For our first day in Sonoma County, we wanted to go to the Ravenswood winery. Back at home, we are quite partial to a drop or two of the Ravenswood Zinfandel wine, which is produced here in California, so making that our first stop seemed to be the right thing to do.
Ravenswood run tours every day at 10:30, so we arrived shortly after 10 and paid our $15 each for the tour. We were then given four different white wines and a rose to taste. Despite not drinking much white, there were a couple in amongst there that would go down very nicely on a summers day!
We were then introduced to Dave, who was to be our guide for the tour. Dave has worked at Ravenswood for 8 years as a viticulturalist - his job is to look after the vines. He took us out into the vineyards right next door, and told us about the different grapes varieties that they grew there. The grapes are nearly ready for picking (probably next week) so we were able to try some grapes straight off of the vines - they were very sweet and delicious! We also used a hydrometer to measure the sugar content of the grapes, which showed that they were nearly ready.
After walking round the vineyards we went inside to to where the grapes are stored whilst they ferment - they had some grapes in a small container in here, and they smelt great! We then went into another building right next door, where we tried some Zinfandels straight out of the barrel - these were true, single vineyard Zinfandels rather than blends - this was good for seeing how the wines taste changed depending on the soil and location they were grown in.
It was then back to the main tasting room, where we sampled several more reds before settling on a bottle of Zinfandel from grapes grown in the vineyard we had walked around earlier to take away with us. We will be saving it for a special occasion though as it’s the most expensive bottle of wine we’ve ever bought!
The lack of photos is due to Dave’s tour being so interesting and him such a nice bloke and it being just the two of us and him. He told us a lot about his grandfather who had arrived in San Francisco from Italy and set up a vineyard which produced wine right through prohibition and which his family still own.
After leaving Ravenswood we went into Sonoma itself where we had a nice bit of lunch from a Deli which we ate sat in the town square.
From there we made our way down to Napa and then up the Napa Valley - which is just full of vineyards on both sides of the road.
We made our way back to Santa Rosa where we went to watch “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” - the first 3D film I’ve seen for years - the last time the glasses were red and green! Bit different now. :)