Ed and Jonjie under 130yr old Fig Tree

Ed and Jonjie under 130yr old Fig Tree @ Quivira

Piggybacking on the 2nd Annual Wineblogger’s Conference this year, the wife and I stayed in Sonoma another 4 days to tour and taste to oblivion!  In those 4 days we visited 20 total wineries and we thank many of our friends for the awesome recommendations, hook-ups and tips that lead to such a wonderful experience.  Some of those friends include Michael Bryan (@AtlWineSchool), Shana Ray (@ShaRayRay), Paul Mabray (@PaulMabray) and Deborah Kravitz (@WhatDebPours).  In this post, I am going to list those 20 wineries we visited and then which ones we rated as our Top 5 of the trip.  Then I will expand on each of the top five in more detail as a subsequent and separate post.  Sure, many folks hate the whole rating thing, especially when it comes to wine scores, but as technical and analytical nerds, we just couldn’t help ourselves… plus, it gave us a framework from which to share our experience to all of you.  In the end I would recommend almost every winery on this list, so don’t just take our word for it… get out there and live it!

The “rating system,” if you want to call it that, is every bit as subjective as wine can be most times and was based on the quality of the wines (did we like them?), the hosting (was the TR staff courteous, knowledgeable and not snooty?), the setting (were the vistas picturesque and added to the experience) and the facility (was the tasting room enjoyable, inviting, comfortable and functional?) — that’s it, very simple.  Here are the wineries in alphabetical order: 

Bella Murphy-Goode
Ferrari-Carano Papapietro-Perry
Holdredge Porter Creek
Hop Kiln Preston
Iron Horse Quivira
Kokomo Rochioli
Lancaster Estate Sbragia
Medlock Ames Trione
Merry Edwards Truett-Hurst
Michel Schlumberger Unti

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The TOP 5 were… drum roll please!  

Iron Horse
Michel Schlumberger
Lancaster Estate
Medlock Ames
Quivira

 

Look for detailed posts on the Top 5, in the coming days and week… cheers!