As we were talking about our plans that morning at breakfast, Jim, one of the owners of The Trojan Horse B&B in Sonoma, suggested we go to Westside Road in Healdburg and sample the wineries there. He said it was a different feel from much of Sonoma. Great suggestion. Westside Road has lots of smaller wineries and it is a very rural feel.

Mill Creek Vineyards & Winery
www.mcvonline.com

First stop was our favorite by far that day. Mill Creek Winery is a husband/wife operation. Barbara Ciatti was helping us in the tasting room that day as her husband was running errands. Their cat, Chardonnay, greeted us when we pulled up and stayed with us for most of our time there. She reminded us, in color at least, to our cat Simon. Very friendly, sweet cat.

The tasting room was informal, friendly, and very informative. They are known for their Merlots, which are excellent. They have 40 acres on site there plus another 15 in the Alexander Valley. They produce 15,000 cases a year – a very small winery.

All their wines were great. The Sauvignon Blanc was excellent. We tried the Gewürztraminer (which we bought). Spicy, dry, wonderful flavors. Zinfandel – lots of tannins, delicious. Merlot was excellent as well.

They have a wine club that ships 4 times a year (which was typical of most the wineries we visited).

Armida Winery
www.armida.com

A more typical, large tasting room, it sits up on a hill with a stunning view of the vineyards. It has a few some picnic benches from which you can enjoy the view.

They have a cute old dog who acts as greeter and is their official mascot. In fact, the bottle of wine we bought has his paw print on it (which is why we bought it).

The woman in the tasting room was new (two weeks into her job) and very nice, but not very knowledgeable yet.

We tried the Chardonnay (ok), Pinot Noir (not very good at all), Zinfandel (ok) and Merlot (ok). We bought a signature Merlot.

Belvedere Winery
www.belvererewinery.com

Very pretty setting. This was one placed we stopped a lingered over some wine, cheese and crackers.

This was a great stop. The woman working the tasting room was very nice, informative and casual. They had the usual wines – Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Merlot and Cab - but also had a reserve Syrah that we couldn’t taste. We bought blind because of her description.

We bought a couple glasses of Zinfandel and sat on the patio drinking that and eating our cheese and crackers. She gave us a sharp knife and a couple glasses to use for our picnic, which was also very nice.

An overall very good experience and some nice wines.

Hop Kiln Winery
www.hopkilnwinery.com

This was one of the most unique settings of any of our stops. The winery is literally built in an historic hop kiln. It’s on the California and U.S. historical registry, so they can only improve it so much. Both David Soul and Jimmy Stewart filmed movies here. In fact, David Soul had his engagement party there (although they never actually married).

This is a very small winery. The room was huge, dark, but friendly. Wines were pretty good there as well. We bought a blush wine as a White Zin substitute for my sister, Linda. They have a pond out back with a little duck house to protect them while they sleep (apparently, they get eaten quite often by various critters).

This was a wonderfully unique stop and a very pretty setting.

Davis Bynum
www.davisbynum.com

Another very small winery.

Great Meritage wine – we bought one. Fun tasting room – the woman there was great!

We tried Chardonnay, Zinfandel (which was very good) and the Meritage, which was excellent. We will definitely go back to this one.