We are visiting Sonoma in April and want to explore the best of the Pinot Noirs in the region.

Any suggestions? We will be staying in Sonoma (Inn at Sonoma) but we will have two full days in the area.

Thanks for help!
Dorothy

Most of the good pinots are in the Russian River Valley. Check out wineroad.com and visitwineroad.com

The later provides suggested trip itineraries.

Some of my favorites are La Crema. They have a tasting room in Healdsburg. They have two pinots -- one Sonoma, and the other Russian River Valley. The Russian River Valley is the better one in my opinion and is a couple of dollars more. Davis Family Vinyards and Sapphire Hill in Healdsburg, and Moshin, Porter Creek, Arista, and Lynmar in the Russian River Valley.

http://www.winejudging.com/medal_win...006/index.html

There are the San Francisco Chronicle's award winners, 4 categories of Pinot. That's a great start!

Budman - How was your trip ? Or did I miss it ?

Just in case you are planning to visit
April 29 & 30-all the wineries in the Dry Creek area of Sonoma County will be participating in Passport 2006.
This is a sold out event which pretty much closes the participating wineries
to anyone who doesn't have a Passport
tickets.

If your visit is at another time, I would second Budman's vote for the Russian River area. The best Pinot Noir
I've had this year was a 2003 Russian River pinot from Thumbprint Cellars.
Positively divine!

R5

Thanks so much, Budman and Linda; your references make it easy to plan a route. The maps are great, and the categories (price especially) help a lot.

Razzledazzle, we will be there early in April - didn't realize it was Sonoma Film Festival (!) but got the accomodations we wanted, luckily - but thanks for the heads-up.

Our first time in the area, we tried to do too many wineries and we just ended up wandering (and, as I am sure you all know, too much wandering can be a BAD thing in Wine Country). I like the idea of just picking a particular wine variety or area and this has been a big help.

Dorothy

SAnParis, trip was good. Saturday was dry but Fri & Sunday very, very wet. Prices seemed to have gone up quite a bit from last year, but they had a captive audience (Barrel Tasting weekend), and the movie, Sideways, didn't help any.

Check out www.QPRwines.com
The current free sample issue reviews the '01 and '02 Pinot Noirs from a somewhat unique price/quality "bang for the buck" perspective.
M