​First, let me apologize to you and to the folks at Hungry Hawk Vineyards & Winery for not stopping in to visit their winery sooner.  It has been on my list of wineries to visit, but for some reason never got around to it.  Had a friend who had a round tuit on his desk.  I guess I should have had one as well.
Hungry Hawk is located north of the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  If on your way to the park from Escondido past Orfila you turn left on the road that leads to the park instead of right, then take a left at the next light, you will find yourself on a winding road that leads back toward the park.  A few miles along the way you will come to Hungry Hawk.  It is well worth the trip.  Wonderful facility, very friendly staff, and decent wine as well – with one great surprise….

​It is so nice to visit a winery where everything is done properly.  None of the bar nonsense – wines are brought to the table, and in a set so you can do some parallel tasting.  The wines are served at the right temperature, water is provided, and food and snacks are available.  We sat outside in great comfort, with a very nice view.

​As for the surprise, well, you see, they have a Tempranillo that both my wife and I liked!!!  Now, not being fans of Tempranillo, we wondered what Tempranillo lovers would think of the wine.  As it turns out, we have two in the family – my son and his wife, who is also Doc Ed’s daughter – that’s right, Doc Ed and I are The In-Laws!  We bought a bottle and brought it to my son’s house on Fathers’ Day.  Sure enough, he thought it was not all that great, lacking the tastes of eye of newt, dirt, drain grease et al. that give Tempranillo it’s horrible after taste….

​Of the other wines we tasted, the Carmenere was the most interesting.  Carmenere was at one time thought to have been completely wiped out by the phylloxera root louse.  It was rediscovered in Chile, where something like 70% of their Merlot was found to be Carmenere.  Their version is a bit rough, but I think with a bit of aging will prove to be quite nice.  It should be noted that they source these grapes locally from amateur growers, unlike most of their other wines which are made from their own grapes or grapes grown by professionals.

​They have a wine club with all the good features.  Members get a 20% discount on four wines every four months (12 per year), with the added feature that they can select the wines.  Includes pick-up parties with food, two free tastings every visit, 15% discount on other wine purchases (going up to 20% if members purchase wine during the pick-up parties).

​Who’d da thunk it?  I mean, who’d da thunk it?  It was just something so unexpected that all we could say was “who’d da thunk it.”  So, you say, what’s the story?  Well, here’s the story….
It was the Monday following two days of the Sonoma Barrel Tasting.  Our flight out of Sacramento left us plenty of time to hit one or two wineries, so that was the plan.  But someone suggested we stop in at the Kendall-Jackson Winery.  Kendall-Jackson, maker of vast quantities of low-quality wines sold extensively at supermarkets throughout California.  Yes, that Kendall-Jackson.  So we did.  Beautiful place – extensive grounds, exquisite high-ceilinged building, well-furnished interior.  See pictures below.

​Not too many people there, it being a Monday.  We were met quickly by a staff member, wherein we informed them of our interest in tasting their wines.  First thing they needed was a name, so I gave them mine and she looked it up on the computer.  And, to my surprise, it was there.  Huh?  I had never been to one of their facilities, had I?  Well, turns out I had – they own Cambria, one of my favorite wineries in the Santa Barbara area.  Now, if they own Cambria, and Cambria makes really good wine, could it be possible that we might actually like the wine at this Kendall-Jackson tasting room?
We did.  Who’d da thunk it!  As our server was quick to point out, while Kendall-Jackson makes some of its wines in batches of over a million cases a year, the wines we were tasting were made in batches of 50-100 cases per year.  That is boutique winery production level.  The menu below shows the wines were tasted.

​I particularly liked the tasting approach.  Rather than a simple series tasting method, they pour two wines at a time so you can do side-by-side comparisons.  Three sets were poured. The first two wines were Chardonnay’s, the second pair Pinot Noir, and for the third set we had a Cabernet Sauvignon compared to a Bordeaux-style blend.  All were quite nice, but the most interesting pair were the Pinot Noirs.  The info on the pairs is shown below.
The important difference between the two Pinot Noirs is where the grapes were grown.  The Three Vistas Pinot Noir is made from grapes grown in the Russian River area, basically on site.  The other Pinot Noir was made from grapes grown in Cloud Landing region of Sonoma.  This is an area closer to the ocean which is colder and windier.  The two wines are very different.  The Three Vistas wine is pretty much what you would expect for a Pinot Noir – smooth, low tannin, light color, etc.  The other wine, from Cloud Landing, is much darker in color – so much darker that it is hard to believe it is a Pinot Noir – with medium, though smooth, tannins.  As explained to us by the server, the vines in this Cloud Landing area have mutated to produce a grape with thicker skin, hence more tannins and deeper color.  Who’d da thunk it?

​But there’s more….  They offer wine and food pairings as shown in the menus below.  Nothing unusual, you say?  Well, here’s more of the story.  You see, while every vineyard is a farm, most just grow grapes.  Not this Kendall-Jackson facility.  They grow much of the vegetables used in their wine pairing dinners.  And they do a good job of it.  OK, you say, how do I know this?  I admit that I did not taste their food (need reservations in advance), but, you see, they don’t use all of it themselves.  They sell much of their produce to Michelin star restaurants in San Francisco!  Who’d da thunk it?

​As a final note, the wines that we tasted can only be purchased through that site.  To that end, they do have a wine club.  See details below.

​I missed it.  Not sure how, but I did.  It was right there in front of my eyes.  Sure, you might have missed it, but I write about these, I should have seen it.  But I did not, and missed the opportunity.  But I digress from my main story, a visit to Orsi Family Vineyards.
After our visit to Armida, we ventured closer to Healdsburg to a winery I found on the Sonoma barrel tasting website that focused on Italian grape varieties.  Great call!  Orsi Family Vineyards is a must while wine tasting in Sonoma.  For me, it is a reason to return to Sonoma, and, along the way, do what I should have done that afternoon.  Were it not that they were set up for barrel tasting, we would probably have spent the entire afternoon there.  Yeah, that’s the ticket!  I’ll blame my error on the barrels…
Now the facility is closer to ones found in our area of the California wine scene, with a nice tasting room, side room with tables, and outside seating area with a wonderful view.  See pictures below.  As seems to be the case at every winery, the staff were great.

​They brought the barrels into the tasting room, and set up a pasta tasting, probably to remind everyone of their Italian focus.  They had three barrels set up, for three of my favorite wines – Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, and Montepulciano.  As this was a barrel tasting event, we tasted the wine still in the barrel and the earlier vintages available for sale.  All three are great!  So maybe that’s why I missed it….

​The list of wines for purchase is shown below.  Most of the names are familiar to me, and varietals made from these grapes are produced in Southern California wineries.  Two new ones for me are Biancolella, a white grape grown extensively in the region around Naples, and Schioppettino, a red grape variety from the far northeastern corner of Italy.  I did not see them at the time.  There they both are, one at the top of the Italian list, and one at the bottom.  The white, well, it is a white wine after all – I might not have done anything even if I had seen it on the list.  But the red, Schioppettino!  I should not have missed it!  I should have tasted the wine made from this rare grape.

​As it turns out, this grape was almost extinct, nearly wiped out about fifty years ago, saved by one family in Italy.  According to Mark Orsi, General Manager of Orsi Family Vineyards, a friend of his father had been sourcing the fruit from Gallo to make wine.  About fifteen years ago Orsi was able to get some cuttings from the Gallo vines.  Gallo has since stopped growing the grape, so Orsi is probably the only winery in the country where you can get Schioppettino.  And yours truly did not even get a taste of it!  A very rare red wine that I can only taste at Orsi along with six of my favorite Italian reds (Aglianico, Montepulciano, Negro Amaro, Nebbiolo, Sagrantino and Sangiovese) – yeah, I need another trip up north…

​The second day of our barrel tasting excursion in Sonoma took us north of the Russian River area to the Dry Creek Valley region, further from the very cold Pacific Ocean.  In addition to being further from the coast, there are hills between the wine-growing region and the water that provide additional protection, resulting in an area not well-suited for growing Pinot Noir grapes.  Among the grapes that seem to thrive in that region is Zinfandel, so we were on the hunt for wines made from this largely California grown grape.
Now Zinfandel is among the few grapes with more acreage planted in California than anywhere else in the world.  The only other region in the world where it is grown extensively is in Italy, primarily in the Puglia region, along the peninsula’s southeastern coast.  There it is known as Primitivo.  It is a red grape, but many of you know of it as a grape used to make a blush wine (White Zinfandel).  Some things that I find interesting about Zinfandel:

• The grape was first introduced into the US as a table grape in the early 1800’s, where it was grown extensively in hot houses in Boston and other American cities.  It was brought to California during the gold rush, where it was used to make wine.
• For most grape varieties, all the grapes on a bunch ripen around the same time.  Not Zinfandel!  A single bunch can have grapes that are still green as well as ones that are far along the way toward raisins.  Drives the growers crazy….
• The blush wine made from the Zinfandel grape was the result of a failed effort to make a dry white wine from the grape.  They’re crying about that all the way to the bank….

But this post is not about Zinfandel, but about the first winery we visited on our second day of barrel tasting in Sonoma:  Armida Winery.  Recommended to us by Doc Ed, it proved to be a great winery to start our second day of barrel tasting.  Lovely setting, very nice facility, and, most important of all, a truly fine Zinfandel.

​The picture above this paragraph was taken from the building shown in the picture below this paragraph, where the barrel tasting was taking place.  To the left in the picture above is the tasting room.  The barrel tasting went well, but our group was more interested in what we could buy now so went dropped in on the tasting room itself, shown below as well.

​As seen in the wine list shown below, they specialize in both Pinot Noir and Zinfandel.  The Pinots were good, but I guess you are expecting me to rant and rave about their Zinfandel, so I will just say that it is:
The Wine to Die For!

​Hence the name, PoiZin.  Very nice wine, and here’s the kicker:  they had a special for barrel tasting weekend on the wine!  A case of the 2021 vintage for $198, including shipping!  Needless to say, we bought a case….  I’ve included a picture of the back of the bottle with all the info on the wine.  Note that it has an alcohol level of 14.9%.  This means the grapes were pretty ripe when picked, giving the wine a very fruity note with little acidity or tannins – perfect for pairing with Mexican food.  And what food do we eat a lot of in Southern California?  Ah, now you understand why I was so thrilled with Armida Winery!

​The winery we visited after Porter Creek was so good that it might be worthy of not just applause but a standing ovation!  Yes, the winery, Moshin Vineyards, is that good.  I would love to claim that my great knowledge of wine and wineries led me to this great discovery, but the fact is I chose it because it was the next winery down the road from Porter Creek.
Fortunately, Moshin held the barrel tasting down in the barrel room, out of the cold and rain.  For each wine we tasted a sample from the barrel and one of a previous vintage available for purchase.  After tasting from the barrels, it was lunch time (yes, we drank a lot of wine before lunch), so we asked if they had a place where we could bring in food.  Well, they were very simply incredible great people.  They moved tables around for us in their small tasting room (see picture below), and then spent time with us talking wine and their winery.

​The wines they offered were as expected:  Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Both are excellent, the Pinot Noir so much so that we purchased a case.  Below is a picture of their barrel tasting set-up, followed by a somewhat technical explanation on how they make such a good Pinot Noir.  I will understand if you don’t read this part, but, well, I did spend some time on it….

​Gas often gets trapped in liquids, and if you shake up the liquid the gas comes out of solution.  You know, like when you shake up a bottle of soda or beer – what am I talking about here, you drink wine not soda or beer!  Sorry about that.  If you shake up a bottle of Champagne or Cava the gas comes out of solution and the pressure builds up, so much so that the cork comes out as soon as you take off the metal and shoots across the room along with a lot of the wine (oh, the horror!).  Worse than the time you loosened the cork and had it pop off and zoom up and hit a light fixture in the ceiling.  I mean, everyone has had that happen, haven’t they?  Can’t be just me….
Getting back to the point here, normally the wine is pumped from one container to another – say from a settling tank to an aging barrel, or from aging barrels into a central container to mix the barrels before bottling, and, of course, from a tank into the bottles.  This mechanical movement of the wine does the same thing as shaking up the Champagne bottle – it releases trapped gas.  What is this gas, you ask, other than air?  Well, that depends on the fermentation process, varying with such issues as fermentation temperature, chemicals on the skin of the grapes, and the yeast used to ferment the grapes.  Some are not good to have in the wine, especially hydrogen sulfide.  In general, losing these gases is good.  But not all winemakers believe losing these gasses is a good idea, at least not for all grape varieties.  Rick Moshin is in this latter category.  And he put his money where his mouth is by building a winery designed to greatly reduce the loss of these gasses.
How?  Well, he built the Moshin winery on levels (see pictures above) so the wine can be moved from container to container entirely, and slowly, by gravity feed (or by pump, but we will get to that later).  In this way, the wine is not stirred up and the gasses remain in solution.  Of course, the resultant wines have to be decanted and/or aerated to remove the bad gasses after opening the bottles, but he feels this is a small price to pay for the improved taste of the wines.  At least for Pinot Noir.
As noted above, he can also transfer liquids by pump, releasing the trapped gas, and for good reason – trapping the gas is a very bad idea for most other grape varieties, such as Cabernet Sauvignon.  But, when you own a vineyard in the Russian River are of Sonoma, and grow really great Pinot Noir grapes, it makes great sense to put your efforts into the Pinot Noir.
Rick also pointed out a few other niceties in his wine making methodology.  For instance, he does not crush the grapes – he gets them to crush themselves!  I like to think that he forces them into some sort of cage matches, but the reality is much more mundane.  After destemming, he loads them into the fermentation tank and the weight of the grapes on top crushes the grapes on the bottom, setting off a fermentation sequence that results in all the grapes bursting and adding to the final product.
The cage match concept might better describe how he handles yeast.  Natural yeast varieties often settle on the skin of the grapes.  Many wineries kill off this natural yeast and add commercial yeast, giving them control of the flavors the yeast adds to the wine.  Rick goes entirely with the natural yeast.  He believes it adds complexity to the wine.
Based on the wines we tasted – and bought – I believe strongly that Moshin has hit upon a great way to make fine wine from Pinot Noir grapes.  A great hit for our first day of barrel tasting!

​The picture above is a topological map of the Sonoma wine growing regions.  For our first day of barrel tasting we headed into the Russian River region, somewhat in the southwestern part of the county.  To the northwest is the Dry Creek region, and to the north the Alexander Valley region.  The Pacific coastline runs somewhat northwest to southeast, putting the Russian River area closer to the very cold ocean than the other two.  The hills along the coast are also lower in the Russian River region.  These two facts lead to a cooler climate like the Burgundy region of France.  Now in Burgundy you can only grow two grapes – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  All red Burgundy wines are made from Pinot Noir grapes and only Pinot Noir grapes, and all white Burgundy wines are made from Chardonnay grapes and only Chardonnay grapes.  Ergo, it stands to reason that wineries in the Russian River region of Sonoma would do well growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.  Porter Creek Vineyards, our first stop in the Russian River region, got the message in spades….
When we first arrived at Porter Creek, the weather was not so bad, and the small tent where they held the tasting mostly empty.  It turns out we were the vanguard, as within twenty minutes or so the tent was crowded, as was the small tasting room.  The weather shortly thereafter turned very nasty – cold and rainy.  Being a complete wimp when it comes to cold, damp weather, I only came out of there with two pictures.  But I did manage to taste most of their wines.

​As one might hope, they produce some very nice Pinot Noir from their estate grown grapes.  Porter Creek places a great deal of effort into the growing of the grapes without any synthetic chemicals, and extends this requirement to the growers that provide one-third of the grapes it uses.  This extra effort to protect the environment also seems to lead to better wine.

​Now, as one is in a nice region for growing two of the most popular grapes in the world, it came as a bit of a surprise that they offered wines made from other grapes – Zinfandel, Viognier, Syrah and Carignane, bringing in grapes from other Sonoma vineyards as well as vineyards in Mendocino County.
I should add that I learned two things about Carignane in preparing this blog.  First, while the grape is grown in Bordeaux to blend with Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot, its origin is Spain.  Second, it can be spelled with or without the “e”….

​We did not fly directly to Sonoma, avoiding the diminutive airport in Santa Rosa.  Instead, we flew into Sacramento then drove to Sonoma.  While it is not a particularly long drive, we were thirsty so naturally we stopped at a winery along the way:  Jacuzzi Family Vineyards.
It was not an entirely unplanned stop.  Well, ok, it was an entirely planned stop, having a friend that worked at there a few years ago, and it is located to the east side of Sonoma making it a perfect stop on the way from Sacramento.  And, yes, it is the same Jacuzzi family so famous for their spas that they are called Jacuzzis even if made by someone else (re:  Xerox).
As can be seen in the pictures below, it is quite a facility.  They set us up in an open courtyard, even though it was raining, but we managed to survive!  It helped that they had a covering over the courtyard keeping the rain off and, well, it really was pretty nice but doesn’t make for a great story so I’ll stick with claiming we were sitting in the rain….

​I am a great fan of Italian grapes, but not just because I get a kick out of people trying to pronounce Montepulciano or Aglianico.  Jacuzzi specializes in those two grapes, as well as other Italian favorites of mine, such as Sangiovese, Nero d’Avola and Sagrantino.  As tasting was expensive, we opted to buy bottles of wine.  I mean, we had travelled all the way from San Diego, after all.  How long can one go without wine?  We only consumed four bottles:  Prosecco, Nero d’Avola, Aglianico, and Sagrantino.
The Sagrantino was the best of the lot, a very nice rendition though it could have stood a bit more aging.  For those of you not familiar with Sagrantino, it is a grape with a very high tannin concentration, among the highest of any wine grapes – much like Tannat.
Having quenched our thirst, we resumed our trek to our hotel in Sonoma.  We were roughing it, as we always do, so dinner that night was at the Francis Ford Coppola Winery….

​Every year for the last ten years or so, Sonoma wine makers have held a barrel testing weekend.  In the past it lasted three days and two weekends, but is now down to two days on one weekend.  Somehow, they’ve managed to only hold it on days when it is cold and rainy.  So, we were not surprised when our visit was plagued by cold, rainy weather.  Our plan next year is to move the Sonoma wineries to sunny San Diego for the event….
So how does a barrel testing event work?  Well, each participant pays an exorbitant amount of money for an empty glass and a wrist band.  One takes the empty glass to one of around 50 tasting rooms and people pour wine in the glass, often from a barrel but sometimes from bottles.  If you like the wines from the barrels, you can buy futures for the wine -- they ship it to you when it is finally released.
Before I write more about the trip, a few words about Sonoma are called for.  First, Sonoma County lies to the west of Napa, going all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  As the Pacific north of San Francisco is extremely cold, Sonoma is significantly cooler than Napa.  In wine terms, Napa is Bordeaux and Sonoma is Burgundy plus.  Whereas in Napa one finds Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc, in Sonoma one finds Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the plus being Zinfandel and some Italian varieties.
Sonoma’s wine production is greater, as it has more wineries and nearly twice the number of acres planted.  Its nearly 60,000 acres are second in the state to San Joaquin County and represents about 11% of the California’s planted acreage.  The best Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines come mostly from the Russian River region, southwest of Healdsburg.  North and a bit to the west of Healdsburg one finds some very nice Zinfandels.  So, we arranged our wine tasting to cover the Pinot Noir area on Saturday and the Zinfandel area on Sunday.
Now as the wine barrel tasting event started on a Saturday, and, arriving early on a Friday we naturally had to stop in a winery on the way from the airport in Sacramento to Sonoma, and again on our way back on Monday.  Actually, we tried to hit two on Monday but we couldn’t find another one open along our way back to Sacramento.
Doc Ed has been up that way in the past, but only two of his recommended wineries were on the list of participating wineries.  Below is a listing of the wineries we visited or almost visited, including the two that were not part of the barrel tasting.  I will have more to say about most of these in future blogs.  Keep in mind that as we go through these wineries we were there when they were pretty busy and focused on the barrel tasting.  Some were able to put their best foot forward, but others were not so lucky.
Jacuzzi Family Wines:  Yes, this is the Jacuzzi of hot tub fame.  The winery is on the eastern side of Sonoma, far from the ocean, so their fields do not get as cold.  My next blog in this sequence will cover our trip to Jacuzzi
Bucher:  According to Doc Ed, Bucher has an outstanding Pinot Noir, named Pommard after a region in Burgundy.  We tasted their wines at our check-in point rather than their winery (which I understand does not have a tasting room).  Unfortunately, they did not have the Pommard available for tasting, either from the barrel or bottle.
Porter Creek:  Very nice Pinot Noir’s and a nice Chardonnay.  Worthy of a separate blog after Jacuzzi
Moshin:  Great find!  Great people, nice facility, and very good Pinot Noir (we bought a case).  Blog to follow Porter Creek.
Ektimo:  Very nice people, nice facility, but wines were too acidic for my taste.  No blog.
Char Vale:  Nice people, but wines and facility not up to snuff.
Armida:  This was our first stop on Sunday, in the region of Sonoma where Zinfandel reigns supreme.  It is also a Doc Ed recommended winery.  So, as expected, the Zinfandel was really good, and, well, the people and facility were right up there as well.  More of this winery in a blog following Moshin.
Orsi Family:  Every so often I come upon a winery that just knocks my socks off.  Orsi was the one on this trip.  It didn’t hurt that we were tasting three of my favorite varietals – Sangiovese, Montepulciano, and Nebbiolo.  They were three for three.  More on this fabulous find in the blog following Armida.  And no, I did not hurt myself patting myself on the back….
Idlewild Wines:  Very unique winery in that they make wines from 45 Italian grape varieties.  Unfortunately, none of the wines we tasted were very good.
Wilson:  Zinfandel is their specialty, and they produce some very nice wines.  Not sure what more to say, as their owners also own nine other wineries in Sonoma.  I will have more to say in a blog.
Kendall-Jackson:  The biggest surprise of the trip by far.  Known for wines produced on the million case a year level, this operation in Sonoma produces wines at the 50-case level, specializing in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.  The review of this winery will complete my tale of Sonoma – for the near future.  They did not participate in the barrel tasting event.

Julie’s Dream is a new winery in Temecula, located on the side road off Rancho California Blvd. along with several other wineries (Long Shadow Ranch, Akash, et al.).  We worried that Julie’s Dream would turn out to be more of a wine lover’s nightmare.  I think Julie’s Dream is going to be shared by many wine lovers!

​Above and below you see some of the pictures of their brand-new facility.  Pretty nice, huh?  Well, it’s all temporary.  They are building a new tasting room up the hill from this one, along with some other neat facilities (can we say hotel and restaurant?).  Not surprising, though, as the father/daughter owners have extensive experience in the real estate business, with dad having a focus on “lodging and hospitality.”  As you might guess, Julie is the daughter, and this winery is her dream come true!

Of course, in the real world nightmares also creep in.  In Julie’s Dream case, the 25 acres of vines that came with the property had a few issues, such as termites.  As a result, they’ve had to replant the entire vineyard.  Fortunately, they’ve got another seven acres elsewhere to provide wines while those vines mature.
You can see their wine selection below.  We found the Zinfandel to be quite nice.  My wife loved the Chardonay, so we came home with a bottle.  Fortunately, I got a picture of the bottle before I drank it all.  Long story there…

​They have a wine club, sort of standard conditions – twelve bottles/year, pickup parties every other month, 20% discount on wine, 10% on other goodies, up to 18 glasses or tastings per month (only four per day).  Club members also get a 20% discount on events, which 1) is quite generous and 2) means they are going to have events!

​Of course, while we were in the Lompoc area we had to stop at Melville Winery.  Nothing much had changed since our last visit in March of 2020.  Their Syrah was just as peppery and luscious, their Pinot Noir’s simply excellent.  Great wine, great facility – ho hum.  Fortunately, this time the wines were presented to us at the right temperature….  See some updated pictures below.

​If you are stopping in to visit Melville, you should also take some time to visit their next door neighbor, Babcock.  As you may recall from our last visit, Babcock is where they take the old records off the shelf!  A wonderland of sixties remembrances, and an array of cocktail napkins that you dare read only if you are wearing a diaper, as you will laugh so hard you’re certain to pee your pants….