Benovia Winery

​Doc Ed has been to Sonoma a number of times, and after one of his trips he wrote the following :  “Benovia had a large selection of well-made wines, and they presented them in a beautiful tasting room with a great view of their property.  My favorite was the La Pommeraie ($65), a blend of clones 777 and 828, which was aged for a long 16 months in new French oak.  Wow, the flavors were wonderful!”  With this review on our minds, we made reservations to visit them on the third, and last, day of our expedition to Sonoma.  Benovia Winery is located in the Russian River region of Sonoma where Pinot Noir reigns supreme,  and, well, we spent quite a bit of time there.  It is, as Doc Ed noted, quite a beautiful place, as shown in the pictures below, and the wines are just superb.

​The wine list is shown below.  On the left are the wines for tasting that day.  Of course, after we ran through all of them we had to try La Pommeraie, and then the Russian River Pinot Noir, and some white wines, and….  All told we had a very pleasant afternoon.

​Of the Pinot Noir wines we tasted I found myself in full agreement with Doc Ed on La Pommeraie.  Just a wonderful wine, though it now runs $75 a bottle.

​And so, we came to the end of our Sonoma Expedition, with a case of Benovia wine added to our shipments from Orsi and Moshin, and enough time to stop for food on our way to the Sacramento Airport and our flight back to San Diego.  Alas, “The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men Gang aft agley” (Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”).  You see, we were halfway or so on the drive from Sonoma to the Sacramento Airport when we all got texts saying our flights had been cancelled due to the government shutdown.  Fortunately, our heroes, shown below, drove us home to San Diego, arriving in the wee hours of the night.