North Coast Wine Challenge 2024, the Big Winners

Yes, it's another wine judging! This one is local and allows wines from all over the region -- Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Lake, Mendocino, Solano Counties.

The top winners are:

The Best of Show Red is the 2021 Trentadue Winery La Storia Cuvee 32 Red Blend from Alexander Valley. Yeah, a long name from a winery you may not even know about.

They've been in Sonoma County for over 60 years after selling off their fruit orchards in what's now known as Silicon Valley. They are still family-owned and produce about 35,000 cases of wine a year, making them a small-to-medium-sized winery.

Trentadue has estate wines, many from some very old vines, the OPR inexpensive blends, and they have the La Storia line that you could call their reserves. I've been buying the La Storia Zinfandel for a long time. This La Storia red blend that won retails for $36 at the winery and in the $20s at wine shops, though that price might go up now.

This wine is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, and Montepulciano. It has also won gold at the Los Angeles International Wine Competition, the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, and received 93 points from the Wine Enthusiast. The WE also called it a "hidden gem" though I'd say all of Trentadue's La Storia wines fit that description.

The Best of Show White is from a small winery I've never heard of in Mendocino County. The winning wine is Pennyroyal Farm 2022 PinoTrio from Anderson Valley. This wine also won the Best of Show White Wine at last summer's Mendocino Wine Competition.

The owner of Pennyroyal Farm is the daughter of the founders of the highly-regarded Navarro Vineyards, also in Anderson Valley. Navarro wines are pretty spectacular for the prices.

Besides grapes, this farm also has dairy cattle and sells their farm produce. The wine is a blend of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris and sells from $33. I expect it's unlikely you'll find this outside of the winery.

Dairy goats creating a traffic jam at Pennyroyal Farm!
image from cheesetrail.org

 

All winners are on the North Coast Wine Challenge results page. If you're in the neighborhood, the tasting of these wines is June 15th.