| Dan Berger: Sonoma climate creates a wine melting pot 04/04/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News A friend called a few years ago with his annual request to visit a California wine region. This time he was asking about Sonoma County.
He had previously visited Santa Barbara, Sierra's Foothills, Napa Valley (twice) and San Luis Obispo, and at long last he and a group of friends were going to tackle Sonoma. He asked to see Buena Vista and Ferrari-Carano and "three or four more on our first day."
I informed him of the facts of Sonoma life: This is a huge county. Tasting rooms don't even open until about 10:30 a.m.; Buena Vista was 90 minutes away from Ferrari-Carano. So making room for a bit of lunch, two wineries would be just about all you could see the first day.
This episode got me thinking about how large, and varied, is Sonoma County. And how different are its growing regions, yielding different sorts of wines.
Sonoma County has 47,000 acres of grapevines, double what it had in 1990. It ranges a total of about 80 miles from north to south, and it has growing regions from the coolest to the warmest for a fine wine region.
Starting at the south, Sonoma's coolest growing region is Carneros – moderately windy with rolling hills – less than an hour north of San Francisco.
Carneros has a marine influence, so it grows Burgundian grapes best. Pinot noir and chardonnay are dominant, jointly representing more than 80 percent of all plantings.
It is here that sparkling wine is made, notably that of Gloria Ferrer, as well as sublime table wines by such wineries as Buena Vista, Gundlach-Bundschu, Cline and Bartholomew Park. Joel Peterson's Ravenswood is in Carneros, but the zinfandels for which this winery is justly famed mostly come from warmer climes.
Just up the road, in the more protected Sonoma Valley, the weather turns warmer, so though chardonnay does right well here, finicky pinot noir generally doesn't.
What does well in Sonoma Valley is a range of mid-ripening grapes, such as sauvignon blanc, merlot and cabernet. Kenwood's fine Jack London wines and Kunde's superb vineyards are examples.
Other wineries in the region include Chateau St. Jean, St. Francis (now building a new tasting room), Arrowood, Benziger and over a hill, Matanzas Creek, plus a number of tiny operations hidden back in the hills.
At B.R. Cohn, which sits beneath a small hill that forms a pocket of warmth, cabernet ripens brilliantly. Bruce Cohn's Special Selection Cabernet sells for $80 a bottle and the price is justified by the high quality.
Sonoma Mountain, a tiny appellation high above the town of Glen Ellen, grows both cabernet and pinot noir, along with some exceptional chardonnay. It is here that high-quality Laurel Glen is situated.
West of Santa Rosa, toward the Sonoma Coast, is the region with the greatest potential, Russian River. Marine fog cools the vast valley most spring and summer mornings, lifts by midday and keeps acid levels in the grapes high.
There are chardonnays, typified by the sensational grapes of Dutton Ranch, and exhibited in the wines of Kistler. But pinot noir, from Williams-Selyem, Gary Farrell, Rochioli, Dehlinger, Iron Horse, Marimar Torres, Merry Edwards, Hartford Court and rising star Dutton-Goldfield is really what Russian River is all about.
Indeed, large wine companies such as E&J Gallo and Kendall Jackson along with smaller ones like Caymus, Sonoma-Cutrer and Joseph Phelps all have pinot noir planted in the Russian River Valley.
Just north is Dry Creek Valley, which is home to two dozen medium to small wineries. Zinfandel and sauvignon blanc are sensational, seen in the wines of Dry Creek, Ferrari-Carano, Quivira and the wide portfolio of Preston.
Large, narrow and long is the look on a map of the warm Alexander Valley region, where sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and cabernet do extremely well. Murphy-Goode, deLorimier, Chateau Souverain and Field Stone make excellent wines, and so prized are the cabernet grapes that Napa's Silver Oak has made a world-famed red from there.
There are other, smaller appellations here, too, such as Chalk Hill, Sonoma Coast and Green Valley.
Rodney Strong Vineyards makes wines from a wide range of northern Sonoma grapes and uses that designation on many of its wines.
With such a wide-ranging climate, and with differing soil types, I told my friend, a tour of Sonoma County really takes a week, not a brief weekend.
Dallas Morning News wine writer Dan Berger lives in Santa Rosa, Calif. His column appears every other week.
Wine of the Week: 1998 Beaulieu Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford ($20) – A lot of money for a wine that only six years ago was selling at discount shops for about $9.50. However, the quality of this wine is undeniable. Herbal and cherry notes, with a silky entry and a succulent finish. Still discounted to the mid-teens in many locations.
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