If you like Pinot you will love this winery. Just driving to this winery is reason enough to visit! Its a small winery, that isn't super cute, but the service and tastings were great! Our server asked if he could just pour what he wanted and we ended up getting an extensive tasting.
At Los Pilares it has to be local. For the folks at this winery that means 100% San Diego County grapes. It has to be the appropriate varieties. We want nature to choose the varieties, not marketing. Coleman, Jay, Michael and Pelin don’t look for Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay in San Diego’s provençal backcountry, rather for varieties like Grenache, Carignane, and Mourvedre. There’s not a lot of it growing here yet. Fortunately, the growers who have it tend to share Los Pilares Wine philosophy. The fruit has to be harvested at the right time — that means not overripe; we want to bring you fresh, bright, crisp flavors that show off the variety that San Diego can deliver (variety of the grapes, of the farms, of the vintage), not generic, thick, plummy, hot fruit.
The Riboli Family WInes Estates/San Antonio Winery in LA offers complimentary tasting and winery tours. The Winery features Riboli Family of Wines and a unique and varied selection from around the wine world. Actually have 3 locations in LA, Ontario east of LA and in Paso Robles.
Every winemaker pours a little bit of their self into their handcrafted wines. From the soil, vineyard, grapes and the actual end product, the wine. Six generations our family has cared for and improved the estate and has heavily shaped what the Fernwood Cellars brand has become today.
Matt Oetinger, the only child of Linda Pond and Lew Oetinger, established Fernwood Cellars and built the winery on Redwood Retreat land. He became the fifth generation of his pioneering family to work on and enhance the land through a successful agri-business. After graduating from U.C. Davis with a degree in Biology, Matt served as vineyard manager at Clos LaChance Winery in Morgan Hill, CA. He continued to pursue his passion for winemaking and eventually dedicated all his time and energy to the evolution of Fernwood Cellars.
Cantiga Wineworks is a small family winery nestled in California's Sierra Foothills. They craft wines using classical methods that are rarely seen today, reviving the art of winemaking designed for long-term cellaring. Their focus is on producing food-friendly wines, reclaiming wine's traditional role at the dinner table. Cantiga’s wines are made through gentle, minimal intervention techniques, and are fermented without malolactic fermentation to preserve the natural varietal character, acidity, and balance. They also use minimal sulfites and avoid unnecessary processing.
Winemaker Rich Rorden has been involved in winemaking for as long as he can remember, learning much of his technique from his father, Bud. In making wine for Cantiga Wineworks, Rich seeks to preserve the family’s winemaking methods while adapting them to meet the unique challenges of commercial production. Before founding Cantiga, Rich worked as a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry. A graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he spent over a decade at TRW in Manhattan Beach, designing satellites for both commercial and government projects. Rich now applies the same meticulous attention to detail to his winemaking craft.
A long-standing member of the Santa Barbara winemaking community, Whitcraft Winery is obsessed with producing the highest quality wines. Their signature varietals are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah, but also produce a variety of other unique, hand-crafted varietals.
There is simply no better place to sit back and relax than on the Solis Winery back porch, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying the scenic views of vineyards nestled against the Gabilan mountain range.
All Solis Winery wines are grown and produced at the Vanni Estate Vineyard in Gilroy in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley, California’s oldest continuous wine-growing region. From planting the vines and harvesting the grapes to producing and bottling the wines, everything is done on-site. Nothing ever leaves the property—until bottles go home with happy customers!
The original winery was founded in 1917 by Italian immigrant Alfonso Bertero on rich, fertile land that was once part of the Rancho de Solis Mexican land grant. David and Valerie Vanni purchased the winery in 1989 and renamed it Solis Winery. The Vanni’s had a passion for creating extraordinary wines in a friendly, down-to-earth environment. The passion was passed on to their son Michael, his wife Julie as well as their daughter Frankie who are now working together to continue the family tradition of excellence.
Andrew Murray fell in love with the emerging Rhône varieties, Syrah and Viognier, in the late 1980’s while traveling through France’s Rhône Valley. Leaving his UC Berkeley paleontology studies behind, he pursued his new mistress, Syrah, with an internship in Australia. As Robert Parker, Jr. put it, “…Andrew Murray’s offerings are a breath of fresh air given their exceptionally high quality and realistic prices – reader take note.
The Foxen Boys (aka Bill Wathen and Dick Doré) have been making wine together since 1985, when they founded Foxen Winery & Vineyard at the historic Rancho Tinaquaic on Foxen Canyon Road.
The inspiration for the name comes from the winemaker's former mother-in-law, who raised four daughters as a single woman on a homestead in Mendocino County during the 1970s. They lived in a sheep barn without plumbing, windows, or doors, surrounded by pot growers who frequently encroached on their property. Defending her family with a six-shooter, she soon became known as "The Crazy Woman" and was widely respected in the community for her fearlessness. The winery aims to honor the countless women who have changed history while facing the label of being called crazy.
The winery is excited to host tastings in the barrel room, located in the Tin City Annex, where the wine is produced. This immersive experience will include tastings of wines in bottle alongside barrel tastings, allowing guests to see how the wines are made and enjoy an individual tasting experience.
Painting by Wine Artist Agata Zaborowski
