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One of my favorite parts of living in Northern California is the abundance of wineries within a few hours drive. And it continues to amaze me just how many wineries there are. Husband and I have extensively explored the wineries within Sonoma and Napa County. We have many favorite wineries which we tend to go back to each year. At the same time, each visit we find more wineries that we haven't yet explored. Often, and especially in the Russian River Wine Road area, the wines themselves are only secondary to the wine tasting experience. But this year we decided to explore new territory. We had many places to choose from including the Santa Cruz Mountain wineries, Monterey Bay wineries, and even wineries in the Sierra Foothills. But since we've also not done a lot of exploring of the coast north of San Francisco we decided to go to Mendocino for a couple of days to check out a new (to us) part of the Northern California coast and to try out wines of the Anderson Valley (Mendocino County).
We didn't consciously consider that Anderson Valley would be less crowded, less commercialized and more unique but it’s definitely what we found. Unlike Napa, and unfortunately increasing Sonoma, Anderson Valley wineries don't charge tasting fees. Also the wineries tend to be smaller and less like marble fortresses. And they definitely had less people. Although be warned the roads leading you into Anderson valley are twisty and windy - much more so (and for much longer) than West Side Drive in the Russian River area of Sonoma Counter. The roads were definitely one part of the trip I didn't enjoy despite Husbands awesome driving to help prevent me from feeling ill! We had been warned that many of the Anderson Valley wineries require tasting appointments. This is somewhat true in that some wineries do require appointments but you can also find many that are open without the need for appointment. A local San Jose wine shop had recommended we try two wineries in particular: Esterlina and Londer. Unfortunately Londer was unavailable the day we tried for an appointment. So we made an appointment for Esterlina. The result was what I must characterize as best wine tasting experience I've ever had (and the wines were great to!). Just getting to Esterlina is different. The winery is about 2.5 miles up a single lane, twisty (of course) and dirt road. Leading me to believe they assume only true wine enthusiasts will venture into their winery. Once we got there we were personally greeted by Patty their Tasting Room Director who was all set for our wine tasting. She led us up to an outside patio on the top of their winery that looks down into the vineyards. The view is magnificent providing a sweeping display of much of the Anderson Valley. While it's a bit windy it wasn't hot because the patio was covered or was it that the table had an umbrella - can't remember. At any rate, even though it was in the low 90's in the valley where we were was very pleasant during the tasting. We sat at the table as Patty brought out several bottles of wine, chips, crackers and other tasting nibbles. The tasting we would soon learn included every wine they have and took over an hour. As Patty would pour the generous amounts of wine she'd discuss the wine, the area, and the winery. We started with a Sauvignon Blanc and a couple other whites, followed by Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and two types of Pinot Noir. We finished with a Zinfandel paired with dark chocolate Kit Kats (which I didn't know existed). As with most wine tastings not every wine was amazing but we really enjoyed many of them leading to the purchase of several bottles and joining their wine club. After the tasting we stayed on the porch and ate our packed lunch, with more wine Patty left for us. When we started the day out we thought oh we'll do the tasting at 1, have lunch and then taste a few more places. We didn't leave Esterlina till close to 4pm. The result - I'm a big fan of Esterlina and most definitely looking back despite the twisty roads! Hopefully next visit we'll get to Londer as well but I know for certain we'll visit Esterlina again...
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