Hill Guides

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Sonoma Valley-The Secret Wine Country, 4th Edition

Below is a sample winery entry from our Hill Guide to the Sonoma Valley-The Secret Wine Country. Hill Guides are the only guidebooks that include rarely revealed recipes from chefs and winemakers from each region. We want you to be able to recreate a favorite dish you experienced in your travels. Check out our Sample Recipe, as well as our List of Recipes and List of Wineries.

Many of Sonoma's best, most beautiful, and most intriguing wineries are hidden in these hills just a few miles from Sonoma Plaza. You will need either a bicycle or car to get to them all in one day. But at any point along the way, you can retrace your tracks or improvise to get back to Sonoma Plaza.

Start at the northeast corner of Sonoma Plaza at Mission San Francisco Solano. Go east on Spain Street to its end - the equivalent of 34 block - at Fourth Street East. There you will find Sebastiani Vineyards & Winery (see page 70).

Turn right onto Lovall Valley Road. (Sebastiani winery and picnic tables are on the right; its newer Cherry Block vineyards are on the left.) Now, turn left up Gehricke Road. Where Brazil Street meets Gehricke Road, veer to the right up the hill and go up Gehricke to Ravenswood Winery. When you pass the eucalyptus trees on your right, you are almost there. Ravenswood prefers that you park in the lot across the narrow road and walk up the steps or driveway to the tasting room. (There's plenty of handicap parking at the top of the driveway right next to the tasting room.)

Ravenswood, once the site of Peter Haywood's winery, was until recently a small, charming operation that produced some of the best Zinfandels anywhere. Joel Peterson and Reed Foster created this jewel of a winery in 1976. They built a new production facility across from the Cherry Tree on Highway 121, and in July, 2001 sold Ravenswood to Constellation Brands, formerly Candaigua of New York, Joel remains as winemaker and president, thank heavens. He believes that wine is a collaborative business that should emphasize camaraderie instead of competition and that the public likes to enjoy a wine and then try another as their tastes diversify. If you make good wines, people will come back to yours. It's all cyclical. Ravenswood's motto is "No Wimpy Wines," which, as you will see o aprons and T-shirts, translates to loose Latin "Nullum Vinum Flaccidum" and even looser French "Pas de Vins Poules Mouillees."

One of the most pleasant parts of visiting Ravenswood is the view from its small patio and picnic area. Turn around with your back to the tasting room for a minute and catch the sunlight on the vineyards in the surrounding hills. You'll understand why people live here.

The tasting room is small, even intimate, and lots of fun. Sonoma architect Adrian Martinez designed the comfortable tasting room and production facility. The people who work in the tasting room are knowledgeable about both food and wine. Each day the staffers write the wines available to taste on a board hanging from the wall behind the counter in the order they recommend you taste them. Usually you can move from a Gewurztraminer through Chardonnays, to a Zinfandel, Merlot, French Colombard, Petit Syrah, and Cabernets. Ravenswood's wines range from an excellent Vintners' Blend Zinfandel from around $10.0 a bottle to one of their best Merlots at under $25.00 and Pickberry, a Bordaux-style blend, at #31.50. Some of these are available only in Ravenswood's tasting room, so come on in.

Fine points: In addition to buying the wines made by Ravenswood's "stubborn and impractical Old World oenological practices," you can choose from a good selection of cookbooks, wine posters, and comedic gift cards, shirts, aprons, and caps. Featured wines: Chardonnay, French Colombard, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Rosato, Moscato, Leggiero, Late Harvest Gewurztraminer. Owner: Constellation Brands. Constellation also owns Franciscan, Simi, Estancia, and Mt. Veeder wineries. Winemaker: Joel Peterson. Cases: 500,000. Acres: 16.

Ravenswood Winery, 18701 Gehricke Road, Sonoma 95476; phone (707) 938-1960. Open 10 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. daily. Tours at 10:30 a.m. (call before then), often with Joel Peterson as guide. Tasting fee: $4.00, refundable with wine purchase. MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover. Wheelchair-accessible.