Lynmar Estate Winery
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.1
Why go
Start with the sites, planted to disagree with each other. Quail Hill is the home vineyard. Susanna's went in in 2006, ten acres of Pinot Noir and ten of Chardonnay.1 It sits two miles away in a cool pocket where Green Valley, the Russian River Valley and the Sonoma Coast meet.1 Adam's is nine acres planted in 2013, the warmest, on a Forestville hillside above the fog line.1 Hessel Station is the coldest.1 Fifteen acres of Pinot Noir went in across 2019 and 2020, first cropped in 2022.1
Lynn Fritz built an international logistics company before this.1 Anisya Fritz came from India at seventeen for college and took a doctorate in business strategy.1 She was a business school professor at twenty-five.1 She now runs the team that handles 95 percent of the estate's sales, and teaches wine-industry entrepreneurship at Sonoma State.1 Pete Soergel grew up in his family's Pittsburgh apple orchards and took a horticulture degree at Virginia Tech.1 He worked a New Zealand harvest, spent years at Kosta Browne and Landmark, joined here in 2012 and took the cellar in 2017.1 David Frakes cooked with Gary Danko at the Ritz-Carlton and has been the estate chef since 2011.1
The farming is dry and certified under California Sustainable Winegrowing.1 They cover-crop with perennial native bunchgrass and hang barn owl boxes.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Wine Flight at $60 plus tax, a seated tasting of estate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, ninety minutes.1
- Order: the Seasonal Provisions alongside it, which you have to ask for when you book.1
- Order: the Collectors Lunch Pairing if you want Frakes cooking a multi-course meal with a visit from the chef. The price is not published.1
- Avoid: the winery's own Visit page. It serves a marketing article ranking Lynmar above its named neighbors, and none of it is evidence of anything.
What locals & experts say
- Anisya Fritz, on arriving at the business:
At first, I knew very little about the wine business, but that gave me the incentive to take a deep dive into the components for success – and the objectivity to see what we needed to do.
1 - David Frakes, on cooking off the estate:
There is so much food growing here on the estate, creating a unique opportunity to build seasonal menus by planning not only what we would plant, but when it would come into season.
1
Good to know
- Wednesday to Monday at 10:00, 12:30 and 3:00. Groups cap at four and you should allow ninety minutes.1
- Your card is charged 48 hours out and is not refunded after that.1
- There is lodging on the estate. Bliss House has three bedrooms and sleeps six adults, with a two-night minimum from $1,500 a night, dropping for club members and by tenure.1
- Nobody outside the winery has written about these wines in anything I could read.
Verdict
could-visit — Each of the four sites is planted for a different reason: Susanna's sits in a cool pocket where Green Valley, Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast meet, Adam's is above the fog line on a Forestville hillside, and Hessel Station is the coldest of the lot, planted in 2019 and 2020 and first cropped in 2022. Pete Soergel came through his family's apple orchards, Kosta Browne and Landmark before taking the cellar in 2017, and David Frakes cooked for Gary Danko before he cooked here. The farming is certified sustainable and cover-cropped with native bunchgrass. No writer outside the estate has been, and its own visit page is a marketing piece ranking itself above its neighbors.