From our home base in Sebastopol, the Martin Ray winery is about 15 minutes away. To get there, we take the Gravenstein Highway towards Forestville and take a right turn onto Guerneville Road. About two miles later, a left onto Laguna Road and then about one mile to the winery. Laguna Road is a quiet country backroad and Martin Ray truly qualifies as a hidden winery.
This winery has one of the better picnic spots in the area. We had picked up our lunch earlier at the Fiesta Market in Sebastopol and put it in our trusty insulated picnic basket. Our picnic basket has the essential goodies for any emergency, mostly wine emergencies. We have a corkscrew and a set of wine glasses along with plastic plates, cloth napkins, and tablecloth. We never leave home without it.
The tasting room is very comfortable and our host is very relaxed and makes us feel at home. He suggests several wines for lunch, which we try. We finally settle on the Pinot Gris, a very dry but floral wine. The winery has something for everyone’s price bracket. They even sell jug wines in really cool wine jugs. They have a very good Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for under $20. At the high end, there are the reserve wines that sell for around $60 a bottle.
Martin Ray rates a 4.25 on our 5-point winery meter scale. Great choice for a picnic area adjacent to a beautiful vineyard.