Category: Wineries

Ridge (https://www.ridgewine.com/) is best known, perhaps, for fine Zinfandels and Zin blends.  Or maybe you know that Ridge Montebello, their premier Cabernet Sauvignon, was among the wines at the famous Judgment of Paris taste-off in 1976, and the winner when the wines were re-tasted in 2006.  Ridge’s Montebello winery is a bit off the beaten path in Cupertino, California.  Wine tasters are more likely to be in Sonoma County, where Ridge’s other winery is located, right on the border of the Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys.

The vineyard itself has quite a history, with grapes planted there as early as 1901.  Paul Draper, the illustrious (and only) winemaker at Ridge, first bought grapes from the previous owner in 1972 and then bought the property in 1991.  For a long while, the tasting room was literally a plank between two barrels in the aging room of the winery.  Today it is a sleek, wood-paneled bar nestled among the vines, where a significant selection of wine are available for tasting.  On the opposite side of the bar is a glass window wall overlooking the old Zinfandel vines, a source of beauty in itself.

Ridge’s tasting room at Lytton Springs

There are several hallmarks to Ridge’s wines:  all but one are from single vineyards (their Three Valleys is the exception).  Many are estate wines, especially the Lytton Springs from the property where you taste wines.  Some have acquired quite a reputation, such as the Pagani Ranch or the Independence School and others are rather obscure small bottlings, like Boatman or Buchignani.   They make wine from many varietals, but are best known for Zinfandels and Cabernet Sauvignons.  Many of the Zins are blended with other grapes such as Carignan and Petite Syrah, enough so that they fall below the 75% requirement to be sold as a single varietal.

One of the beauties of a visit to this winery is the number of different wines you can try.  Yes, there is a Chardonnay, but really a visit to Ridge is about red wines. There may be as many as seven or eight Zinfandels available, which by itself is a lesson in the variety of flavors that can be extracted from this grape, a specialty of California in general and Dry Creek in particular.

The climax of a tasting at Ridge is their Cabernet Sauvignons.  The Estate Cab is usually included in a tasting, but if you want to know what the Montebello tastes  like, you’ll have to pay an additional fee.  It’s worth it, if only for the bragging rights. Do not leave Ridge without tasting it.  It certainly crowns a wine tasting experience.

We have found the servers to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but unfortunately have to report that on a few occasions we were served by someone seemingly uninterested in serving and helping us.  That experience underscores the importance of the server in the quality of your visit.

A visit to Ridge in Lytton Springs can be the highlight of a day’s tasting adventures, especially if you’ve never had the chance to compare their wines, one with the others.  Even if you have visited Ridge many times, as we have, there’s always at least one wine to try that will impress you, and the Montebello to blow you away.

The most noticeable aspect of the Northern Rhône valley, at least on the western side, is the terraced vineyards perched along the hillsides just above a string of villages. The villages themselves are little more than homes, stores and offices along a single road, the D1086.  In all honesty, the area is not very well oriented to tourism, other than wine tasting, unlike some locales in the Southern Rhône such as Orange, Châteauneuf or Gigondas.  Ah, but there is quite some wine to taste in the north and Yves Cuilleron makes some of them.

According to his web site (http://www.cuilleron.com/en/), M. Cuilleron’s family has run the winery for three generations; he has been in charge since 1987.  Their properties are located along the entirety of the Rhône Valley, from the Côte Rôtie to Costières de Nimes.  The winery itself is in Chavanay, just south of the better known village of Condrieu.  It’s a pleasant enough little building, located on the main road.  Other than a sign over the door… and his truck parked in front of his winery, there is no particular reason to expect fine wines within, except of course that wines are found in many little buildings in the area.

 

Caves Yves Cuilleron in Chavanay, France.  Photo courtesy of Wine.com.

There are dozens of wines with the Cuilleron label: red, white and vin doux naturel (naturally sweet wines).  The tasting room is generous in opening quite a few, so that you can have a reasonably broad introduction to Northern Rhône wines, for although they make wines from both north and south, they are primarily known for their northern wines.  Other than in the white wine, Syrah is the principal grape of the Northern Rhône region.  On our visit, we sipped a Condrieu (white). two St. Josephs (including Les Pierres Sèches(dy rocks) one of their better-known wines, a Crozes-Hermitage, a Côte Rôtie and a Cornas.

A bonus of a visit to Yves Cuilleron is the art on display, portraits by a local painter, Robert Bourasseau.  M. Cuilleron is so taken by this artist’s work that he has dedicated a series of his wines under the label Cuvée Bourasseau.  The tasting room has numerous paintings on display, all of them showing a person with a wine glass in his or her hand. (The paintings were not for sale but a poster of them is.  Lucie loved the paintings so much that she bought the poster.)

The tasting room at Cave Yves Cuilleron with paintings by Robert Bourasseau.

There isn’t much else to be found around the winery nor in the nearby villages.  The nearest places we know to find something to eat are in the town of Ampuis, in the heart of Côte Rôtie, about ten minutes’ drive north of the winery.  There are many wineries that you can drop in on, but be aware that almost every one closes for lunch from roughly 1:00 to 3:00.  You should eat too.  After all, you’re in a sector of Wine Country in France, so do as the French do.   Just remember that they may have a glass or two of wine with their lunch, and you’re going wine tasting afterwards, so take it easy.

Rochioli (http://www.rochioliwinery.com/) sits on Westside Road in the Russian River section of Sonoma County.   It’s not immediately apparent from the road, being set back behind a parking lot and some gardens that block the sight of the winery itself.  Moreover, it’s just beyond a turn in the road, so it’s very easy to drive right by.  So keep your eyes peeled as you drive along; this is a winery where you definitely want to stop, for a number of reasons.

It’s possible to have an enjoyable tasting experience in some places, even if the wine isn’t very good.  Fortunately, that’s not a problem at Rochioli (pronounced ROE-key-OH-lee).  The wines, particularly the Pinot Noirs and the Chardonnays, are top tier and have a reputation to back that up.  In fact, one of the pleasures of a visit to Rochioli is to thumb through the heavy scrapbook they keep by the side of the bar where you can read all the letters from the White House expressing the thanks from past Presidents who have served and drunk their wines at state dinners.  If you’re not a Head of State yourself (and who is?) it’s fun to pretend for a few minutes while you sip the wines.

The winery building is an unassuming redwood structure, pretty enough in its way but certainly not palatial.  In the past, the interior wasn’t much to talk about either, but in recent years they have spruced it up with a nice zinc-topped bar and a pentagonal window overlooking the vineyards (of which more later).  The look of the tasting room is still not the reason to visit, but it’s quite pleasant in a clean, spare way.

There are really two attractions: the wines, of course, and the view.  Rochioli has made its reputation on estate-grown varietals and that estate is just outside the window.  It is amazing to taste the same grapes grown in rock-throwing distance from one another and detect the differences.  Since it’s the same wine maker from the same estate, the difference has to be attributable to the terroir.   To be sure, it takes the skillful hand of the wine maker to draw out the essence of the terroir.

You are welcome to buy a bottle or two of these wines, if they have them available.  And there’s the rub.  Rochioli’s wines are for the most part allocated.  You need to be on the The List (yes, they capitalize both words) to have access to them and then you are committed to buying some every year or you fall off The List.  We’re told it takes at least five years to get there and they ask that you not call to check where you are on The List.  They’ll tell you when the time comes.  We are currently two years into our five.

As noted, the other great attraction at Rochioli is the view across their vineyards.  The winery is on a slight rise and there are umbrella shaded tables at the rear.  We have written before about wine tasting with a view and mentioned Rochioli; we’re happy to cite it again. This is a great please to have a wonderful lunch.  The nearest places to pick up gourmet edibles (you wouldn’t want PB&J sandwiches, would you?) are the Dry Creek General Store and the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg.  Buy a bottle of one of Rochioli’s wines to go with your lunch (of course you have to if you want to use their picnic area), borrow the wine glasses from the tasting room) and have a couple of glasses of wine with your lunch.  Be careful, of course, not to have too much.

We don’t know if this is how they’re dining at the White House, but it will feel like lunch time in Heaven when you follow our advice.

Tablas Creek Vineyard is unabashedly a corner of southern France plunked down in the middle of California, in Paso Robles to be exact.  It is owned by the Perrin family of the southern Rhône valley (along with American wine importer Robert Haas).  The Perrins are particularly known for one of the most renowned Châteauneuf du Pape wines, Château de Beaucastel.  This history is important because of the vines that the family brought to the Central Coast from France.  Going back to 1985, Haas and members of the Perrin family sought vineyard land and imported root stock.  While the vines went through quarantine, the winemakers determined that the western fringe of Paso Robles was very similar in climate and soil – the terroir – to that of Châteauneuf.

Today, California’s Central Coast is revered for its Rhône-style wines but it was not always so.  In fact, it was the vision and generosity of the Tablas Creek owners that established these wines in that region.  Paso Robles has long been known for Zinfandel, and still is.  The Tablas Creek people realized that one good Rhône winery would be an outlier; if the region did well with Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and the other Rhône grapes, everyone would prosper.  Thus they sold their vines to other wineries in Paso Robles.  If this seems reminiscent of Robert Mondavi and Napa, so be it.

Visiting Tablas Creek has its challenges as well as its rewards.  Paso Robles is pretty far from major airports (three hours south of San Francisco’s) and Tablas Creek is a fairly long drive from downtown Paso.  Driving there along the Adelaida Road (Tablas Creek is in the Adelaida AVA) is very beautiful and there are quite a few excellent wineries along the way, so does it make sense if you only have a little time to visit to go all the way out to Tablas Creek?  In a word, yes.

You never forget while you’re at Tablas Creek that you’re in California, but there is a great deal to remind you of France, beginning with a signpost at the entrance that tells you that the tasting room is nine yards away and that Domaine de Beaucastel is 9009 kilometers.  There are posters and other souvenirs for sale, heralding Perrin’s French labels like La Vieille Ferme, their basic Rhône wines.  That French identity carries over into the Tablas Creek wines, which come close to tasting like actual Rhône wines (as opposed to California Rhône Rangers that taste like California wines made from Rhône grapes).

Photo courtesy of Particularly Nice

The tasting room is Mediterranean-style building and is expansive, while the wooden interior still somehow makes it feel warm and inviting.  They also have a terrace with umbrellaed tables where picnicking is welcome.

If you are not familiar with Rhône-style wines, a visit to Tablas Creek is an education.  Tablas Creek’s wines are perhaps a little more Mourvèdre heavy than in southern France, but the character certainly evokes Châteauneuf de Pape.  That is especially so, in our opinion, for the Esprit de Tablas, which until a few years ago was called Esprit de Beaucastel.  The Panoplie is their highest priced wine, and to us tastes richer and bolder than we have tasted in wines from the Rhône valley; it is more California than France.

Even more evocative of California wine sensibilities are the single grape varietal wines.  If the bottles are open, you can taste grapes you know, like Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, and many that may be unfamiliar to you, like Counoise, Grenache Blanc, Picardan and Tannat.

Photo courtesy of Tablas Creek Vineyard.

There are stunning views to be had at Tablas Creek, nestled in the foothills of the Santa Lucia mountains.  That, taken together with the French atmosphere and the unique wines, make the long hike to Tablas Creek worthwhile.

There’s a lot to be said, both positive and negative, about wine tasting in Bordeaux.  In fact we’ve already said some about the subject.  What makes the snobbishness, the appointments and the limited variety of wines worth putting up with is, well, the wine.  We are not the first to note that Bordeaux produces some of the world’s greatest wines.  If you’re going to make the trip you really ought to taste the best of the best, and Château Léoville Barton (https://www.leoville-barton.com/) certainly falls into that category.

As with everything in Bordeaux, and especially the section north of the city called the Médoc, there’s a lot of history.  Let’s start with the name, Château Léoville Barton.  While there is a beautiful château to see when you visit, it is not properly speaking a château in winemaking terms.  The grapes are actually pressed in the adjoining estate of Langoa Barton.  However, they are blended and aged on the château property.

Photo courtesy of Château Léoville Barton.

You may recognize “Léoville” with names other than Barton after it.  That’s because it was once a huge estate – the largest in Bordeaux, in fact – but was split up.  That’s why you can find Léoville Las Cases and Léoville Poyferré as well.  (An interesting tasting might be the three side-by-side.  We’d love to do that someday.)  The three are in the heart of St. Julien, an appellation known for sunny, approachable but profound wines.  All were named as second growths, or deuxieme crus, in the 1855 ranking.  That doesn’t always mean much today, but it certainly holds up for the Léovilles.

Finally, the name Barton comes from an 18^th century Irishman named Thomas Barton who established himself in southern France and bought up some vineyards.  (You may have heard of Barton & Guestier.  Same Barton.)  Power Tasting is all about the wine tasting experience, and when you are in a great Bordeaux château, the history is a part of the experience.

Your tour must be booked in advance and you had better arrive promptly.  You will be met, escorted and explained to by your designated guide.  Ours spoke English, but since Lucie was raised in French and Steve can get along, much of the tour was conducted in a mix of the two languages.  If you have even a little French, you may get better explanations if you use that language.

Much of the tour is of the château itself, which is lovely in the same way that Downton Abbey is lovely.  It is still the Barton family home.  At one point, we were in a corridor with windows facing the gardens.  We saw a man in running clothes jogging by with some hounds.  Our guide exclaimed, “Oh, there goes the count!”

As on most winery tours, you get to see the blending and barrel rooms.  The huge wooden tanks (not stainless steel as in the United States and even much of France) are quite impressive.  Our guide told us that Léoville Barton still holds with tradition.  We think that all that really matters is in the glass, so let both tradition and modernity reign.  Of course, the rows of barrels full of future great wine does raise a thirst.

The tasting itself consists of two wines: Langoa Barton first and then Léoville Barton.  (There is also a Léoville Barton second label, but we don’t remember it being offered.)  Langoa Barton is itself a third growth, so it’s not shabby.  Having the second growth Léoville Barton alongside – both made by the same people from grapes on adjoining ground –  really brings out what makes one wine better, or at least different, from the other.

As we have said before, wine tasting in Bordeaux is snobbish like nowhere else in Wine Country, but it is worth going at least once.  Let’s not forget, they have real châteaux there and they’ve been making great wine a long time before the New World did. You can taste their experience in the glass.  Santé !

There is a certain type of winery in Napa Valley (and elsewhere, too) that sets our teeth on edge.  Someone is a great success at something other than wine making, buys a property in Wine Country and vows to make wine that’s not only great in itself but reflects the values of his (always his) family and their tradition.  After all, this is the description of Joseph Phelps and many other great, great wine makers whose products have enriched our lives and those of many other wine lovers, so we cannot be doctrinaire.

To that select group we must add Rich and Leslie Frank, whose Frank Family Vineyards are located in Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley.  They were big shots in television before opening their winery.  It is not our purpose at Power Tasting to review wines, but it is fair to say that we enjoy their wines very much.  Our objective is to pass along our views on the experience of wine tasting at wineries we have visited, and Frank Family gets high marks there, as well.

The site itself is historic.  There is a rather spare stone building, which was once the building of Hanns Kornell’s winery, where methode champenoise winemaking was introduced to America on a commercial basis.  The Franks bought the vineyards and the winery that Mr. Kornell had built.  As you drive up, you’ll find a spacious picnic area under the trees.  Evidently, Frank Family was grandfathered in; Napa County doesn’t give permits for picnicking to newer wineries.

The building hosting the tasting room has the feeling of an old home, with lots of wood and rooms leading from one to one another.  Cleverly, Frank Family has set up bars in several of the rooms, so it never feels very crowded.  You can also have a seated tasting, which we found worthwhile as you get to really savor their reserve wines.  This being Napa Valley, the top wines are Cabernet Sauvignons, especially the Patriarch, which is 100% Cab and quite expensive as well.

One of the bars at Frank Family

We found the servers to be quite knowledgeable about their wines and wine in general.  This may be because they knew we were from Power Tasting, so we hope that it is representative of the entire staff.  If you do take a reserve tasting, you’ll find it valuable to have several glasses so that you can compare different wines and, if you’re lucky and they have them open, different vintages of the same wine.  Our experience at Frank Family is that if you exhibit real interest in their wines, they go out of their way to provide you with an interesting experience with a lot of variety and interesting insights into their wines.

Many visitors to Napa Valley drive up from San Francisco and go wine tasting only in the southern end of the valley.  Now, we love the wines there too, but sometimes it pays to just keep driving north.  Calistoga itself has its own charms, being a bit more of an old-fashioned feel than some of the other towns in Napa Valley. There are very nice cafes and restaurants where you can enjoy your lunch.   And it has mud baths (ugh!).  It’s worth making the drive and if you do come up that way, make sure that Frank Family is on your itinerary.

 

If you buy a bottle of Volpaia Chianti (http://www.volpaia.com/), either the Classico or the Classico Reserva, not only will you get a bottle of rather nice wine (it seems to be our house red these days) but you will also receive a nice little sketch on the label, shown below.  If you don’t mind taking a long drive up a steep hill to visit the only winery around for miles, you can see the sketch come to life.

The sketch on a bottle of Volpaia Chianti Classico

The nearest large town to Volpaia (pronounced vole-PIE-ya) is Radda, definitely worth a visit in itself if you are visiting the Chianti region of Tuscany.  It is in the heart of the Classico region where all the best Chiantis come from.  (It’s called Classico because it’s from this region, a brilliant marketing ploy on the part of the local wine makers.  There’s nothing any more classic about it than Sangiovese from other areas of Tuscany, but you do get the DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita or “controlled and guaranteed denomination of origin”) label and the other marketing inspiration, the Gallo Nero or black cockerel.

According to Google Maps, it’s only 7.4 km or 12 minutes from Radda to Volpaia.  Evidently Mr. Google looked at the road from a satellite and never drove it.  The road is full of hairpin turns and it’s straight up.  There are some beautiful views to be had along the way, but the driver (Lucie was driving) won’t be able to look at them and the passenger (Steve  was), who will, will be more terrified by the drop than thrilled by the beauty.  But never fear, they lose very few tourists.

On the road up to Volpaia

And then you get to the village and you understand why you made the voyage up the mountain.  It looks exactly like you expect a tiny Italian village to look.  There are the villas, the osteria, the cistern and the castello…and that’s about it.  It seems that all of this is owned and operated by one family, the Mascheronis.  It attracts tourists all right, but it’s no tourist attraction…it’s the rarest find a tourist can make; it’s the real thing.

The Castello de Volpaia

And, oh yes, you can taste wine.  In a way, it’s a typical wine tasting setup: a bar, some bottles, a young man pouring you some wine and explaining what you’re drinking.  But it’s in an 11^th century castle!  There’s more to taste than Chianti, although the Reserva has been getting good numbers from the rating magazines.  There’s a Cabernet Sauvignon that has also been well received, a few whites and a Vin Santo dessert wine worth contending with.

Walk into the room next to the bar and you’ll get a sense of the centrality of wine (and olive oil) making in this village.  The bottles gathering dust are yet another reason why you’ll think you’re in a post card.

Wine history, Italian style

So now you have to drive down.   Steve tasted the wines, Lucie being the driver, she had just a sip of the Chianti and said: it tastes like hard cherry candy !  The young man said, you’re right, that’s what our Chianti should taste !

Sanford Winery (http://www.sanfordwinery.com/) makes Burgundian wines – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – in Santa Barbara County’s famed Santa Rita Hills.  Sanford has a tasting room in the Santa Rita Hills that we haven’t visited and also one in the city of Santa Barbara, which we have.  Sanford is a Terlato property, the same as Chimney Rock in the Napa Valley.  That fact alone is evidence of high quality wines and knowledgeable servers.  Santa Barbara’s wine tasting scene is a bit schizophrenic, with a wild party atmosphere in the so-called Funk Zone downtown near the ocean and more refined tasting rooms uptown in or near the classy shopping district on State Street.  Needless to say, Sanford is uptown.

Some in-town tasting rooms are strictly commercial.  Others project a feeling of being in a nice club room.  Still others try to incorporate the atmosphere of the town they are in into the tasting room.  Sanford is a bar, a very classy bar to be sure, but all the same, a bar.  It has a polished wooden floor, some large and small tables and a bar with some high stools.  There’s no standing tastings at Sanford.

Photo courtesy of Winery Explorers (http://wineryexplorers.com/)

It’s in a shopping center.  Again, it’s an up-scale shopping center with restaurants and shops full of beautiful things, but it’s a shopping center and it affects the wine tasting experience at Sanford.  The wines, which are first-rate, become another expensive luxury item.  Okay, all wine is an expensive luxury, but it doesn’t need to feel that way.  So when you visit Sanford, and we hope you do, keep the door at your back.

Photo courtesy of Sanford Winery

What you will get when you go to Sanford is, in ascending order, a lesson in their wines, their Sanford & Benedict vineyard and winemaking in the Santa Rita Hills.  All of this is accompanied by quite a broad range of wines for you to sample.  Some of the wines Sanford produces are breathtakingly expensive; in all likelihood you won’t get a chance to taste those.  But the ones that are available to taste give an excellent perspective of what the Santa Rita Hills is capable of and what American Pinot Noirs ought to be.

In some ways, the best part of tasting in Sanford’s Santa Barbara location is that you get to sip these wines without the necessity of an hour or more of driving to Lompoc, where Sanford is based.  In fact, that case could be made for tasting wines in the city of Santa Barbara rather than trying to take in all the wineries in the rather vast county of Santa Barbara.  Many other top-end wineries have realized that and have opened tasting rooms in-town.

The wine-tasting experience at Sanford Santa Barbara is a bit unusual but definitely worthwhile.  The same may be said of visiting Santa Barbara itself, to be addressed in a future Places to Visit article.

Chimney Rock is nestled in the heart of Napa Valley’s Stags Leap district, but it would feel right at home in Sonoma County as well.  It’s a welcoming sort of place, pretty but not overly grandiose, where the wine is first rate and the servers are real educators – unless there is a heavy weekend crush. We recommend you visit Chimney Rock while in Napa Valley but do so on a weekday if you can.

The building looks like a cute Dutch cottage, veering to the point of cutesy.  Still, it doesn’t look much like anything anywhere else in Wine Country, South Africa excluded.  It certainly isn’t overwhelming, inside or out.  The interior contains a U-shaped bar that can get rather crowded at times.  There are also tastings held on the terrace, which isn’t particularly ornate, either.  All of which is to say that Chimney Rock is nicely appointed and cozy.

Tastings are not inexpensive, starting at $50 for a simple stand-up tasting at the bar.  They can be special enough that the fee is worth it.  More than anything else, we have found that the term “Wine Educator” on the servers’ badges is well earned.  Now, this is not universally the case.  A young person pouring on a weekend doesn’t have the knowledge or communication skills of someone with some grey hair on a normal weekday.  So, choose carefully where you stand at the bar and if you’re not getting the answers you want, move over a bit.

The wines you will be served fall into two categories: Cabernet Sauvignon and other.  Your server will probably start you off with what they call Elevage Blanc, which is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and the rarely encountered Sauvignon Gris.  It’s pleasant, maybe more than pleasant, but it’s not the reason to visit Chimney Rock; the reds are the stars of the show.

While Chimney Rock makes several single vineyard wines, you are most likely to be served their 100% Cabernet Sauvignon and their Elevage, which is a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot (no Malbec, just to say they have all five Bordeaux grapes).  Often, you have the chance to taste a short vertical of either label or both.  Just such a tasting as this, even without explanation, is a real education and with the expertise of the Wine Educator added can make for a unique wine tasting experience.

Chimney Rock wines tend to get very high marks from the rating magazines, so be prepared to sip some beverages that experts (whatever that means) think highly of.  Also, alas be prepared to spend a lot if you want to buy a few bottles.  To that extent, Chimney Rock is very Napa Valley.

Chimney Rock Winery is owned by the Terlato Wine Group, so you might also get a chance to taste some wines under the Terlato label.  In our opinion, these are also rather god but not quite up to the Chimney Rock-branded wines.  If you engage your Wine Educator with knowledgeable questions, you’ll probably also be treated to some other specials that they keep below the bar.

Some wineries, in both Napa Valley and Sonoma County, play up the architecture, the views, food pairings and other non-wine experiences.  A visit to Chimney Rock is all about the wines.

Jordan Winery is located between the Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys in Sonoma County.  Even though it’s a Sonoma winery, it has the feel (and the wines) of the Napa Valley.  The building itself is intended to resemble a grand French chateau, although there’s a lot of reminiscence of an English manor house as well.  The story (apocryphal or not) is that Thomas Jordan wanted to buy a great Bordeaux chateau and finding that none were for sale, decided to build one in California instead.  If anything could be called a Napa Palace, this is it, but it’s in Sonoma.  It awes but somehow doesn’t overwhelm the visitor.

 

The Jordan Winery (Photo courtesy of Jordan Winery)

Since the winery opened in 1979, the only wines made for general sale have been Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.  How Napa-fied is that?  (There is also a true Champagne made in France under the Jordan label, but that doesn’t count.)

The wine tasting experience lives up to the grandeur of the building.  There are only seated tastings in library, which may also be combined with tours of the winery and of the entire estate.  We suppose Jordan might take a walk-in if there were space available, but we wouldn’t advise risking it as here are rarely any open places.  We have taken many tours of many winemaking facilities and they all blend together in our memories, but this one is special, if only for the history of the building and the grounds.  Yes, it’s definitely California but it all has a very French feel to it.

After touring the property, you are ushered into an anteroom to the library.  Your hosts (it’s unfair to call them simply servers) pour a little something to get you in the mood, an aperitif so to speak.  It’s usually a glass of Chardonnay, but we have also had a sip of some rare wine that was made years before, just for members.  The room is as luxurious as you might imagine a chateau to be, all honey-colored wood, shelves, oriental carpets and exquisite knickknacks.  Jordan has deservedly built quite a reputation for their wines, so the preliminary tastes are no disappointment.

Finally, you are led into the library, with a long table set with dishes of savories to accompany the main event, the Cabernet Sauvignons.  The host explains what you are drinking as you sip.  There will always be a few recent releases, topped off with an older selection.  If you’re lucky, they’ll find a dessert wine that was only made in such-and-such a year.  You will be impressed.  That’s the whole idea.

Frankly, we are not fans of the overblown architecture and fancy airs that can be found at some wineries that make higher priced wines.  It’s a matter of taste, but that’s not our taste.  We have visited real Bordeaux chateaux and Jordan, if artificial, manages to emulate and honor the French tradition within a California setting.  After almost 40 years, it’s no longer fake French but rather it’s real California.  Grace, beauty and good wine are always in season, no matter the venue.