lompoc), Melville’s tasting room is located in and beside a handsome, mission-style yellow building.  A tasting at Melville has the vibe of a garden party far more than that of most wineries.  Oh, they do have an indoor room that’s cozy in a rustic sort of way, but the real Melville experience is to have your tasting on their wide, capacious lawn.  [Melville also has a tasting room in Santa Barbara, which is a totally different experience.]  Although we were told that they occasionally receive tour groups and they say they can accommodate 150 people, it’s difficult to imagine it ever getting rowdy at this winery.

Rather, visitors either recline in Adirondack chairs or gather around widely spaced tables under white umbrellas.  They sip their wine viewing the vineyard and the mountains beyond.  So very civilized, especially considering the completely opposite experience in some tasting rooms, not least in nearby Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone.  Guests can even bring picnics. 

We were a bit surprised by the wines they serve at Melville.  Santa Rita Hills is rightly famed for Pinot Noir, which they do serve.  But we also tasted Chardonnay, Grenache and Syrah.  There’s nothing wrong with those grapes, but they weren’t what we expected.  We think this may say a lot about changing climate, even in such a contained space as the Santa Rita Hills, or maybe a broader audience for the wines made there, some of whom may not be Pinot Noir fans.  That said, of the wines we tasted, the Pinot Noirs were our favorites.

For a long time, it has been possible to taste quality wine in California far afield from Napa Valley and Sonoma County.  It seems to use that Santa Barbara County, and the Santa Rita Hills in particular, are coming (or have come) into their own.  There are wines we have tasted there, especially Pinot Noirs, that are the equal or better than any we’ve had in that state.  Now, we think the winemakers in the Côte d’Or can sleep well at night, but overall we find the Pinot Noirs made in the Santa Rita Hills to be more Burgundian than we have tasted elsewhere in the US.

Melville is an exemplar of the region’s arrival.  Power Tasting doesn’t review wine; our specialty is the wine tasting experience.  We can say that a visit to the Melville Winery is a lovely way to while away an afternoon with some well-regarded wines.