These Are a Few of My Favorite Things - In Sonoma Wine Country

MarkG
1 minute ago
5 min read

Our recent vacation to Sonoma was epic – there was so much to love about the Sonoma valley, coast, and mountains. Last week I wrote about the things that made Sonoma such a great travel destination. This week, I’ll share a few of my favorite things from our visit to this beautiful wine region in California!

Picking our favorite memories from our Sonoma visit was much harder than I could have imagined, but after careful thought and many conversations with Laurie, we were able to finalize a list of a few of our favorite things from our trip, with some honorable mentions as well when we found it too difficult to choose just one! Join us for a quick trip down memory lane!

Favorite Winery

This was a pretty easy one for us – Kistler Vineyards at the Trenton Roadhouse. This historic house doubles as Kistler’s wine tasting room, and everything about it shouts elegance, refinement, and excellence. Kistler makes wines from only two varieties – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. What sets them apart from other wineries in the area is the amazing quality of the wines, and their approach to winemaking. They focus on single vineyard designated wines – they make 13 different single vineyard Chardonnays, and 2 Pinot Noirs. They plant the exact same Chardonnay clone in each vineyard, and use the same winemaking technique for each as well (i.e., same fermentation process, same aging barrels, same time spent in barrel, etc.) – the only difference amongst the 13 Chardonnays is the terroir of the site the grapes were grown – climate, soil, etc. This allows one to fully explore how terroir influences the taste and style of a wine, holding everything else constant.

For our tasting, we were treated to 6 different Chardonnays and 2 different Pinot Noirs. It turned out to be one of the most educational wine tastings I have ever experienced, and as a result, one of my favorite as well. Each of these wines retail for at least $150 a bottle, so we were tasting some of the absolute best wines made in the U.S., with many only available direct from the winery. Simply awesome!!

Honorable mention: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two other fantastic wineries and tasting experiences. One was Hartford Court, and the other Small Vines Winery. These two wineries have one thing in common – they both specialize in Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, and they both make superb wines. Other than that, they couldn’t be more different. Hartford Court is a large winery that produces almost 50 different wines on an annual basis; Small Vines produces about 10 different wines annually. Small Vines is also family owned and focuses on biodynamic farming of their vines.

Favorite Wines

Picking our favorite wines from the trip was also a near-impossible task. We tasted about 120 different wines, and I made detailed notes on each one (I’m sure you are shocked and surprised I did that, ...!!). Based on our tastings, here are my five top wines of the trip:

2017 Paul Hobbs Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon ($520): It’s kind of ironic that one of my favorite wines from the trip is actually a Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, but this beauty from the famed To Kalon vineyard in Napa was simply stunning, and stunningly rare as well! If I’ve ever tasted a perfect wine, this would be it!
2023 Aperture Devil Proof Vineyard Blocks 18 & 19 Malbec ($250): Well, at least this one is from Sonoma, but it is a rare Malbec with some Cabernet Sauvignon thrown in for good measure. This was a beautiful and refined wine with lovely structure but also bold, brash fruit – incredibly unique and wonderful!
2023 Kistler McCrey Vineyard Chardonnay ($115): My whole top 5 list could have easily been made up of all Kistler wines, but that would be boring! This Chardonnay is made in a leaner, and more elegant style than some of their others, with beautiful stone fruit and white pepper notes. A light and elegant Chardonnay full of class and sophistication!
2023 Hartford Court Jennifer’s Vineyard Pinot Noir ($85): We tasted so many wonderful Pinot Noirs during out trip, but this one rose to the top of the list. It’s from the Russian River Valley and shows beautiful raspberry, plum, and dark cherry notes. Full bodied with light acidity, this is a perfect and food friendly wine!
2021 Kistler Kistler Vineyard Chardonnay ($160): This highly allocated wine is grown at higher elevations in the mountains, so it gets the benefit of direct bright sunshine during the day and cooling breezes in the evening and night. This produces an incredibly complex wine with green apple, peach, and lemon/lime notes. It’s a big wine, but constrained and subtle at the same time – an exceptional wine!

Favorite Restaurant

Laurie and I loved all the places we visited for dinner throughout our Sonoma stay, but we agreed to disagree on our favorite restaurant. Mine was Spoonbar, a more casual but still upscale modern American restaurant with creative craft cocktails and classic fare like fresh fish and seafood, steaks, and pasta. Laurie’s favorite was Valette, a slightly more upscale restaurant with elevated and more unusual menu offerings served in an elegant dining room. Both were fantastic!

Spoonbar Restaurant in downtown Healdsburg

Favorite Dining Experience

There’s sometimes a difference between a favorite restaurant, and a favorite dining experience. While we consider quality of the food, dining room ambience, quality of the service, and menu selections (both food, wine, and cocktails) when picking our favorites, sometimes the best dining experiences focus on other factors, like the view; the environment; and other intangibles associated with the moment. That was certainly the case for us when we decided to enjoy dinner out on the patio of Scout’s Field Bar at the Montage Healdsburg Resort where we stayed for five nights during our visit. It turned out to be a perfect dining experience, and our favorite of the trip by far.

Perfect weather (low 70’s, sunny, light breeze, no humidity)? Check! Private seating separated from the other diners with an unobstructed view of vineyards and the Sonoma mountains? Check! Superb and unobtrusive service, with visits perfectly timed to when we needed something? Check! Creative and delicious takes on casual classics (baked brie appetizer, hamburger, and grilled chicken sandwich) including beautiful and tasty cocktails as well? Check! Relaxing and quiet atmosphere with live acoustic music in the background? Check! It was, in a word, perfect!

A perfect evening and perfect dinner at Scouts Field Bar at Montage Resort Healdsburg

Grilled chicken sandwich and a nice rose at Scouts Field Bar

In next week’s blog, I’ll finish my recap of our Sonoma trip by covering more of our favorite things about Sonoma!