Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, late December (photos)

Photos taken December 28, 2017, the closing days of the year in Sonoma County's Dry Creek Valley.

What People Look for When Going Wine Tasting

Wine County visitation is big business, really big business, as in billions of dollars spent in wineries, hotels, restaurants, etc. in Sonoma and Napa. A key element of this is how visitors select what wineries to visit. Much of this info comes from a wine marketing article, How Consumers Choose Wine Tasting Experiences.

Hard Cider

What bridges the gap between wine and beer?

What beverage is seeing double-digit growth?

Though cider is small-time compared to beer and wine it is growing fast. It's where the craft beer industry was about 15 years ago. Craft cider is a thing.

Sonoma County has a history as a major apple-growing area (until grapes moved in and displaced many orchards). There are ten hard cider makers in the county with Ace Cider representing "big cider." They've been around since the 1990s and opened the first American cider-only pub in 1999.

Sonoma Cider has a tap room and restaurant in the town of Healdsburg.

Anti-aging & red wine

The bottom line is diet and exercise or drink red wine. Choose wisely.

Red wine component and anti-aging

Sonoma Sparklers for the Holidays

First, let me say it's a crying shame most people only drink sparkling wines over the winter holidays. What's a better wine to put you in a great mood on a Thursday? What's a great wine with so many different foods? What's a better breakfast ...  Well, you know.

Petaluma Gap AVA

The federal government organization known as the TTB, part of the Treasury Dept., regulates wine. One thing they decide on is the appellations, or American Viticultural Areas (AVAs), you see on the label. Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, for instance, were proposed to and approved by the gov't regulators.

The 18th AVA in Sonoma County, the Petaluma Gap, was recently approved. The Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance has been at this for awhile and now it's official.

Exercise Your Brain -- Have a Glass of Wine

Okay, it's another study on a benefit of wine consumption. There are so many of these you might wonder which ones are legit. This one comes from a Yale neuroscientist so I think he might be kinda smart. Basically he says the act of smelling, sipping, swishing, and deciphering everything you're experiencing with wine exercises the ol' gray matter quite a bit.

Drink up, get smarter

Update: A Couple Months After the Fires

It's been about two months since the destructive Wine County fires. Currently the damages are estimated at a staggering $9 billion. Destroyed or damaged were thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses. About two dozen wineries had damage with a handful having significant or total destruction.

Best of Sonoma County

The local paper, the Press Democrat, does a yearly poll of readers to select everything from the best winery tasting room to the best dog park in Sonoma County. The 2017 list is out.

The Best of Sonoma County

Because of the October fires some of the winners no longer exist (until rebuilt):
restaurants Sweet T's and Willie's Wine Bar, Paradise Ridge Winery (they still have a tasting room in Kenwood), and part of Annadel State Park is still closed. As an aside, my doctor was voted #2 best family doctor in the county. He's retiring next month. Doh.

Wine in Cans: Is it Coming? (finally)

Alternative wine packaging has been talked about for several years. From boxes like Tetra-Paks to cans there's been a largely unsuccessful push to get away from the 750 ml glass bottle. But maybe canned wine is about to take off.

Top 100 Wines of Sonoma

This is a list from a writer at sonomamag.com using results from one local wine judging plus her own tastings. I've only sampled a small fraction of those on the list though I'm familiar with many of the wineries. It's one data point you can use when you go shopping for a nice bottle of wine.

100 Best Wines of Sonoma 2017