Wow, what an amazing winery in so many ways. You must plan a day trip to visit this new winery that sits high atop the mountains of Dry Creek Valley. Although the winery is officially in Dry Creek, it is far from any of the wineries on Dry Creek Road that you might have visited in the past. It is remote, beautiful, and breathtaking. Put it on your list of wineries as a “must visit.”

Dan Gustafson and his family have developed this remarkable winery on 260 acres of beautiful oak woodland forest. 20 acres have been planted with vineyards, all organically farmed. The winery building and the home of the Gustafsons are spectacular to say the least. The view from the front of the house extends all the way to Mountain St. Helena, 26 miles away. Within view is the Dry Creek Valley, the Sonoma Valley, and the Napa Valley. Up on the hill on the opposite side is the picnic area that sits under beautiful Madrone trees. Here visitors are treated to another spectcular view to the north and Lake Sonoma. The vineyards are at 1800 feet, making them the highest vineyards in Sonoma County. Read the rest of this entry »

We always enjoy a visit to Preston Vineyards, but this time our visit was more special than usual. We had the pleasure of meeting and taking a tour with Lou Preston. Lou’s story began 40 years ago when Lou and his wife Susan purchased their property in the Dry Creek Valley. They slowly grew their winery and vineyards, producing some 25,000 cases of wine. In the year 2000, they decided that big is not necessarily a good thing. They began to “grow down” their winery and today produce 8000 cases of wine, and farm and live a lifestyle that is environmentally in tune with their farmland.

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What better venue for a wine tasting than the Palace Hotel in San Francisco? That is where some 15 of Spain’s Navarra wineries poured their wines for the trade and media on September 9th. We live on the Peninsula so it was an easy 30-minute BART ride from Millbrae to the Montgomery Street station in S.F. where we walked a half block to the Palace to taste the wines of Navarra.

Navarra is one of Spain’s lesser-known official wine regions, Denominacion de Origen or D.O. for short. It is located at on the French border north of Spain’s world-renowned Rioja wine region. The Navarra region is best known for the “Running of the Bulls” each year in the city of Pamplona. The wineries of Navarra would prefer that they be known more for their wines than for the bulls.
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We spent a day visiting tasting rooms and wineries in the Lodi Area. We need to spend more time in Lodi to get the full picture but we have a good idea of how this wine country measures up to Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles and others.

Our first impression is that there are several wineries making very good wines at reasonable prices and by that I mean well under $20. Surprisingly, most of the tasting rooms I visited charge a fee for tasting but most apply it to the purchase of wines. I would think until Lodi gets really popular among the wine tourists that they should do everything possible to minimize the cost of a wine trip. The biggest obstacle I see for Lodi is its ambience. There are no beautiful hills and winding backroads lined with vineyards. It is very flat and it’s also very warm during the day. Lodi also lacks a significant number of gourmet restaurants and the only terrific lodging spot in town is the Wine and Roses Hotel.
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