Oh Hey, from Sonoma! In which we tour wineries, explore Old Vine zins, and learn to like Pinots.

This place rocks and I am never leaving. Just wanted to get that out there. Now that’s done, here’s what the Sonoma wine tasting weekend has been like. Thanks to our most generous and wonderful Uncle Will and Aunt Linda, Kate and I are pretending we’re fancy people and we’re weekend-ing out at the Mayacama Golf Club in Sonoma/Santa Rosa, which is pretty much heaven. We are also really taking advantage of the whole “Wine Country” thing.

A few words about our hero John Blust.

So yesterday we wasted no time in getting our Wine on, and we met John Blust from Cuvee Wine Tours at 9:40 a.m. – beginning to taste wine at 10:00 a.m. is a really tough job but someone’s gotta do it. A few notes on John Blust and Cuvee Wine Tours before we go any further; if you take anything away from this post besides “omg why did you start drinking wine so early” it should be that John is the man and you should do all of your Sonoma and wine country touring with him. John is a Wisconsin native but has has lived here in Sonoma for 20 years; he knows everything interesting there is to know about Sonoma wine and Sonoma land.

John drove us around in a wonderfully air conditioned SUV, he detests snobby wine B.S.ers who spit lines just to impress people and get them to buy wine they know nothing about, and he loved my Members Only jacket so much and he tagged our instagram photos with #membersonly and I love him. He’s a delightful, smart human who will make your Sonoma trip the best thing in the entire world. Call Cuvee Wine Tours and ask for him immediately. And make sure you wear a Member’s Only jacket on your tour so he thinks you’re extra cool.

…Now, onto the fairly copious amounts of wine we drank and the places we drank them (am I supposed to say”tasted?” meh. I’m saying drank).

Sonoma Wine Tasting Stop 1: Lynmar Estate

Lynmar Estate = The Garden of Eden and is unmissable if you’re coming to Sonoma on the basis of visual bliss alone. Even if the wine had been nothing to write home about, which was absolutely not the case, this place is just downright gorgeous. The entire estate breathes with growing things; not only grape vines but the most beautiful flora you’ll see just about anywhere; lavender bushes, avocado trees, wisteria, calla lilies, lemon trees, prehistoric-looking cauliflower bushes, kale, marigolds, persimmon, sunflowers…just madness. There was also just a casual old bald eagle’s nest the size of a human hanging out at the top of the hill. Come on.

Now wine things. Lynmar Estate, is smack dab in Russian River valley, and is especially well-known for two varietals with which they make wonders: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. a.k.a. two of my “less favorite” grapes, but the theme of yesterday was basically “oh dang I like it and I’ll take some more actually.” They were sold out of almost all their higher end Pinots when we tasted, but it was fine with us because their entry Pinot was great. Most impressive was the Serenité (SERENITÉ NOW!) Chardonnay, which our lovely somm Leo explained to us tastes so damn good because it ages in an oak barrel, like a lot of chardonnay, but there is no “new oak” in the barrels which gives it a much crisper feel and a super clean finish. I detest oaky chardonnay (who the hell am I saying this stuff, good lord), so for me this particular bottle was kind of a surprising delight.

The second delightful surprise was a 2017 bottle called “The Rosé of Pinot Noir,” which is the result of pinot grapes that’ve been grown and aged specifically for rosé production and that don’t taste like warm, over-sugared pink lemonade that you’re supposed to pretend you like because Rosé is So Hot Right Now.

Tab Tally: 5. Kate got 2 bottles of Serenité now and 2 bottles of the entry level pinot; I got a bottle of the rosé for my coworker who loves rosés because I am really nice and thoughtful and now I can lord it over him when I need a favor.

Sonoma Wine Tasting Stop 2: Square Peg Winery

A superlative find by our buddy John, and my personal favorite winery I’ve visited. Square Peg Winery specializes in dry-farmed grapes, which means that they don’t give the grapes any extra water that doesn’t come from the sky, ever. Because the vines have to work harder to find water, the roots end up extending underground from anywhere between 15-20 feet. Which is insane to me given that means that the roots are about 10x longer than the actual vine you see above ground. It also means that because the grapes get less water than traditionally irrigated vineyards, they carry a more focused, concentrated flavor that is unique to this estate and the very few others in the area who practice dry farming.

Square Peg Estates specializes in Pinot (it was good here too) and… one of my personal favorites…. Zin. Ohhhh sweet Zinfandel (not white zinfandel), my love. You are so jammy and taste of blueberries and pie and grandpa tobacco….I heart you.

Square Peg Estates has a 2nd label called Ottomino, and it is sweetly named after their late Italian neighbor and fellow lover-of-the-land. Ottomino lived to be 101 years old and he used to tell the Square Peg family that his secret to longevity was wine and “vitamins;” vitamins being a shot of brandy in the morning and a menu of heart-stopping meat-based foods every day. The Pinots here were wildly good, again surprising considering that I usually don’t super-love Pinot. Their 2014 “Block 8” Pinot was my favorite pinot we tasted, as well as Kate’s.

So, I started with the wine for Square Peg just because I was so into it, but there is so much to be said about the place and the people who run it. The founder, Brad, is a really nice man who used to be an American Airlines pilot and looks exactly like Greg Brady. We didn’t get to meet Brad’s wife and artist-in-residence, Alanna, but the tasting room doubles as her gallery and she is an absolutely masterful painter and metal sculptor.

Brad’s son, Alex, is my spirit animal. I was one tasting glass away from sheepishly asking if he’d like to be my friend for life, and I put a weird amount of thought into how maybe Kevin and Odie and I could start going to Square Peg every year and meet up with Alex for more wine and jokes and we could all be good old friends together forever. Alex knows everything about their estate and the wine grown there and is great at explaining it to novices, and he tells amazing awkward jokes and can nail an unbelievable Eastern European accent. I asked him if he wanted to share my sandwich (#membersonly John set up an amazing picnic for us at Square Peg Estates under this gorgeous redwood grove) and he actually accepted and ate with us it probably was the happiest moment of my day.

Lastly, this place, too, grows an insane amount of cool plants, including but not limited to: Meyer lemons, pineapple guavas (that’s actually a real thing and not a Capri Sun drink pouch flavor name who the hell knew), blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, rhubarb, sweet pea shoots, and omg grapes. Square Peg is my personal pick for the trip and if you come out here and use this post as advice in any fashion then you should probably make sure this is on your itinerary (with #membersonly John) and ask for Alex.

Tab Tally: WINE CLUB MEMBERSHIP FOR LIZ! Kate abstained (for now).

Sonoma Wine Tasting Stop 3: Limerick Lane

I made John add this to our itinerary because I wanted to go so bad, and I’m glad we did! Limerick Lane Winery has somewhat of a crazy history and just saw ownership change hands a few years back, and they specialize in Zin (guess why I wanted to commeeeeeee hereeeeeeee), including Old Vine zins planted as long as 108 years ago. This tasting was the more “traditional” of the three tastings we did, and we posted up at the bar and hung out with a delightful Sonoma native and somm, Irena, who gave us a great rundown on the wines, took us through the barrel and aging room, and let us go see the extremely Old Vines for ourselves.

Limerick Lanes is stylish and laid back and their wines are delicious, although I admittedly was starting to dabble in the “tipsy” realm and as such don’t have as detailed of tasting notes (because I’m a fancy expert of wine) as I did for the other two places.

TAB TALLY: 3. Kate got ordered the Russian River triple threat: Pinot Rosé, Pinot, and Zin.

So, that’s all for now – #membersonly John Blust dropped us off in Healdsburg after our amazing tour but we probably didn’t need to taste any more wine at that point (although we did) and the only really memorable stories after the tour were when a drunk creepy little man who clearly has not been paying attention to the whole #metoo thing put his gross hand on my back and rubbed it at a tasting room and the owners kicked him out, and then we went back to the Mayacama and I got lost for a second in the wine caves when I tried to choose a bottle for dinner but it’s ok because I eventually found my way out.

See you tomorrow when we tell stories about our evening adventures in Healdsburg!