Santa Cruz wine tasting

On Sunday I went wine tasting in Santa Cruz. On the way down we first stopped at Ridge Vineyards. It's funny, when wine tasting in New York, people tend to look for wine varietals they know and question the hybrids. I came across one in California at Ridge that I didn't know. Carignane...it's a french varietal similar to Petite Sirah. 18% of the Carignane was blended in their 2006 Geyserville. The wines we tasted here were all pretty good. I did purchase two bottles.

We then drove down to Santa Cruz and stopped at Bonny Doon. I was at Bonny Doon 6 years ago and personally I thought the wine was much better then than now. When we arrived at Bonny Doon we were looking for parking and drove to the back of the lot and came across a barn that had a different winery name. Beauregard Vineyards. Being curious, we stopped in. We happen to stop in to their case club pick-up party. We joined right in. They had some wonderful cheese spread. Goat cheese with carmelized onions on bread, some other nice selection of cheeses that went very will with their wines. I really liked their Chardonnay. It was nice with a buttery finish.

Here's the scoop...seems Bonny Doon had leased that area to Beauregard. They have now sold it to them. Bonny Doon will be moving their tasting room to the city of Santa Cruz by their corporate office and Beauregard Vineyards will be moving into the Bonny Doon tasting room.