The Russian River

Destination · Forestville

walk-in

Joe Swan's own Pinot Noir selection is now a registered clone at UC Davis, and Rod Berglund has made the wine off it since 1988.

Destination · Forestville

booking essential

They buy French oak as wood, air-dry it in St Romain, and coopered barrels arrive three years later.

Destination · Sebastopol

booking essential

Ted Lemon ran a Meursault estate at 25 and came back to farm 30 acres of Sebastopol with cows, sheep and a barn full of drying chamomile.

Solid · Sebastopol

booking essential

Audrey and Barry Sterling bought a failing vineyard down a Sebastopol dirt road in February 1976, two weeks after seeing it in a rainstorm.

Solid · Windsor

walk-in

The Martinellis have farmed this ground since the 1880s and keep about a tenth of what they grow. Jackass Hill is so steep that only a jackass would farm it, and Giuseppe did.

Solid · Sebastopol

booking essential

Marimar Torres left Barcelona in 1975, planted this ground in 1986 and named the vineyards for her parents.

Solid · Sebastopol

booking essential

Merry Edwards made Russian River Pinot Noir for 47 vintages, trained her successor for five years, and retired in February 2020. Esther Mobley says the wines still earn the name.

Solid · Sebastopol

walk-in

Pax Mahle was buying wine for Dean & DeLuca when he moved west in 1997, and by 2000 he was making cool-climate Syrah while everyone else planted Pinot Noir.

Listed · Windsor

walk-in

Mary Fazio started in Boyes Hot Springs in 1959 with her father's recipes and her own pots.

Listed · Sebastopol

walk-inthe room’s own account

Six vineyards, every one of them within ten miles of the Pacific, and the estate block planted in Fort Ross-Seaview in 2005. $35 for an hour, walk-ins welcome, last pour at four.

Listed · Sebastopol

booking essentialthe room’s own account

Fred Scherrer still sells a 2016 Russian River Pinot Noir that he released in November 2019. Almost nobody holds red wine that long before letting it go.

Listed · Windsor

book aheadthe room’s own account

Native yeast, neutral barrels, no fining and no filtering, and two things in the bottle: organic grapes and a little sulfur. Open Friday and Saturday, noon to five.

Listed · Sebastopol

walk-inthe room’s own account

They opened in the Barlow promising no flagship beers, no kegs out the door and nothing in stores.

Listed · Sebastopol

booking essential

Dan Kosta and Michael Browne pooled tips from a Santa Rosa restaurant in 1997 and ended up with an eighteen-month waiting list. Both of them were gone by 2017.

Listed · Sebastopol

booking essential

Jamie Kutch left a NASDAQ trading job in New York and now punches down every ferment by foot, into nothing but neutral French oak. There is no tasting room; you email him and hope.

Listed · Windsor

booking essentialthe room’s own account

Saralee and Richard Kunde planted this Windsor ground to Burgundian varieties in 1989 and the vineyard still carries her name. Thirty-five dollars gets you six wines on a patio above it.

Listed · Sebastopol

booking essentialthe room’s own account

Lynmar dry-farms four vineyards along the Laguna de Santa Rosa to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and nothing else, on a hundred acres. Sixty dollars buys ninety minutes, four people to a table.

Listed · Windsor

walk-in

Mike Officer started in 1987 with a hundred pounds of Zinfandel in a food-grade trash can in a Marina apartment.

Listed · Sebastopol

walk-inthe room’s own account

Both domains carrying this label's name fail to resolve, and no publication I could read has written about it. I cannot tell you whether anything is open on Gravenstein Highway.

Listed · Windsor

booking essentialthe room’s own account

A chain hotel in Windsor. The breakfast is the one Hampton Inn serves everywhere, and the food worth driving for is in Healdsburg, ten minutes north.