Sonoma! (Or: The Drinking Portion of My Vacation)

Veraison in action at MacLeod Family Vineyard.

Having left our hearts (or, in my case, half a heart) in San Francisco, Steve, Jay, and I drove north on the 101 to Healdsburg, an adorable town in the northern portion of Sonoma County, which would serve as our locus operandi for several days of wine tasting and eating. I will spare you a blow-by-blow of the vineyards, wines, and individual dishes, except to offer the following bullet points:

• We drank some truly stunning wines at Iron Horse, Moshin, Gary Farrell, Arista, Unti, and Pride. We brought many of them home and, if you are very nice, we may invite you to share.

Rolling vines of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for the delightful sparklers at Iron Horse. Not a bad way to kick off the tasting portion of our trip.

The scene from the Gary Farrell tasting room on Westside Road. The elegance of the wines matched the view.

Greta, the winery cat at Gary Farrell.

This baby owl greeted us at the Arista tasting room!

Pride Mountain Vineyards in the Spring Mountain AVA. Half the vineyards are in Napa County, half in Sonoma.

• We ate some truly delicious food at Dry Creek Kitchen, Bravas, The Girl and the Fig, the Healdsburg Bar & Grill, the Fremont Diner, and some Mexican place whose name I can’t remember but at which I introduced Steve to the habanero pepper. He won’t forget that soon.
• We met some genuinely fun and interesting people. Having an Englishman (who lives in Scotland) with you opens up all sorts of fun conversational opportunities with strangers. The fact that there is often wine involved doesn’t hurt, either.
• It’s great having a whisky expert with you because his eagle eyes can spy a bottle of no-longer-made Glengoyne 17 on an eight-foot high shelf among hundreds of other bottles from 20 yards away. Then he’ll treat you to some of it.

It wasn’t all about the wine….

• Jay and I speak to each other in fake British accents approximately 65% of the time (quoting Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, The Office, Spinal Tap, etc.). Having a real Brit around to point out how ridiculous we sound (NB: Jay sounds much less ridiculous than I) both embarrassed us and goaded us on.
• I am not to be trusted with numbers, dates, or directions. The only semi-glitches we encountered resulted from my own idiocy and mental oafishness.

Steve and I took a breathtaking and quad-crushing hike through Armstrong Woods State Park. Many thanks to Dave Edwards for this fabulous recommendation!

The highlight of the trip, though, was our visit to MacLeod Family Vineyard in the Sonoma Valley. I first visited MacLeod four years ago on a solo tasting trip. Richard MacLeod gave me a private tour of the vineyards; we talked about clones and grafting techniques and how the family wine business had grown out of Richard’s father George’s desire in the 70s to have a retirement place. Then we sat at a picnic table under an oak tree and tasted the wines. I was blown away. MacLeod produces primarily Sauvignon Blanc and Zinfandel on about 50 acres of rocky slope in central Sonoma. Until 2005, the family sold all of their grapes to other winemakers, but recognizing the high quality of their fruit, they decided to make some wine of their own.

Sauvignon Blanc grapes almost ready for harvest at MacLeod Family Vineyard. When harvested, the grapes will have twice the sugar content of table grapes. The sugar will turn into alcohol via fermentation.

Two years later, I returned to MacLeod with my friend Bryna when we were on the west coast for our friend Jessica’s wedding (NB: Jessica is now a mom! I got to spend an afternoon with Jess and her perfect nine-week-old daughter Emery on this trip. Such an incredible experience!). Bryna and I met Marjorie MacLeod, George’s daughter-in-law, and George himself on that visit. We drank more wine and again I was agog at the quality. MacLeod had added Merlot to their catalog, a round, well-balanced wine with aromas of dark plums and a tiny bit of cocoa; an absolute beauty.

This grouping of plants, the insectary, encourages bees and other beneficial insects in the vineyard.

This year, I had Jay and Steve with me. The MacLeods (Marjorie and her husband John) took us and a small group of their family friends into the vines, which are ripening early this year throughout the valley due to a warm winter and dry, hot growing season. We picked grapes and tasted the berries. John tested the brix (sugar) levels of the Sauvignon Blanc grapes and told us they would likely harvest in the next week or two. We saw Zinfandel grapes going through veraison, when the grapes turn from green to purple. We talked about changes in pruning techniques and their move towards organic growing practices. And again, we sat at a picnic table under a majestic oak tree and drank their delicious wine. Soon, patriarch George joined us and regaled us with stories. At 93, George, a born raconteur, has a more than a few to tell. I can’t imagine a more perfect wine experience.

John MacLeod checks the sugar content, or brix level, of the SB grapes with a refractometer.

The fantastically charming George MacLeod.

To add to the fun, we got to try some of the MacLeod’s homemade apple juice (before grapes, apple trees took up much of the real estate) and to hang out with Marjorie’s awesome dog Panda.

PANDA!

Here’s the thing about MacLeod: this family is so charming, so generous, and so genuine, that one could almost forgive them if their wine wasn’t that good.

But the wine is WONDERFUL.

The Sauvignon Blanc is pleasantly acidic, displaying mango and citrus on the palate. It’s seen a tiny bit of neutral oak, which reveals itself only on the roundness in the finish. It goes great with seafood, avocado, or goat cheese. The Zinfandel is big, but it’s not overly baked or alcoholically jammy like so many California Zins. It’s got sweet spices, black fruit, and a little bit of smoke and it makes one want to eat grilled meat, preferably with a little char on the edges. The Merlot still impresses; it’s a super match with roast chicken or pork. MacLeod now makes a crisp, dry Merlot rosé which is pretty much summer in a glass. We (and Bryna) belong to the MacLeod Association, so we get shipments of all these twice a year. (NB: You can, too!)  We have never been disappointed with any bottle of MacLeod and consider it our house wine. I’ve heard rumors of friends threatening to sneak into our basement to abscond with bottles for themselves, and I can’t say I’d blame them.

When it came time to head back to the airport and to reality, my heart sunk a bit. I guess all the best vacations end that way. But, in the end, this trip inspired and enlivened me. I owe most of that to my awesome travelling companions and a good deal to the brilliant vignerons, winemakers, farmers, and chefs who stewarded and presented the terroir of Sonoma for my eating and drinking pleasure. A special debt of gratitude goes to the MacLeod family for their immense hospitality and their damn fine wine.

The sewer at Pride. You didn’t think I could pass up a sewer pic, did you?

Signing off with a tune from one of my favorite bands of the last decade, which from a titular perspective expresses my goal for this trip.