Idlewild Wines
Sam Bilbro grows Piedmont grapes in Mendocino County and pours them on the Healdsburg plaza. Nebbiolo, Dolcetto and Arneis come with a plate of salumi.1
Why go
Bilbro opened this room in 2017 to pour his Italian portfolio, and he added the cheese and salumi because it seemed only Italian to.1 The fruit is the unusual part. Most of it comes off Fox Hill Vineyard in Mendocino County, planted to varieties almost nobody grows in California.1 The winery puts its own aim like this: to pursue Italy's Piedmont in the elevated hills of Mendocino County
.2 Esther Mobley wrote that his enthusiasm for obscure grapes is contagious.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Arneis. Mobley's own favorite, and she called it relentlessly floral.1
- Order: the cheese and salumi plate. It was $25 in 2018 and Mobley called it the way to go.1
- Avoid: expecting local fruit in the glass. This is a Healdsburg address pouring Mendocino wine, and the winery says so itself.2
What locals & experts say
- Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle Senior Wine Critic (9 January 2018):
Bilbro's wines — most of them from Mendocino County's Fox Hill Vineyard — are elegant and understated, and unfailingly delicious.
She singled outhis intense Nebbiolo, his delicate Dolcetto, his savory rosé or (my favorite) his relentlessly floral Arneis.
1
Good to know
- Booking: through the winery's own reservations page.2
- The prices on record are 2018: flights at $15 or $25, glasses $10 to $15, bottles mostly $30 or under. Mobley called those some of Sonoma County's best values for the quality.1
- The cheese came from Doralice Handal in 2018, who had run the Healdsburg Cheese Shop for years before it closed. Whether she still sources it is not established.1
Verdict
should-visit — Esther Mobley is the Chronicle's Senior Wine Critic and she called these wines elegant, understated and unfailingly delicious, which is a judgment of the wine rather than a place on a list. What makes them worth the walk is that almost nobody else in California is doing this: Nebbiolo, Dolcetto and Arneis grown in Mendocino County and poured on the Healdsburg plaza by the man who made them. Mobley also priced it honestly, with most bottles at $30 or under in 2018, which is unusual on that square. The rung stops short of the top only because her review is the newest evidence and it is eight years old.