San Clemente Wine Company

Well, Saturday, March 24 was a beautiful day so T and I decided to head down to San Onofre State Beach with some bagels and coffee. We headed down trail 3 and sat and read for a few hours. As we were leaving, a small pod of about 12 Dolphins swam by in the surf line. We drove back up to San Clemente for lunch at Beachfire.
After lunch, we stopped in at the San Clemente Wine Company and did a tasting of the featured winery, Malm. Barney, the store owner and CBO (Chief Bottle Opener) told us about up and coming winemaker, Brendan Malm, who buys his fruit from several vineyards in the Sonoma Valley area and uses equipment at various wineries. The Chardonnay was quite impressive and the two Pinot Noirs we tasted were excellent as well. It was interesting tasting the difference between the two Pinots. They were from the same year but one was from a valley vineyard and the other from a more coastal vineyard.
Anyone in the San Clemente area who enjoys wine should check this store out. You can fine it's location on their website: http://www.downtownsanclemente.com/sanclementewinecompany/index.htm

Raymond Burr

We finished up the day with a tasting at Raymond Burr. The tasting room here was a little smaller than most but what it lacked in size, it easily made up for in charm. There were many pictures of the actor on the walls as well as some other interesting photos. The tasting room servers were very accommodating and clearly enjoy their jobs. The wines were all very nice, our favorite being the 2004 Cabernet Franc ($38). The 2005 Chardonnay ($28) and 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon ($38) were also very enjoyable. The port was a treat as well.

Mill Creek

After the disappointing Rabbit Ridge, we stopped at Mill Creek. We planned to have a snack here too and it turned out to be the perfect place. We bought a package of salami to go with the Humboldt Fog cheese and crackers we already had. Before eating however, we did yet another tasting and were very impressed with what Mill Creek had to offer. We ended up buying two bottles of their Gewurztraminer ($16) to take home to have with our Thanksgiving dinner (it was great). We also bought a bottle of their Merlot ($22) and another half bottle to have with our snack. We liked everything we tried here and will definitely visit again. I noticed three menus on the wall from the White House and asked about them. A very nice lady (one of the owners) told me that they have been served at several White House dinners. She explained that wineries don't find out about these dinners until after the fact. What happens is that the White House will buy the wine from a local distributer and after the meal, they will send the menu card to the winery. I wish I had taken pictures of the menu card, that way I could try to recreate the meal.

Rabbit Ridge

From Porter Creek, we headed down the road to try some of the wineries we missed last year. We passed by Hop Kiln, which is just as the name implies, an old hop kiln. We recommend stopping here for a good tasting and picnicking in an interesting environment. We continued down the road past Arista and De La Montanya, which are both very nice smaller production wineries. We made the mistake of stopping at Rabbit Ridge. The server there told us that they would be closing in 6 months but if you are around before that, just keep driving. All their wines are from Paso Robles, which is a wine region to the south that we actually really like, especially for their Zins. The server seemed almost bothered by our presence. The wines here are very inexpensive and rightfully so.

Porter Creek

After picking up a few groceries and grabbing a bite to eat, we started our afternoon tastings at the Porter Creek Winery. The tasting room is very small and buggy. They make some less common wines here, like Viognier, which was pretty nice. We ended up buying a bottle of the 2004 Pinot Noir. Nothing else really jumped out at us and the clutter, bugs and disrepair of the tasting room took away from our experience.

DeLoach

From Harvest Moon, we drove up the road to DeLoach. This is one of the larger wineries in Sonoma and their wines can be easily found at supermarkets. The tasting room is large and open and you really get that big production winery feel. We liked the 2006 Green Valley Pinot Noir but didn't think it was worth the $45 price tag. We ended up buying a bottle of the Nova vineyard Zinfandel for $32. For a wine that wieghts in at 15.5% abv, it was well balanced and had a hint of that mocha taste we like from a Zin. This is the wine we had with dinner which I'll post in another entry.

Harvest Moon

Well our wine tasting started off on the right foot. We walked into this small winery's tasting room to a packed house. The girls at the Worldmark Windsor told us to ask for Anthony to assist with our tastings, they seemed to have quite a crush on him. Evidently Anthony is on vacation so Randy assisted with our tasting. He just happens to be the owner and winemaker here and is clearly very happy to no longer be a San Francisco Accountant. It's really nice to see someone so enthusiastic about their work. Harvest Moon specializes in their Zinfandels, which were nice, but a little light for our tastes. We however did throughly enjoy their dessert wines and Gewürztraminers. We purchased a half-case of the Late Harvest Zin futures after tasting the unfiltered wine. It was really neat to get to taste the unfiltered wines next to last year's vintages. We also got to try an unreleased Ice Wine which should turn out very nice once finished. We look forward to visiting Harvest Moon again and recommend it to anyone who enjoys some nice Zinfandels and dessert wines.