Three of the absolute best hidden gem wineries in Sonoma Wine Country
Hidden gems? Ooh!
Just 3? Nope. Just 3 in this post.
Well that’s a tease! Yep!
Let’s talk about it!
Sonoma Wine Country, as I refer to it, has an embarrassment of riches. There is no way I could keep my list to 3. I am, however, starting with 3.
In case you can’t stand the suspense, the 3 are:
If you are really impatient, jump to the details below. You can also click on the links above.
OR, read on here:
First things first. What do I mean when I say Sonoma Wine Country?
First thing you need to know: There is Sonoma (a town), Sonoma Valley (a region), and Sonoma County (the whole shebang). That last part includes Northern Sonoma County. It’s a lot!
For wine country, you want to talk about the whole shebang.
If you want help planning the trip in Sonoma County, read here. It is some really good advice.
Second thing you want to know is what I mean by wine country. (I have written about this before, so skip on down if you know this part.)
I love wine country!
Not every area that has wineries is wine country, though.
Wine country is a place with a love of food and wine. It is in the mindset of the people. It is a way of thinking.
Every state in the United States has at least one winery. Every state! But they are not all wine country.
I am assuming that if you don’t live in an area that is surrounded by wineries and vineyards and great food to go with it, you want to visit one.
If you do live in such an area, lucky you! You still may want to travel to a different wine country area.
If you want to look into other wine travel fun, Click on the Words Wine Travel Adventures below the title. It will show them all to you! But keep reading here first. This is good stuff.
For choosing a “wine country”, I am totally Team Sonoma.
The reason to go to wine country in the first place is about where you are tasting wine. The experience of tasting wine in a vineyard or tasting room or winery should add to the joy and fun of tasting wine. It does not need to be by the water, or in a vineyard. However, where you are tasting, the personality of where you are tasting, is totally part of the experience.
There are more wines than one can possibly drink. There are more wineries than you can possibly visit. There are probably more award-winning restaurants than you could ever eat at. What you should want, if you are spending good money and time to do so, is a place that makes you feel welcome, that you belong there. I have been to exceptional restaurants and wineries, but it is never just the food or just the wine. They add to my life in some way. The memories are great and I savor them.
Important clarification:
There are wineries, vineyards and tasting rooms. Sometimes they are all together, and sometimes not. Tasting rooms in a town or city are usually only a tasting room.
A winery is where they make the wines, and the vineyards are where they grow the grapes. Some wineries grow their own grapes, and may have multiple vineyards.
Some wineries buy their grapes. Many times they buy from multiple vineyards.
There are also tasting rooms which may or may not be at the winery.
There are also custom crush facilities.
I’m so confused. What is that?
Well, many wineries in Sonoma do not want to own all the equipment needed to turn grapes into wine. Many use a custom crush set up. The equipment and resources are provided by the custom crush facility. Much of the equipment used for harvest is used for such a short period of time. It would be too large a financial capital investment to buy it. (I know, boring reality.)
This way the winemaker can make wine without all the overhead.
Oh, and they may have a tasting room at the facility.
Are we clear? The takeaway is that there are multiple places to enjoy wine tasting.
Back to the Good Stuff:
The first time one of my children walked into a huge electronics and video game store, he looked around wide-eyed and said, “This is my new home.” Same child also found a “new home” in a French bakery.
These 3 hidden gems are my “new home!” These are places you want to keep going back to. You will want to savor their wines over and over again.
Hidden Gems??
I call these 3 wineries hidden gems because you will not likely see them in your grocery store or wine store down the street. You may be able to see them in a restaurant. Mostly, though, you get them directly through the winery.
When you are tasting there, you feel part of a family of like minded people. Ok, I did. Hopefully, you will too.
Also, you have a very good shot at meeting the winemaker. Please do not think you need to know a sommelier’s worth of wine to do that. Just be open to enjoying the wine! Have fun with it!
Important Note: None of these wineries are aware I am writing this. It is not a promotion. I just want to share wonderful things whenever I can.
Oh, and I never offer tasting notes. If you find them helpful, rest assured each winery has them.
All of these wineries offer wines that are amazing symphonies of flavor. There are just layers and layers of it. The finish on them are memorable. Go forth and try them.
Enjoy! Have fun!
First up:
Kerith Overstreet is the winemaker at Bruliam Wines. I could spend this whole post telling you about her fascinating background, but I won’t. Click on the Bruliam website to read all about it.
I won’t go on and on about how my husband and I met her (and her husband) in 2017 at a Sonoma in the City (as in New York City) event. I won’t spend an overwhelming amount of time saying what a fantastic time we had at their Sonoma home with their family for dinner.
All of that would tell you is how wonderful the winemaker and her family are.
What you really need to know is how incredibly delicious the wines are, and the great experience when you taste them!
Bruliam Wines is located at Grand Cru Custom Crush in Windsor. Other wineries are there as well.
Yep, now you see why I explained the Custom Crush thing.
It is a lovely set up with private tasting rooms.
Yep, this a private tasting room. There were just the two of us tasting with Kerith, but there is room for more.
With snacks! All the better to taste the wine with!
Even if I tasted it in a parking lot (which I obviously did not), I would still swoon over these wines. Better yet, you taste them with the wine maker! How great is that!?!?
These were the fantastic reds we tasted! Note how they are all from different vineyards. Remember how I mentioned multiple vineyards. All deliciously different. We bought them too!
The Chardonnay and Rosé were delicious as well. I don’t want to forget to mention them.
You are in an actual working winery. Ask for a tour.
We were there during harvest, so it was really active. Decided to spare you all the pictures of people sorting grapes. I love that stuff, though.
The delicious wines have to age somewhere.
They need to be accessible to make sure the wines become as fantastic as possible.
Trust me that these wines are delicious. VISIT!!
Tongue Dancer Wines
Back story:
A number of years ago, the first wine club we ever joined was MacPhail Vineyards. I went to their tasting room twice before I joined. I wanted to make sure the wines were as insanely delicious as I first thought. They were!! Their Pinot Noir wines were some of the best I have ever had.
I used to have a wine gallery on this website of my favorite wines up to that point. I closed it and included them all in a post. Hint: click on the word post to read Top 20 insanely delicious wines from the wine gallery. Totally worth a look because I included some of the older Bruliam wines in there as well.
This was my RIP MacPhail Vineyards in the wine gallery
My understanding was that they they had to close because of the floods and fires in Sonoma. Incredibly sad. My recommendation was: If you can find any of their wines still around, grab them! If not, remember to seek out the vineyards mentioned in the labels above.
UPDATE!!!
In August, James MacPhail bought back the name MacPhail Family wines! Not sure what will be made in the future. I will report back as I hear!! Meanwhile….
OR
You can follow the winemaker!
Which is what I did!! It led me to find Tongue Dancer Wines. James MacPhail is the winemaker. His wife Kerry describes herself as the “girl Friday.”
On each bottle of wine he is listed as the winemaker, and she as “knowledgeable one.”
How great is that! Both of them are fantastic people. Love the sense of humor.
Needed to show three sides of the label to reveal the whole clever picture. Yep, we bought multiple bottles of all the Pinot Noirs we tasted.
Read up on the whole story on the Winery website. Get on the email list. The emails are so much fun.
I will save you the whole very long story of how I discovered where the MacPhails were now. I will tell you that as soon as I found out, I contacted Kerry for a tasting. It was harvest time, but she still fit us in!
As you will see on their website, the tastings are only twice a day, and usually max out at 6 people.
This is a working winery.
It also happens to be a crush facility of its own.
The tasting room upstairs was all set up for us! Chardonnays and Pinots, oh my!!
Tongue Dancer Wines focuses on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. If you taste them and love them, buy them! Don’t sleep on these. These are not huge production wines.
You want wine notes? There you go! You get them when you taste.
They will describe the wines much better than I can. They also arrive with any wine you buy from them.
These wines are delicious and the whole experience is not to be missed! Visit!
I have no great backstory about Williamson Wines. No history. I found Williamson Wines because I wanted a great food and wine experience. Amazingly enough, this is not as easy as I would have liked. Since wine and food go together like, well wine and food, it should be everywhere.
Fortunately, Williamson wines feels this way too. They totally get my vote for one of the three best hidden gem wineries.
To quote from their website: “Williamson tasting experiences pair these wines with food to show how wine and food working in the mouth together increase the pleasure and value of both.” They go on, but you get the picture.
Someone could say, “Wait! They can’t be a hidden gem if they are right in downtown Healdsburg.” Well, that’s true. The tasting rooms are there. But you can’t buy them just anywhere. At all.
Williamson wines are not sold through distributors, stores or restaurants. You have to get it from them.
Oh wait, they also have Vineyard Tastings! (It’s not just downtown Healdsburg.) This is the dream!
So many of the tasting opportunities have food involved! Snacks and full meals.
Cheese and Wine! Oh my! Some with truffle salt! I never knew I needed that in my life.
And at the vineyard!!! Everything is right about this.
These are some of the wines we tasted when we were at the vineyard. Williamson offers a tremendous variety of wines and styles.
You will definitely find one you love!
Huge shout out to Sam Williamson! He had me try this wine when we were talking with him at the Yoakim Bridge Vineyard. I couldn’t get the wine out of my mind.
The next day, I went to the Healdsburg tasting room and bought it. Beyond delicious.
I will be back for more. Everyone was so incredibly friendly in tasting room.
Williamson Wines has a fantastic active wine club!! I won’t join though.
Wait! What? Why not?
They have so many fantastic opportunities for the wine club. I live nowhere near the winery. I live across the country. I would be bankrupt if I flew to California every time something amazing was offered. Which is often.
If you live anywhere near them, JOIN THE WINE CLUB!
If you want incredible wine experiences in Sonoma Wine Country, these 3 hidden gems are the places to go!
For my latest Sonoma Post be sure to check out: 10 fantastic and memorable wine country experiences in Sonoma County. Yep, click on the title or on the button below.
Enjoy!
Have fun!
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For more wine travel adventures take a look at some of my other posts. Remember to Click on the words Wine Travel below. Enjoy!
