Wild, Crazy and oh-so-beautiful Sonoma Valley
Last Saturday our friends Werner and Liz invited Larry and I to join them in a day up in the wine country. They were entertaining their friend and colleague Richard who was in town from Cambridge England. Larry and I ended up making the reservations at the wineries and restaurant and Werner drove us all in his Honda hybrid. It was cozy, but I could look out and the scenery and knit at the same time. The last time Richard was out they went to the Napa area, up the Silverado trail to Calistoga. So we decided to go to the Sonoma Valley.
Our first stop was at Loxton Winery in Glen Ellen. We had an appointment with Chris Loxton, who is the 4th generation wine maker in his Australian based family. Originally, Chris went to college here in the U.S. and got two degrees in Physics. He even taught for a while until the bug hit him. Chris’ wine career really started when he was a little boy. He is the 4th generation winemaker in his family and recently had a barrel of his families '05 port called "Generations Port" shipped to him from his families winery in South Australia. On this barrel there is a picture of his great-grandfather Albert, his grandfather Herb, his father Bob and Chris as a very little boy. Loxton winery just had their 5-year anniversary celebration. Chris emphasizes on making really good Syrah and Zinfandel but also makes a Chardonnay, Shiraz, late harvest Zinfandel, Viognier and a Syrah port. They are open every day from 11-5 but it's best if you call ahead.
One of the other people on the tour with us was Bonnie Barnes who, with her husband Mark, own 3 acres of vineyards in the Sonoma Valley. In talking to Bonnie I found out that she and her husband developed The Daisy Foundation in memory of their son Patrick who died at age 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP). DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. Within the foundation they created The DAISY Award for extraordinary nurses. This award is to recognize the super-human work nurses do every day all over the country. This program achieves one of the four goals they established for The Foundation, the others being
* To fund research to improve treatment and ultimately cure ITP and related illnesses
* To assist and inform people with ITP
* To encourage bone marrow and blood drives since the treatment of ITP can require
massive amounts of these.
I felt honored to meet Bonnie and wish her lots of luck with the foundation.
Our next stop was to have lunch in the town of Glen Ellen. We went to the Glen Ellen Inn restaurant and sat outside on their covered porch where they had the windows open. It is a very quaint restaurant with many seating options. Their menu is very nice with salad, sandwich and main entrée items. They specialize in oysters and martinis and have a very extensive wine menu. We had a very nice leisurely lunch.
After lunch we decided to take a stroll through town with a determination to find the Wine Country Chocolate shop for dessert. Little did we know that we had quite a challenging and oh-to-exciting ¼ mile adventure ahead of us! First, as we headed out we had to stop walking to let a guy who was backing out of the mini-mart parking lot get out. When he went forward, we proceeded to walk on the “sidewalk”. At that moment he decided to back up more and he didn’t see the 5 of us! Larry went and approached the man saying, “please be careful, you almost hit us”. The man’s reaction was “this is a driveway, you should not be walking here, be more careful”. He then pulled forward and around the building to get out. As he was doing that, he almost hit a lady who was going to the post office! Crazy! We continued our walk and at that point there were no sidewalks. We walked against traffic so the cars could see us coming. No one hit us, but someone did honk at us like why were we walking on the side of the road! We finally made it to the Glen Ellen Village and found our chocolate. We left the shop very satisfied. I had a blackberry filled truffle with boysenberry honey, Larry had one with chocolate nib crunch filling and we shared a chocolate mint filled one. Their chocolate was really fantastic and they offer some unique fillings including some with wine. Then we had to walk back to the car with our lives in jeopardy! We lived to tell the story.
Our next stop took us to Kenwood, about 3-4 miles north from Glen Ellen. We went to Enkidu Winery. They just opened their very first tasting room the previous week. Great timing! The tasting room is part of the Kenwood Village, which has some nice shops in it. Philip Staehile is the owner/winemaker. He is very nice, very energetic and is determined young man. His first vintage was 2003. He produces about 5,000 cases a year for his label and also makes about 20,000 cases of wines for other vineyard owners who want their own label. Phil along with his staff specializes in Pinot Noir, Syrah and Petite Sirah. He also offers a nice Rose Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and a nice Rhone blend. We really enjoyed his wines and the wine tasting experience. His staff was very knowledgeable and friendly. They are also kid and dog friendly.
One of the very nice things about visiting both Chris and Phil is that we met both of them last fall during the Wine Bloggers Conference that we attended. Their connection to each other is that they buy their Syrah grapes from the same vintner, that being Kick Ranch in Sonoma County.
Our last stop was on our way back home. We went to the Carneros region of Napa Valley and stopped at Artesa Vineyard and Winery. Larry and I had been there before. Their wines are OK. But the
views, water features and art are just a thing of beauty. As it turned out this day the temperature was in the mid 70’s with beautiful blue skies and a light breeze. Three of us paid the $10.00 fee to have 4 different wine tastings. None of us paid an additional $10.00 to have a glass of their sparkling wine (which they are known for).
Richard especially enjoyed the views and scenery that he saw. He really liked the quaintness of the Sonoma Valley as compared to the Napa Valley. I think next time Richard comes to town we will take him to the Russian River Valley area which is our favorite AVA.
Our first stop was at Loxton Winery in Glen Ellen. We had an appointment with Chris Loxton, who is the 4th generation wine maker in his Australian based family. Originally, Chris went to college here in the U.S. and got two degrees in Physics. He even taught for a while until the bug hit him. Chris’ wine career really started when he was a little boy. He is the 4th generation winemaker in his family and recently had a barrel of his families '05 port called "Generations Port" shipped to him from his families winery in South Australia. On this barrel there is a picture of his great-grandfather Albert, his grandfather Herb, his father Bob and Chris as a very little boy. Loxton winery just had their 5-year anniversary celebration. Chris emphasizes on making really good Syrah and Zinfandel but also makes a Chardonnay, Shiraz, late harvest Zinfandel, Viognier and a Syrah port. They are open every day from 11-5 but it's best if you call ahead.
One of the other people on the tour with us was Bonnie Barnes who, with her husband Mark, own 3 acres of vineyards in the Sonoma Valley. In talking to Bonnie I found out that she and her husband developed The Daisy Foundation in memory of their son Patrick who died at age 33 of complications of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP). DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System. Within the foundation they created The DAISY Award for extraordinary nurses. This award is to recognize the super-human work nurses do every day all over the country. This program achieves one of the four goals they established for The Foundation, the others being
* To fund research to improve treatment and ultimately cure ITP and related illnesses
* To assist and inform people with ITP
* To encourage bone marrow and blood drives since the treatment of ITP can require
massive amounts of these.
I felt honored to meet Bonnie and wish her lots of luck with the foundation.
Our next stop was to have lunch in the town of Glen Ellen. We went to the Glen Ellen Inn restaurant and sat outside on their covered porch where they had the windows open. It is a very quaint restaurant with many seating options. Their menu is very nice with salad, sandwich and main entrée items. They specialize in oysters and martinis and have a very extensive wine menu. We had a very nice leisurely lunch.
After lunch we decided to take a stroll through town with a determination to find the Wine Country Chocolate shop for dessert. Little did we know that we had quite a challenging and oh-to-exciting ¼ mile adventure ahead of us! First, as we headed out we had to stop walking to let a guy who was backing out of the mini-mart parking lot get out. When he went forward, we proceeded to walk on the “sidewalk”. At that moment he decided to back up more and he didn’t see the 5 of us! Larry went and approached the man saying, “please be careful, you almost hit us”. The man’s reaction was “this is a driveway, you should not be walking here, be more careful”. He then pulled forward and around the building to get out. As he was doing that, he almost hit a lady who was going to the post office! Crazy! We continued our walk and at that point there were no sidewalks. We walked against traffic so the cars could see us coming. No one hit us, but someone did honk at us like why were we walking on the side of the road! We finally made it to the Glen Ellen Village and found our chocolate. We left the shop very satisfied. I had a blackberry filled truffle with boysenberry honey, Larry had one with chocolate nib crunch filling and we shared a chocolate mint filled one. Their chocolate was really fantastic and they offer some unique fillings including some with wine. Then we had to walk back to the car with our lives in jeopardy! We lived to tell the story.
Our next stop took us to Kenwood, about 3-4 miles north from Glen Ellen. We went to Enkidu Winery. They just opened their very first tasting room the previous week. Great timing! The tasting room is part of the Kenwood Village, which has some nice shops in it. Philip Staehile is the owner/winemaker. He is very nice, very energetic and is determined young man. His first vintage was 2003. He produces about 5,000 cases a year for his label and also makes about 20,000 cases of wines for other vineyard owners who want their own label. Phil along with his staff specializes in Pinot Noir, Syrah and Petite Sirah. He also offers a nice Rose Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc and a nice Rhone blend. We really enjoyed his wines and the wine tasting experience. His staff was very knowledgeable and friendly. They are also kid and dog friendly.
One of the very nice things about visiting both Chris and Phil is that we met both of them last fall during the Wine Bloggers Conference that we attended. Their connection to each other is that they buy their Syrah grapes from the same vintner, that being Kick Ranch in Sonoma County.
Our last stop was on our way back home. We went to the Carneros region of Napa Valley and stopped at Artesa Vineyard and Winery. Larry and I had been there before. Their wines are OK. But the
views, water features and art are just a thing of beauty. As it turned out this day the temperature was in the mid 70’s with beautiful blue skies and a light breeze. Three of us paid the $10.00 fee to have 4 different wine tastings. None of us paid an additional $10.00 to have a glass of their sparkling wine (which they are known for). Richard especially enjoyed the views and scenery that he saw. He really liked the quaintness of the Sonoma Valley as compared to the Napa Valley. I think next time Richard comes to town we will take him to the Russian River Valley area which is our favorite AVA.
Posted by Wine Travels With Lori at 3/31/2009 12:07 PM 
Categories: wine, sonoma valley, napa valley, chocolate, restaurants
Tags: sonoma valley restaurants wine country chocolate tours australia Kenwood wineries nurses Carneros napa valley daisy foundation Glen Ellen wine
Categories: wine, sonoma valley, napa valley, chocolate, restaurants
Tags: sonoma valley restaurants wine country chocolate tours australia Kenwood wineries nurses Carneros napa valley daisy foundation Glen Ellen wine
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