Annual Frank Family Vineyards Visit

Our next stop was an old favorite and was just a matter of changing rooms. We left the Frank Family VIP room and headed over to do a tasting of their reserve wines in the newly renovated tasting room. Frank Family has been one of our many favorites and we return each year to try the latest vintages of their reserve wines and champagne which are not sold locally. Shortly after our visit last year Frank Family opened their new tasting room in the original Craftsman House on the property.

The former residence of the original winery owner was lovingly restored including a brick fireplace that was found underneath layers of plaster and paint. I will admit for a moment I did miss the old neat “no frills” tasting room, only for a moment though. The new tasting is beautiful and definitely an improvement. Frank Family Chardonnay is one of my favorites and the reserve Chardonnay was outstanding this year along with the reserve Cabernet and Sangiovese. I think it goes without saying that we never leave without a case or two being sent back home and this year was no different.

Fortress Vineyards

After leaving Silver Oak we headed up to Calistoga for our appointment with Fortress Vineyards. Fortress does not currently have a tasting room of their own, so they hosted us in the new Frank Family VIP tasting room. My brother-in-law found Fortress while researching places to visit on our day trip up to Lake County which is where the vineyard is located.

Owner Barbara Snider was our host for the tasting and I can’t say enough about how good the Fortress wines are. We came away with two new favorites; the Sauvignon Blanc and Petite Syrah, with the Petite being one of the best I had ever tasted. I will not go into a lot of detail on Fortress as a forthcoming write up will be posted on our Unique U.S. Wineries page in the near future. However, I will say that Fortress was one of our favorites of the week and reminds me why it pays to research and try new and unique wineries.

Silver Oak Cellars

Day 4 began at one of our old favorites, Silver Oak Cellars. We headed out to the Napa tasting room located in Oakville. As you may know, there is also a tasting room in Sonoma County where you can sample the latest Silver Oak vintages, but we were all very excited to get to the new Napa Valley winery and tasting room as the rebuild had been completed since we last visited. While the new tasting room made its debut almost a year ago now in late September our last visit to Silver Oak was in May while everything was still under construction.

We entered the tasting room through the massive cellar doors to an elegant, yet, cozy tasting room complete with a fireplace that looked well broken in. The room is mostly limestone with a tasting bar crafted from white oak brought in from an 1820 barn in Missouri topped off in steel. Behind the tasting bar there is the most gorgeous hand carved wooden replica of the Silver Oak emblem. A massive piece of art leaving out no detail that is stunning to look at. The tasting room has some of the original pieces, such as the tables and old tasting bars that adorn areas of the room.

The wine speaks for itself of course; so I don’t feel the need to go into much detail as it is always outstanding. I do feel the need to tell you about our host, an older gentleman named Deke. He was fascinating. His stories were amazing, his knowledge of the winery, the wines, the valley and simply his life itself were truly incredible. After purchasing a few memento’s and a large format bottle to ship home we tore ourselves away from the tasting bar and Deke’s stories with a promise to return again next year which has yet to be broken for many years running.

Mounts Winery Dry Creek Valley

Our intension after Raymond Burr was to head back to the Inn. Well, plans change and we came upon a sign with balloons on Wine Creek Road which is just off of West Dry Creek Road, announcing Mounts Winery. Of course we decided to check it out so up the long driveway past rows of vineyards we went to the top of a hill with a beautiful view of the surrounding vineyards. Mounts is family owned and operated and we were greeted by the family themselves, and welcomed to the tasting area set up outdoors on the patio for the holiday weekend. The set up was complete with a barbeque, including ribs that were some of the best I have ever tasted. Rich Mount and his son David are the owners with Rich doing the farming (he is also responsible for those fantastic ribs) and David the winemaker. Growers of premium grapes for three generations and over 50 years, the Mounts opened their winery in 2007. We tasted a selection of five wines, all very good yet we were really impressed with their 2007 Estate Syrah and 2007 Estate Petite Syrah. Both of these wines are young and on the tannic side, have big, bold, complex flavors with a dark inky color and should mellow and age well. Both are small production with 475 cases of the Petite Syrah and 175 cases of the Syrah produced. All agreed this was another great find and that Mounts will be added to our list of favorites for a revisit in the future.

Raymond Burr Vineyards annual visit

During our travels through Sonoma three years ago, we happened upon Raymond Burr Vineyards. Since that time we have been returning every year to taste the newest vintage of Chardonnay which is one of my favorites along with the Cabernet and Cabernet Franc, both very good also. This year we arrived at Raymond Burr on the 4th of July weekend and they were having a small picnic celebration with tasting out on the patio. They have a lovely picnic area outside the tasting room with tables under shade trees over looking rolling vineyards. It was a nice day to sit outside, take in the view and taste the latest vintages. It reminded me of a family celebration with a neighbor doing some pouring and old friends helping out. There was a grill fired up with sausage and hotdogs with all the fixin’s. We shipped home our favorites and all agreed it was a great stop to cap off our day in Sonoma. For a more in depth look at Raymond Burr Vineyards and the history behind it, visit our unique U.S. Wineries page.

Tasting at Locals

We left Stryker for a short trip over to Geyserville and a stop at Locals Tasting Room. Locals is a winery collective, or tasting room that features wines from boutique wineries that either do not have or want tasting rooms of their own. Locals presently features 10 award winning wineries with a selection of over 62 wines. Our reason for the visit was to try a selection of Portalupi wine after meeting the winemaker, Tim Borges at Envy the day before. We ended up doing a flight of wines from several different wineries including Portalupi.

I have to say I am not a regular of collectives as I find the experience somewhat like shopping at a super market. I feel the experience is more personal at tasting rooms on winery property with small groups, also why I stay away from the big wineries that attract large groups of people. I will admit Locals was a different and like able experience for me. Not only were the wines very good, the tasting room was cozy and full of atmosphere. Our host Diane happily provided information on the wineries, winemakers and wines as we sampled them, along with some stories of her time on the East Coast and how she arrived in California working at Locals. After selecting wine to ship home we headed out for a visit to Raymond Burr Vineyards; another old favorite.

Stryker Sonoma Winery

We headed out on our third day over to Sonoma to visit a few favorites such as Raymond Burr and also wanted to explore some new stops as well. If you have ever been to Sonoma you know that most roads have street signs with arrows pointing to the direction of the local wineries. While driving towards our intended stop and looking for a new find, we saw the sign for Stryker. That struck a familiar cord with us as it was one of the first bottles that we received as a gift for our new wine cellar many years ago from our brother in law. We opened it several years later and it was outstanding. It had been purchased in California and we had never tried the wines again until that day. As we arrived at Stryker we thought the rolling vineyards surrounding the building were quite picturesque, but then upon entering the tasting room, the view really took our breath away. As we sampled the Stryker wines we looked through large glass windows that lined the rear of the tasting bar out over the vineyards. The tasting room itself was simple and elegant all at the same time with a cozy looking fireplace at one end for the cooler months. I am not sure if I have a favorite Stryker wine as we enjoyed them all, although the Russian River Zinfandel comes to mind quickly. As a red wine fan, the more I tasted at Stryker, the more I thought I now have another favorite in Sonoma I will need to visit on a regular basis. Stryker offers a small line of white wines (chardonnay and Semillon) and a much larger line of red wine. The red wines are Zinfandels, Merlots, Cabernets, Blends, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. All of the wines are well balanced and smooth with aging potential for years to come. The Stryker philosophy is all about quality, fruit and character and I can attest that it shines through in each bottle.

Freemark Abbey

Our last stop for the day was at an old favorite, Freemark Abbey. Their tasting room happens to be within walking distance of the Wine Country Inn so it was an easy choice. Freemark has a long history in the valley beginning back in 1886 when Josephine Marlin Tychson became the first woman to build and operate a winery in California. The site where Tychson Cellars once stood is now Freemark Abbey. The winery has changed hands many times over the years and is presently owned by Kendall Jackson Estates. Their tasting room recently went through an extensive renovation complete with a fireplace, 25-foot bar and private estate tasting room that can accommodate 12 people. Most of the Freemark wines are distributed, and the complete line includes selections of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Petite Sirah, Sirah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot, Viognier , summer whites, desert wines, and Library Wines. Also included is a blend called Josephine named after the original owner, a varietal composition of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 13% Malbec, and 5% Cabernet Franc. With our day of tasting over we finished by shipping home a selection of wine not distributed in our area, and headed back to the Inn for the afternoon tasting and appetizer hour.

Envy Estate Wines

One of the things you find out in the valley is many times there is a connection between wineries. Well known winemakers will help out other wineries and vineyards by do consulting work for them. Smaller vineyards or locations without sufficient property often do not have crush pads, tanks, or storage areas and will work out agreements for sharing facilities. Sometimes it may even come down to a trade type agreement, you work for me and I work for you. There is also the making of friendships with either money or talent to start a new venture. Remember growing grapes and making wine is not an easy or inexpensive under taking, and not something the inexperienced should try alone. Our next stop suggested by Lin at Venge Vineyards was one of these joint ventures that we were excited to try. Envy Wines was started by a well known Napa name, Nils Venge (a widely known, busy winemaker in the valley) and his friend Mark Carter. Carter is an innkeeper who owns Carter House; a group of four beautiful Victorians perched alongside Humboldt Bay in Old Town Eureka. Carter and Venge were introduced by a mutual friend back while Nils was making wine for Groth Vineyards where he received a perfect score of 100 from wine critic Robert Parker for Groth’s 1985 Reserve Cabernet. Nils became a regular at Carter House after starting his own Saddleback Cellars, and attending the first winemaker dinner hosted there. As the story goes Carter had an extensive wine list at his restaurant and began bugging Nils about making a wine he could call his own. Nils Venge would later help Carter make his first wine in 1998 and Carter Cellars was born. Their friendship would endure and they eventually teamed up to launch Envy Wines. Together they purchased the former Calistoga Cellars property off of Tubbs Lane in Calistoga. The property includes 11.2 acres of Cabernet and Merlot vines, a tasting room and wine making facility. After taking possession of the property last December, Envy is already off and running with the tasting room selling wine from their inaugural release. The tasting room is a small, stylish building that offers a bit of a homey feel to it with a table and chairs nested in the middle where you can relax if you choose. A dog (and his owners) was welcomed into the tasting room while we were there. A woman came in who was hosting a party at her home that evening and simply had to purchase a case of wine from Envy for her party. We too had to purchase a case of wine to ship home to the East Coast as well as a few bottles for consumption on the remainder of our trip. We sampled whites, a Rose, and several Reds. We loved all of them but I think a group favorite was Bee Bee’s blend. Another great stop and some new Envy customers will be back to purchase again.

Touring Schramsberg

After our visit to Venge with Lin, she was able to get us a quick tour at Schramsberg as her husband Ron works there and luckily had some time to fit us in. We appreciated that very much as two members of our party had never been to Scrhamsberg and were looking forward to it. They were looking forward to it partly because of how we had described the uniqueness of the champagne caves and partly just due to the vast amount of history the world famous Schramsberg has to offer. As we waited for our appointed time with Ron, we stood outside by the lily pad frog pond and observed the beauty of nature in action.

The pond has lots of frogs, plenty of tadpoles and bright colorful flowers bursting off lily pads with the most fascinating bugs flying around the area. In the middle of the pond is the frog holding the champagne glass to the sky, a replica of the wine maker holding the champagne glass to the moon to see if the wine is ready, as the story is told.

We then saw Ron in the doorway and quickly headed over to begin our tour. We made sure to take a look at the various presidential pictures and memorabilia, such as menus from White House dinners where Schramsberg wines were served that adorned the walls before heading into the caves. Ron first poured us some champagne to take along for the walk, so we sipped while learning about the champagne process and viewing the caves. A massive amount of bottles line the walls of the cave, rows and rows all stacked neatly resting for their time. If you can allow yourself to imagine long dark caves with moss and mold growing freely almost anywhere it can attach itself, you have an idea of what we were viewing. Very old hand dug caves dating back to the 1800’s travel what seems forever with various alcoves off the main cave walkway. There are areas nicely decorated for tours and tastings along the way as well as the occasional stain mark where the pressure had built up to the point that the bottle broke dripping liquids down the row.

While we had previously taken a public tour, this tour was more of a trade tour and allowed us to get a more in depth view of just how long the champagne making process is. We learned that Schramsberg is one of the few places to still perform hand riddling of the bottles, a time consuming process. This tour also allowed us to view more of the facility including the bottling area which was fascinating. All of the Scramsberg champagnes were outstanding. Although we did not get to taste it that day, the J Davies Cabernet is also incredible if you can get a hold of a bottle. Ron did a fabulous job and we look forward to visiting again. As the history of Schramsberg is so extensive, I would also recommend you visit their website to learn more about the property the winery is located on. http://www.schramsberg.com/