After living in Sonoma county for almost a year, I finally got a chance this last Saturday to go visit some of the local Sonoma Valley wineries in my backyard. It was a great day of tasting at Kenwood, Chateau St. Jean and Benziger family -- three wineries with similar focuses yet very different tasting experiences.
We started our day off at Kenwood, and while we didn't take any pictures while we were there, this was our best overall tasting. The Kenwood winery sits, appropriately, just within the city limits of Kenwood on the side of Highway 12. The tasting room was a century old barn that was predictably homey. Kenwood is famous for their artist series of Cabernets that feature different works of art fromt the owner's private collection. I scored major points with the tasting room staff for recognizing that the artist of this Cabernet...
Also did this slightly less known painting...
The best part about Kenwood was Dale, the old-timer working behind the bar. Dale had some great stories to tell and had just the right amount of personality for a morning wine tasting. When he found out I worked for Gallo, Dale told us some fun stories about how "Ernie" would come through Sonoma and buy grapes from lots of struggling growers, literally keeping the Sonoma Valley afloat for many years. Its really nice to get the perspective of the older generation on Gallo from the folks that were actually in the wine industry and saw just how much the company actually did to advance people's knowledge and prop up the entire agriculture of the area. I hear so often the initial gut-reactions of folks to the "jug wine" of Gallo that its nice to finally hear someone speak fondly of "Ernie" and Julio. I'll have to revisit Kenwood to try some of their other wines. I already have some new ideas for their artist series. Maybe the '09 vintage can feature Thomas Kincaid: "Painter of Smarm".
From Kenwood we continued on to Chateau St. Jean.
The wines were great and the grounds spectacular. I also had fun swapping wine retail stories with the guy behind the bar, who admitted that he much often preferred Whiskey to wine.
They had a super cool private chateau for club members and we also got to see some burning rootstock, a reminder that while the picking is over, the growing never stops as we look forward to next year.
After a lite lunch, Brittany and I headed into Glen Ellen to visit the Benziger Family Winery. Brittany was quite taken with my new phone and took lots of pictures as I was driving. You can see my reaction.
The Benziger Family winery is situated in a natural bowl above the hamlet of Glen Ellen in the shadow of Sonoma Mountain. The sun was setting and it was getting quite chilly, but our main goal was to take the biodynamic tour of the property. Our tour guide John gave us a great rundown of how the Benzigers farm grapes in the bowl, citing come pretty cool natural methods they use on the property. For every mechanical process you might find at other wineries (water filtration pumps, mowers and tractors, insecticides) the Benzigers have developed a natrual alternative.
When they couldn't drive tractors up the steep slopes to mow weeds, they brought in four wheel drive grass-muchin' sheep. When they needed waste water filtered, they built a natrual swamp on the property that filters it for them. When they needed good bugs to eat the bad bugs in the vineyards, they planted beautiful gardens with specific plants designed to attract those bugs.
Indeed, everything at Benziger was designed to encourage nature to do as much of the work as possible. With little interference in the growing process by "man", we got very different wines at the end of the tour for tasting. The Benziger wines tasted much more raw and earthy. You could really taste the difference from wine to wine.
The best part about our tasting day was seeing three different wineries with three different focuses. Kenwood brought the country charm of a family winery with its homey tasting room and friendly staff. Chateau St. Jean impressed with their wide variety of wines and beautiful setting. At Benziger it was all about the land and farming. All in all, it was great to escape the glitz and pomp of Napa Valley and taste wine in the country.
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