Semillion

Semillion

Cantiga Wine Works

pouring glass of wine by Pixabay

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.

 

 

Longboard Vineyards

pouring a glass of wine - Pixabay

Wines were nice and we really LOVED the vibe in this surfer-chic tasting room. It's a dogs-welcome kind of spot where you want to stand around and chat up all the customers who wander in. Definitely worth a stop when you are in Healdsburg.

Napa Wine Company

glass of red wine - Pixabay

Great place to taste a lot of boutique wines. Friendly knowledgable staff. Great spot to taste a broad variety of wines from a number of wineries and winemakers! It's a custom crush facility, so a whole array of wines are represented and the tasting menu changes regularly. Pahlmeyer, Blackbird, Ghost Block and more are poured here. It's rather like Ma(i)sonry in Yountville, but without the art. Michael Pozzan's wines are always tasty and very affordable. Rob Lawson's Pavi wines and Fisticuffs also offer high quality at a very reasonable price. Definitely worth a stop to get some variety.

Dolce Winery

grape cluster - Pixabay

Napa Valley's Dolce Winery is the only winery in North America that is solely devoted to producing a single, late harvest wine. It is one of the few wineries in the world willing to make such a commitment, sharing a common philosophy with the great Sauternes producers of Bordeaux. Dolce cellar is located within the caves of its sister winery, Far Niente, in California's Napa Valley. Visitors to the winery are welcomed with a hosted tour, followed by a tasting of current and library vintages. By its nature, Dolce is a rare wine that cannot be produced every year. Dolce is made when a natural, beneficial mold called botrytis cinerea attacks the grapes on the vine, while evaporating the water content and concentrating the sugars, acids and flavors. The inaugural 1985 vintage yielded only six barrels, and production grew to nine barrels in 1986. The 1987 vintage was not fine enough to be bottled and 1988 was so warm that no botrytis formed and the grapes were never harvested. The 1989 vintage was the first commercial release of Dolce and it was introduced to the market in 1992. Visits are by appointment, only.

Dolce embraces a deceptively simple philosophy: the pursuit of perfection in the art of late harvest winemaking. Created in 1985 by the partners of Far Niente, its existence is the result of overcoming remarkable adversity and developing expertise that no one else in the U.S. has. Dolce stands as the pinnacle, where Mother Nature and craftsmanship combine to define luxury through a wine capable of flirting with your emotions like no other.

Stony Hill Vineyard

wine tasting and small bites - Pixabay

This small, out-of-the-way winery, owned and run by a husband-and-wife team, specializes in (of all things!) white wines in Napa Valley, and they do a great job of it. There is a distinct nostalgic charm to Stony Hill. From the wonderful tour and tasting offered by Willinda, to the lovely, intimate setting and the purity of the wines, this winery offers an experience that cannot be found in most Napa Valley wineries. It is a reminder of the old days when tradition, culture, family and commitment meant more than chasing wine rating scores or optimizing profits.

Niebaum-Coppola Winery

red wine swirling in the glass - Pixabay

A Family Ensemble

“When I was a little kid, both my mother and father came from musical families. My father was a great flautist, composer, and conductor and my mother’s father was a wonderful Neapolitan songwriter. Her brother was a fine trumpet player in the same orchestra my father played in. He brought his friend home to dinner one occasion, and that’s how my father met my mother.”
-Francis Ford Coppola

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