From Plane to Winery

Can you imagine taking off at New York's JFK airport and landing 1 hour early in San Francisco? Well that was our flight - we landed at 11:30am instead of 12:30pm. Good for us, more time in wine country.

Off the plane, grab our bags and rental car and off we go to Sonoma. First stop Kunde. We've been to Kunde before, in fact we are members of their wine club.  The tasting room staff was just that - staff.  They just poured for us. Not much explaining about the wine.  We had a nice time chatting with the people next to us.  Kunde's Magnolia Sauvignon Blanc was very good.  Nice and crisp, high acid but well balanced with hints of grapefruit and pineapple. I was surprised to learn the blend was 91% Sauvignon Blanc, 6% Semillon and 3% Viognier. I couldn't taste the Semillon, but the Viognier came through. (that's according to my nose and palate)

Next stop was Chateau St. Jean. One of our favorites. As we arrived they were just finishing up processing Viognier. Of course we went over to the crush pad and were chatting with the workers and tasting the grapes.  Then we proceeded to the reserve room. What a great time we had here.  The one white wine that stood out was their 2006 Robert Young non malolactic Chardonnay.  It was wonderful (in fact they served it at the wedding we attended on Sunday) There Cinq Cepage is one of my favorite blends.  Paul was getting into their many Pinot Noirs which the Durell Vineyards 2007 was the winner for us.

We left there and headed to Ledson Winery.  We entered the winery and were instructed to go to the tasting bar on the right.  Doing as we are told we got to the tasting bar and were waiting to be recognized.  One of the staff finally did come over to us and hand us a menu, yes menu of their 50+ wines to choose from.  We continued to wait and wait.  Finally fed up we walked out.  Nobody seemed to mind or care.  I guess if you aren't a blond bombshell and drop dead gorgeous you weren't getting a tasting in that tasting room.

We left Ledson and most likely won't go back and headed to our hotel room in Healdsburg.