{"id":2313,"date":"2023-02-27T16:27:33","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T16:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2313"},"modified":"2023-02-27T16:27:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T16:27:33","slug":"rodney-strong-vineyards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2313","title":{"rendered":"Rodney Strong Vineyards"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rodney Strong winery is located in the northeastern corner of The Russian River district in Sonoma County.\u00a0 It is a little out of the way, since the Old Redwood Highway, where Rodney Strong sits, isn\u2019t chockablock full of wineries, as compared, say, with Dry Creek Road or Westside Road, both relatively nearby.\u00a0 While there are other wineries we favor close to Rodney Strong, such as Limerick Lane<\/a> or Foppiano<\/a>, you pretty much have to consider it to be a destination, rather than a place you would be one stop among many.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Rodney Strong facility.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

And a destination it should be.\u00a0 It is not a Sonoma Palace, but it is rather grand.\u00a0 You enter up a long staircase with splendid foliage all around you.\u00a0 Once inside, you find an elegant, if a bit austere tasting room with servers who know quite a lot about the Rodney Strong wines.\u00a0 They had better, because there are so many of them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The tasting room at Rodney Strong.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reason we say that this winery is atypical for Russian River is that they don\u2019t just make Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Chardonnay, although they do produce all those varietals.\u00a0 But there are also Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Sauvignon, red and white blends and ros\u00e9.\u00a0 In this regard, Rodney Strong is more like a winery in Napa Valley than Russian River.<\/p>\n

The sheer number of wines that are available for tasting is one of this winery\u2019s strengths.\u00a0 Particularly for those who are not familiar with Sonoma County wines, this is a great place for an introduction, especially to Sonoma County as it used to be.\u00a0 For Rodney Strong has been making wine here since 1959, with a family history stretching back to the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Mr. Strong himself was a Broadway dancer, who retired to buy vineyards and make wine.\u00a0 It is always a pleasure to acquaint yourself with some of the pioneers of California winemaking as we know it today.\u00a0 Since Mr. Strong was among the first to plant Pinot Noir in Russian River and Chardonnay in Chalk Hill, you really have a chance there to indulge in wine history.<\/p>\n

Another way that Rodney Strong reflects the past is the price points for its wines.\u00a0 In these days when the top bottles in many wineries go for well north of a hundred dollars, their most expensive wines under the Rodney Strong label can be purchased for two digits.\u00a0 The cost of a wine is not necessarily indicative of its quality, but the overall pricing does set expectations.\u00a0 Within that restriction, Rodney Strong delivers good, drinkable wine, some definitely worth sampling.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the strength of such a wide range of varietals is also a weakness.\u00a0 No one can make that many wines equally well.\u00a0 But if your intent is to have wine for everyday dinners or barbecues, you can do very well at Rodney Strong.\u00a0 And there are some wines you might taste that will do well with a weekend steak dinner as well.<\/p>\n

The experience of a tasting at Rodney Strong \u2013 ambience, selection and wine \u2013 make a trip there quite satisfying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rodney Strong winery is located in the northeastern corner of The Russian River district in Sonoma County.\u00a0 It is a little out of the way, since the Old Redwood Highway, where Rodney Strong sits, isn\u2019t chockablock full of wineries, as compared, say, with Dry Creek Road or Westside Road, both relatively nearby.\u00a0 While there … Continue reading Rodney Strong Vineyards<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2316,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions\/2316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}