Head for The Hills

Like dieters and students of foreign languages, I am forever on the verge of giving up. In my case it’s travel advice. I have taken repeated vows, all broken, never to counsel aspiring wine lovers about where they should go.I realize this sounds churlish, but hear me out. A typical phone call goes like this: “Hi, you don’t know me. I’m the son of a friend of your brother’s. I’m going to Napa Valley and my father – who plays tennis with your brother – said you’d know all about it.”Now, in the past I would launch into all sorts of detailed advice about who to visit, what to taste, where to eat, etc.Later, I would ask my brother if his friend’s son had a good time. “Oh, he decided to go to Sonoma instead.” (It’s even worse when the destination is, say, Italy. I found that people don’t visit the places I suggest because – get this – they couldn’t find them recommended in guidebooks.)So, as this column likes to declare every week, Here’s the Deal: I tell you where to go.You do it. Now, isn’t that simple?Let’s take Napa Valley, for example. Everyone heading out West with wine in mind heads first to Napa Valley. And why not? It’s gorgeous; it’s howling with wineries, and Napa Valley is an hour and a half from San Francisco.You say you’re going to Napa? Wonderful. Do this: Get off the valley floor. It’s crawling, sometimes literally, with tourist traffic. Nearly all of the wineries on the valley floor are – let’s be charitable – touristically oriented. (Imagine drinking an advertising billboard and you’ve got it.)What you want to do is get into the hills. My top choice is clambering, like a winesmitten Bighorn sheep, from winery to winery up Spring Mountain.You drive into the sweet little town of St. Helena and hang a left on Madrona Avenue and then a quick right onto Spring Mountain Road. That’s it. All you do then is follow Spring Mountain Road’s winding way up the mountain all the way to the crest, which is about 2,000 feet in elevation.Along the way, you should visit Spring Mountain Vineyard (appointments required: 707- 967-4188), which is making exceptional wines and offers one of the best private tours in Napa Valley. Don’t miss it.Then you stop at Robert Keenan Winery, where you can just fall in. Its merlot is one of California’s best. And so it goes. Check out the little-known (but up-andcoming) Terra Valentine. Toward the peak there’s Barnett Vineyards and Pride Mountain Vineyards. And you don’t want to miss Smith-Madrone Vineyards and Winery, which makes superb cabernet and amazing dry riesling.Believe me, by the time you’re done with Spring Mountain (which has more than two dozen wineries) you’ll return to the valley floor and look pityingly on the, ahem, less-informed wine tourists.Napa and Sonoma are ho-hum, you say? Been there, drank that? Fair enough.Then I’d suggest you head south to Santa Barbara County. If pressed to name my favorite wine-jaunting precinct in California, I not so reluctantly point to Santa Barbara County.What’s going on there is nothing less than a California wine revolution, most particularly with pinot noir. I’m compelled to mention here that the movie “Sideways” was filmed in Santa Barbara County, but don’t hold that against it.What you really want to taste in Santa Barbara County are the pinot noir wineries of the county’s newest wine zone, the Santa Rita Hills. Nearly all of them emerged in the late 1990s, and they are ushering in a new twist on California pinot noir with dense, lush pinot noirs with a decided mineral edge. They are like no other pinot noir from anywhere in California or, come to think of it, anywhere else on the planet, either.Look to visit (usually by appointment, which is easy to get outside of harvest time) wineries such as Melville, Sanford & Benedict, Foley Estates, and Babcock, among others. Other wineries, such as Sea Smoke and Fiddlehead Cellars, are so small that there’s almost nothing to visit; they’re often in insulated warehouse facilities.Actually, the most beautiful part of Santa Barbara County is the Santa Ynez Valley, which offers a dreamy western landscape with hills crowned with live oaks positioned just-so. Wineries abound. Visit the little-known but terrific Carhartt Vineyard (great merlot and cabernet); the stunningly-sited Beckmen and Stolpman vineyards. Drive down a country lane to Foxen Vineyard (don’t miss the exceptional cabernet franc) and Bedford-Thomson (ditto). And head off to the easternmost portion of the county to visit the paradoxically named Westerley Vineyards, which makes some of California’s best sauvignon blanc and viognier.Inevitably, you won’t be able to visit as many wineries as you might like. So restaurants and wine shops are the ticket. In Santa Barbara County that means the Wine Cask in downtown Santa Barbara. Owner and winemaker Doug Margerum has everybody’s wines from Santa Barbara, as well as a good restaurant on the premises. You don’t want to miss it, really, because Wine Cask is one of America’s best wine shops.Wine touring is so simple. Just do what I tell you – and send me a postcard. I’d like to hear all about it.

Head for The Hills

Head for The Hills

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