Part 1 Part 2

Turn­ing onto the Ston­estreet Win­ery Estate, you real­ize you are actu­ally in a val­ley between the Coast Range to the west and the May­a­ca­mas Moun­tains to the east. All right, I didn’t “actu­ally real­ize” I was between these moun­tain ranges. I am not known as the Geog­ra­phy Diva, I looked these facts up.  I also learned that these moun­tains ranges and val­leys were formed from a vol­canic explo­sion. The lava flowed form­ing a part of the ranges, while also spread­ing ash and min­er­als through­out Napa & Sonoma. The des­o­late soil the fiery flow left behind mil­lions of years ago, com­bined with the fog that gets trapped between these ranges and keeps the grapes cool until late in the day, causes the grapes to strug­gle for sur­vival, yield­ing smaller grapes of intense fla­vor. I guess you could say each lit­tle bunch of grapes is a like box from Tiffany’s…the best things come in small packages!

The tast­ing room was Cal­i­for­nia con­tem­po­rary set within a élite “barn” aes­thetic. As as a horse owner, I am nat­u­rally drawn to and com­forted by the sim­ple archi­tec­ture of a barn. This sim­ple archi­tec­ture sur­rounded by vine­yards is even more com­fort­ing. A girl can dream.

We were pre­sented a tast­ing flight of 3 three vineyard-designated Chardon­nays — Upper Barn Chardon­nay, Bro­ken Road Chardon­nay and Red Point Chardonnay…Oh– maybe I for­got to men­tion that Angela and Michelle were actu­ally try­ing to round out their wine col­lec­tion– so they were also in need of Chardon­nays. Evette and I were try­ing to “round” out or should I say “start” our wine col­lec­tion, so we were in need of Chardon­nays too!

The Upper Barn Chardon­nay was a bit too fruity for me. More like a Sauvi­gnon Blanc. The Red Point Chardon­nay was a bit too yeasty or dry. Noth­ing wrong with that, I was look­ing for a much more but­tery depth of fla­vor. The Bro­ken Road Chardon­nay was just right. 4 bot­tles please, thank-you.

These are my opin­ions and are cer­tain to dif­fer from an actual pro­fes­sional review. So, let’s look at  a pro­fes­sional review of The Bro­ken Road Chardon­nay from the Wine Advocate.

“… more min­er­al­ity, broad orange blos­som, nec­tarine, and guava notes, some hints of hazel­nut and brioche… very full-bodied rich­ness, and slightly more acid­ity and def­i­n­i­tion than the Red Point.” Robert M. Parker Jr., Wine Advo­cate, Decem­ber 2007

Hmmmm, I didn’t see but­tery men­tioned once. Oh well, it was yummy.

Our next stop was Stryker Sonoma. This win­ery was the Tiger Woods of winer­ies: Sporty, mod­ern, grace­ful, tal­ented and it delivered.

In com­par­i­son to the other winer­ies I have already shared with you and the ones to come, Stryker was not the most lav­ish or scenic. It was not the most expen­sive or impres­sive. Even though it was the Win­ner of the 2002 Archi­tec­tural Design Award for North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, it was not the most beau­ti­ful. Yet, the tast­ing expe­ri­ence here was the most com­fort­able and enjoy­able. Funny thing to say about stand­ing at a bar? Well, that’s just it, it felt as if you were at your favorite bar with a group of good friends, good wine and a per­son­able bar­tender that treated you like a friend instead of a pay­ing client.

Our barista pre­sented us with a list of over 40 wines we could choose to taste. Don’t be con­cerned, we were respon­si­ble Wine Divas, we selected about 8–10 dif­fer­ent wines, mixed between reds and whites. By this time, I was tak­ing small sips and only sec­ond sips of those I really liked in order to com­pare and assess.

This win­ery hap­pened to be one of Angela and Michelle’s fond­est finds on their last trip. While they were busy dis­cussing pur­chases for per­sonal con­sump­tion and gifts, Evette and I were being indoc­tri­nated into our next level of wine­hood..the pur­chase of  2, I said TWO cases of wine. And, drum roll please, we joined the Med­ley Wine Club! 3 bot­tles of the lastest releases 4 times a year. You also receive a dis­count on any other wine pur­chase you make through­out the year.

For your vini­fi­ca­tion infor­ma­tion, I will list the wines we pur­chased. I rec­om­mend you visit the wine list­ings to read more about the wines and more impor­tantly, the rec­om­men­da­tion for food pair­ings. The site it very user friendly. Here are our pur­chases: 2006 Semillon-Chardonnay: Sonoma County, 2005 San­giovese: Alexan­der Val­ley, 2006 Zinfandel’s Patty’s Patch:Alexander Val­ley, 2004 Caber­net Sauvi­gnon: Sonoma County, 2003 Cab “3”: Sonoma County. Some of these selec­tions are new releases and oth­ers are only avail­able at the vineyard.

For the grand finale of the day, we vis­ited a jewel of a vine­yard, Ferrari-Carano.

Nes­tled in a pocket, hid­den by trees, you come upon what looks like, a pri­vate Ital­ian villa. 3 guesses why I loved it…OK…you may only need 1 guess. For me — THIS — was the most impres­sive win­ery. It’s grandeur and ele­gance con­veyed the same sense of time­less­ness and beauty that you would see in pri­vate vil­las in Italy.

Before enter­ing the main grounds, there is a tran­quil gar­den with a water­fall and run­ning streams. The gar­den beds were filled with vibrant flow­ers, lush green­ery and the charm­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing  Cork Oak. Yes, cork trees. The bark is cork. They are mature enough to peel the cork off the trunk after 25 years and can be har­vested again every 10–12 years. they live for approx­i­mately 150–250 years. I bet you never gave cork much thought, did you? Well, now you can pack that lit­tle gem of use­less yet fas­ci­nat­ing infor­ma­tion away until the rare lull in your next din­ner party.

The main build­ing or hos­pi­tal­ity cen­ter known as Villa Fiore, housed 2 tast­ing rooms. The clas­sic wines were on the main level, the lim­ited releases in the cellar.

I have to say that even though it was just as grand inside, it felt more like a retail shop and much more touristy than the other winer­ies we vis­ited that day.

I also have to admit that by this time it was late in the after­noon and I was worn out from tast­ing. Yes, I said it. I was tired of tast­ing and think­ing about wine for the day. I was happy to have Angela and Michele con­tinue the tast­ing in the cel­lar while Evette and I sat out­side in the sun, enjoy­ing the fresh air and soak­ing in the beauty of the grounds.

I bought 3 bot­tles of 2005 Carneros Chardon­nay Reserve. I made the pur­chase purely on Angela and Michelle’s recommendation.

Big sigh. Done with our first day in the wine coun­try. It was a lot of fun and very edu­ca­tional. Angela did a fab­u­lous job of plan­ning and execution.

Off to Rossa’s for Pizza Mag­a­rita. I’ll just have water with mine, please.