Confessions of a Would-be Gourmand and Jetsetter

Last week I bummed around San Francisco for a bit with friends, and while it was fun, one of the big things I wanted to was head out to Sonoma County and torment the tasting room managers there. I think this was accomplished spectacularly during our visit to the Russian River area.

I started with no idea of what winery to visit first, so I typed “Winery” and “Russian River” in to google and ended up with Rodney Strong. So off we went, bumbling through down town San Francisco, then up the 101 in to northwest Sonoma County.

If there has ever been a more picturesque setting than the side-by-side tasting rooms of Rodney Strong and J Vineyards, I’ve yet to come across it. Both tasting rooms, the wineries, and their wines were great.

We started with Rodney Strong, which was definitely the busier of the two. I’ve had a few of their wines in the past, and was rarely disappointed. I’ve often used them for slightly more expensive dinner wines. The tasting room was wonderful – the staff was friendly, excited about what they were doing, and seemed genuinely interested. The wine was solid; nothing really blew my mind, but one of my compatriots found a new love for pinot noir thanks to these guys, and that leads me in to my next experience.

After we finished at Rodney Strong tasting, and took a walk around the premises, viewing the oak and steel fermentation vats, we walked across the parking lot to J. That’s right, just J. J was really awesome, lots of glass and steel for their tasting room, sort of a post-modern-art-deco feel. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been one to really shy away from tasting, but at $20 for a four-pour tasting, my friends were a little leery – and so was I. Still, the tasting room manager (and I’m sorry I didn’t get his name) keyed in quite quickly on that and comped us tastings of the pinot noir and the cuvée.

I should take a moment here and note that while I’d seen “cuvée” used as an blend indicator on a label before, I’d never seen it as the style before – I imagine that J is using it to move around the limitations on calling a sparkling white “champagne” without it being produced in that region of France, and if so, I do have to say it sounds better than “sparkling white.” On their site, the official full name (not the one that was on the tasting list) appears to be “J Cuvée 20 Brut Non-Vintage Russian River Valley” which also confirms my suspicions.

The gentleman there was happy to have us, enjoyed his work, gave us a few tasting pointers, and genuinely seemed pleased to have us visiting. When we were finished, I elected to pick up a bottle of the pinot to take with me (and in retrospect, I should have picked up a bottle of the cuvée as well), I found myself the recipient of the semi-serious, but jocularly delivered “Wait! Before you go, what’s your secret? What are you doing right to get four girls?” I replied seriously with “I’m just that good,” which earned me a confused look from the querent and amused laughs from my companions.

Leaving J and Rodney Strong behind, we coasted over to Limerick Lane, and I spouted off a few in the car (none of them dirty, surprising my friends with my restraint) and enjoyed the tasting room there. The person handling our tastings was a friendly combination of helpful and quirky, providing us with not only insight for the wines, but a bit as well in to the culture of the Russian River Valley wineries. Limerick Lane had a quite nice selection of standards, pinots and zins (the web page states that they began as an estate zinfandel producer, though they are now certainly producing syrah and furmint as well) that were fairly decent, but not very inspirational. They did, however, have a syrah/zinfandel blend called “1023″ which several of us were quite taken with. I mulled over procuring a bottle, and instead, one of others in our little crew did.

Finally, we stopped by L Foppiano, which should be, in my experience, “Floppiano.” The wine was forgettable, the tasting room attendants were at best, inattentive, and actually bordered on rude. It was the disappointment of the trip, and for myself and my single friend who decided to taste the wines, we were both discouraged and dismayed at the experience.

So that was the afternoon’s experience in Sonoma. I thoroughly recommend visiting Rodney Strong and J, and definitely stop by Limerick Lane if it’s within your scope. As an aficionado, though no connoisseur, I would have loved to stay my whole trip in the Russian River AVA, but there was only so much time to do so.

If you do head out to the Russian River AVA or the Dry Creek AVA, tell your tasting attendant that I sent you – they’ll have no idea who I am, but I’m sure they’ll be grateful to know someone is out there touting their wares.

Resources:
the Robert Strong website
the J Winery website
the Limerick Lane website
the L Foppiano website
an interactive map of the Russian River Valley AVA (includes wineries, hotels, and other points of interest)