Where highways 101 and 128 meet in northern Sonoma County, you’ll find the town of Cloverdale—population: 8,618.
Cloverdale is part of the Alexander Valley, home of Pick’s Drive-In and its red relish-topped hamburgers...the historic Gould-Shaw House Museum and its collection of memorabilia from the 19th and early 20th centuries...Cloverdale River Park, where you can launch a kayak or canoe...and Miroslav Tcholakov and his winery.
New Zealand has emerged as the Sauvignon Blanc capital of the wine world, and among the best-known makers of the variety in that island nation is Oyster Bay.
In fact, Oyster Bay was named “one of the world’s most admired wine brands” by the industry publication Drinks International.
Over the years, the wines clubs of Vinesse have featured the fine wines of Chateau Julien on a number of occasions.
Actually, “a number of occasions” doesn’t even begin to describe it. I don’t have the figures in front of me, but it has to number in the dozens. And the reason is simple: Chateau Julien makes a wide spectrum of wines, and the quality is consistently impressive across the board.
Nature’s gift to romance is the sunset, and there’s no better place to watch a Sonoma County wine country sunset than Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa.
In fact, Paradise Ridge hosts a weekly event called “Wines and Sunsets in Paradise.” Unfortunately, those events are limited to early May through mid-October, which means it’s not a Valentine’s Day option. Still, a planned trip to Paradise Ridge for that event would make a nice Valentine’s gift.
Trying to follow Joe Heitz in the wine business is a bit like trying to follow Babe Ruth in the Yankees’ lineup. Lou Gehrig managed to pull it off, but there aren’t many Lou Gehrigs out there.
For many years, the Heitz Cellar Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon bottling known far and wide as “Martha’s Vineyard” was among the top-ranked Cabs in the country. It was a big, bold, easily identifiable wine with a unique personality and, because of the demand for it, an ever-rising price tag.
It was a “cult wine” long before that phrase came into widespread use.
When Casidy Ward and Lynn Hofacket purchased the Hidden Ridge Vineyard (http://www.hiddenridgevineyard.com) property in 1991, they envisioned the former site of a private hunting club as the perfect location for a home in the country — a place that truly would be “away from it all.”
When you meet Hofacket, he comes across as a down-to-earth, practical man, with a sharp sense of humor that’s often directed at local politics or the powers-that-be in the winemaking world. He’s opinionated, but certainly not insane.
Lazy Creek Vineyards is named for the meandering creek that runs through the 95-acre ranch located four miles west of Philo in Mendocino County’s bucolic Anderson Valley.
A pleasant detour off Highway 128, Lazy Creek’s narrow, dirt road — overgrown with rambling bushes and ferns, towering redwoods and oak trees — opens onto the rustic farmhouse, barn, cottages and winery outbuildings with its menagerie of animals, gardens, fruit trees and vineyards. It’s one of the smallest wineries in the valley, and the second oldest.
It’s not exactly like the safari excursions you could take at South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park, but it’s a safari of a kind.
At Waterford Estate in the Stellenbosch growing region of South Africa, guests can board a safari-type game-viewing Landrover that has been outfitted with bucket seats. No more than 10 passengers at a time embark on tours of the property, which sits on the slopes of the beautiful Helderberg Mountain.
A press release arrived in my email Wednesday that made my day.
It made my day for two reasons:
In less than a decade, Dutton Estate Winery has emerged as one of the most dependable makers of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in a region known for those varietals—Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley.
The estate is situated just outside the charming town of Sebastopol. Once a dominant apple-growing region, Sebastopol now is a destination hideaway and home to the winery’s founders, Joe and Tracy Dutton.
Vinesse specializes in helping wine lovers discover interesting wines. By sharing limited-production gems that generally don’t appear on the shelves of local stores, Vinesse has grown to become one of the largest and most respected wine club companies in the U.S.
From our base in Southern California, Vinesse cultivates relationships with some of the most respected winemakers in the world. These relationships are critical to supplying each of our ten wine clubs with exceptional wines from amazing boutique wineries.
In addition to sharing exceptional wine gems with our dedicated circle of members, Vinesse also offers wine collections, wine accessories and individual wine sales to wine lovers across the U.S.
