Dry Creek Valley

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Amista Vineyards

July 19, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 9 comments

After our phenomenal visit to Michel-Schlumberger, we did a little driving around Dry Creek Valley just taking in the beautiful rolling hills and vineyards. This creek was not-so-dry 😉

We loved our rental Prius. Isn’t it cute?

And on our way to check into Bella Villa Messina, we happened upon Amista Vineyards.

Many gorgeous wineries can be found in Northern California, and there are many outstanding wines to be tasted, so what often makes a winery visit stand out a little bit further are the people behind the tasting counter. That was the case at Amista.

Down a long, rocky driveway flanked on both sides by vines, you will find Amista’s airy tasting room. High ceilings and tons of space give it a serene, uncluttered feel.

To my astonishment and delight, after I had emailed them to mention we would be stopping by, Amista welcomed us with a sign on the tasting bar. Just looking at the below photo makes me smile and makes me a little emotional, to be honest. We weren’t just two people stopping in to taste wine. It was the best welcome we could have ever gotten.

We looked around the tasting room a bit, and we discovered these BRILLIANT little tasting packs. We ended up buying two, and thankfully we were able to bring them home. The security agents were not happy with us; apparently only 4 of these little bottles fit into one of those plastic bags, so that is the limit per person. The third box that we had received as a gift from DeLoach was probably pushing it, but we got through this time. I will be sure to ship them next time when we visit in cooler weather.

It wasn’t long before Kari and Clayton got us down to tasting some wine. The first was one that I had been looking forward to after reviewing Amista’s website, 2008 Rosé of Syrah. This is a lovely, dry Rosé with a nice level of acidity, perfect for those who do not like their wine too sweet. It would be a great addition to a summer barbeque.

We tasted through the regular tasting menu which offered several great wines including their juicy, round 2006 Saini Farms Zinfandel, one of the grapes that the Dry Creek Valley is known for. But as I mentioned in my Michel-Schlumberger post, it was Syrah that I really ended up finding here.

As part of our tasting, Clayton brought out Amista Morningstar Vineyards Syrah from 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 for a vertical tasting. The cork imprint of the 2003 shows just how purple in color the wine is.

It was fun to taste through the years to discover the differences in flavors from vintage to vintage. My favorite? Well, I loved them all, but I was absolutely crazy about the 2005.It had a nose of freshly brewed coffee.This wine had big flavors, to me a little bit of roasted hazelnut, a little bit earthy, and a little bit of dark fruit. Simply perfect.

Amista’s wines are made with so much care; you can see that by looking around the tasting room and chatting with the staff, and you can learn more about the owners and their award winning wines on their website.

We left Amista happy and as proud new wine club members. We were sad to go, but something tells me we will be driving down this road again soon.

Don’t forget to enter my two giveaways: Taza Chocolate which ends tonight and Harvard Sweet Boutique which ends tomorrow night. And if you missed it yesterday, check out my recipe on Travessia Urban Winery’s blog.

Tags: Amista Vineyards, California, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma, Syrah, Travel, vineyards, wine, winery

Visiting Michel-Schlumberger

July 15, 2010 in Tasting Room Series, Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 13 comments

On our past few visits to Sonoma (here, here, here, and here) we always ran out of time to visit one of the wineries that I wanted to visit most, Michel-Schlumberger. When planning last week’s trip, we made a point of making Michel-Schlumberger first, and thanks to the magic of Twitter, we were on an 11:00 tour of the winery with VP of Marketing and Direct to Consumer Sales, Jim Morris.

We started out in the winery’s courtyard, a beautiful open space built in the style of an old California Mission house.

In addition to a frog pond, the courtyard also hosts tables that contain information on the magnificent ecosystem that Michel-Schlumberger has developed and maintained. The winery is organically farmed, an eco-friendly practice which lends itself to some problems with some very interesting natural solutions. For example, to curb the issue of vineyard pests, they make the property a homey place for birds of prey by placing simple perches and birdhouses throughout the vineyards.

They also wait to drain this pond and fill it with clean water until the pollywogs like the little guy on the right grow up and move out. 😉

The grounds are host to organic gardens, bee hives, a chicken coop that is home to some dwindling native chicken species, lawn-mowing sheep :), and an olive grove that is home to bad-insect-eating ladybugs. All of these living components serve some purpose in helping Michel-Schlumberger sustainably grow organic grapes that produce stellar wines. It also makes for an incredibly special tour experience.

Michel-Schlumberger’s vines grow along the hillsides of the Dry Creek Valley, where the soils, rainfall, fog, and temperatures throughout the year make up the unique terroir of the region. The vines here struggle, creating low yields of small fruit with concentrated but elegant flavors.

The views from Michel-Schlumberger’s vineyards are some of the best in Sonoma. Every which way you look, there’s lots of green, brown, and blue. And the smell of the dry earth and all of the vines and nature is pretty intoxicating. I’ll let you in on the fact that I love the way farm animals smell. My husband, who grew up tending sheep, thinks I am insane, but I love to breathe it in!

Our walk up the hill and through the winery certainly worked up a thirst, and there was no better way to quench it than with a tasting of Michel-Schlumberger wine. We arrived back in the courtyard to a beautifully set table and got down to the wine, starting with their 2009 La Bise Pinot Blanc.

This is definitely one of my new favorite white wines and was absolutely perfect for the day we were having, strong sun with a nice cool breeze. This wine is really refreshing with a nice acidity and truly is perfect on its own but could be really great with food, especially one of my spicy coconut curries 🙂

While all of the wines were really delicious, another one of the standouts for me was the 2006 Le Sage Merlot which offered definite flavors of fresh blueberries. And while I came to the Dry Creek Valley in search of Zinfandel, it was Syrah that truly captured my heart this time around. I love the dark fruits, spice, and hint of oak that were abundant in the 2006 La Source Syrah.

We ended up joining the winery’s Wine Bench club, and I am already looking forward to receiving their wines in the fall.

The time we spent at Michel-Schlumberger was full of great information, beauty, many laughs, and one of a kind wines and resulted in a completely new appreciation for sustainable winemaking and the committed people behind it. If you are planning on visiting Sonoma, don’t wait as long as I did to make an appointment for a tour of Michel-Schlumberger.

And if you live in the US, make sure to enter my Harvard Sweet Boutique giveaway!

Technorati Tags: wine wineries Sonoma Dry Creek Valley Michel-Schlumberger Syrah Pinot Blanc Merlot organic farming organic wine sustainability California travel

Tags: Dry Creek Valley, Healdsburg, Sonoma, Tasting Room, travel. Sonoma County, wine, wine tasting, winemaking, winery, winery tour

Dry Creek Valley

November 14, 2009 in Food, Travel, wine by traveleatlove | 9 comments

Happy weekend! I only had three days of work this week, but I was certainly thankful for the work week to end. Going back to work after an amazing time at the Foodbuzz Festival and in wine country was very difficult. I do however, have a new work philosophy. At the end of the day, when I leave work I am just letting it go, not even making the time to talk about the work part of my day. So far this has worked well and has helped me to avoid reliving the frustration that talking about work brings. When I last left off on our wine country journey, we were leaving Hook & Ladder after a tasting of reds, including a great Zinfandel that we purchased to ship home. We were going to head straight to Yountville to check into our hotel, but we had some time and decided to drove a bit past Healdsburg. Venturing off of 101, we found ourselves on a bumpy side road with a narrow old railway bridge. The scenery, as it was everywhere in California, was a sight to behold. Everyone says that Fall in New England is beautiful, and it is, but this was just such a different perspective on the season. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I can definitely see myself living there.

We were about to turn around to head back to the main highway when I saw a sign for Bella Vineyards and Wine Caves, a winery recommended to me on Twitter by Sonoma Wine Guy. As useless as Twitter sometimes seems, it was helpful in this case! Pulling up to Bella reveals their wine caves which include the tasting room and events space.

The wine tanks are also visible to visitors.

Taking photos inside the cave was difficult, but it was a cozy, warmly lit place, and I was excited to try their Zinfandels and other offerings.

Their wine glasses had a cute tractor, the same one parked out in front of the cave, etched on the glass. 🙂 Zinfandels definitely won again. We tried and enjoyed both their 2007 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel and their 2007 Big River Ranch Zinfandel. The standout was the Big River Ranch, though we liked them both. This is a big, tannin-y wine with a deep opaque red color and a burst of juicy berries on the palate. Yum. Tasting in the caves was a lot of fun. Bella offers not only tours and private tastings in their caves, but they also have a jeep tour that takes you up to Lily Hill, where the grapes for the Dry Creek zin are grown. I didn’t contact them in time to book any of the tours, but the next time we go to Sonoma I will definitely make sure to book in advance. Their website offers information on the tours so if you will be in the area, check them out! After leaving Bella, we were definitely heading back to the highway to get lunch and find our hotel for the night. But then we saw the sign for barrel tastings at Zichichi Family Vineyard and literally backed up and into their parking lot. Neither one of us had done a barrel tasting and really wanted to give it a whirl.

Our tasting was delayed slightly when I looked out on to the covered back deck of the tasting room and saw this, my new, nine week old Swiss mountain dog puppy pal:

Obviously I had to go out and play.

It was love at first sight. And love at first sip once I went inside!
The 2008 Old Vine Zinfandel from the barrel was incredible. It offers the perfect amount of the big, jammy flavor characteristic of Zinfandels. It is not even being bottled until January, and we will receive our shipment in March, just in time for my birthday, hopefully. I can not wait to see what a couple of months of aging in the barrel will do to the flavor of this young wine. Something to look forward to for sure! At this point we were more than ravenous. A quick drive over to Geyserville brought us right in front of Diavola Pizzeria. After a good amount of water and some thin, chewy, cheesy breadsticks, we were served our lunches. For me, the wood oven roasted hearts of romaine with shrimp and Caesar dressing and for my hubs, a thick BLT panini teeming with thick, salty, smoky bacon and, red pepper mayo, lettuce, and ripe tomatoes. I will admit to sneaking a few bites of this sandwich, and I can understand why it was his favorite meal of the entire trip. It was a perfectly made sandwich, complete with chewy focaccia bread. My lunch was great too with perfectly cooked shrimp, and a creamy parmesan laden dressing over slightly grilled lettuce. Just what we needed to finish our journey to Yountville.

Next up, Yountville, Domaine Chandon, dinner at Bouchon, and more. For now I am off to go running with a group of Boston bloggers, then to walk some of my favorite dog friends at the shelter. They have been there for so long 🙁 I am not sure what the rest of the weekend will bring, but I know I will be blogging! Have a GREAT day my friends!