Join blogger WearyChef as she details her tour and tasting at the Sonoma-Cutrer winery!

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Along with long days, endless sunshine and ideal picnic conditions, the summer months offer a perfect opportunity to celebrate the region’s agricultural bounty.

At the wineries, the grapes are plumping up under the summer sun in anticipation of the fall harvest. Patios and picnic tables countywide invite visitors to sip wine alfresco well into the balmy evenings.

Stock up on picnic fixings at one of many local farmers markets that are in full swing throughout the summer. Browse bins brimming with just-picked fruits and vegetables as you enjoy live music, peruse handcrafted goods and snack on fresh-baked sweets.

Want to get a closer look at where all of that gorgeous produce is coming from? Pick up a free map from the nonprofit Sonoma County Farm Trails and customize an agricultural adventure based on your interests. From family farm tours and fields of lavender to fresh-pressed olive oil and busy honeybees, you’ll be inspired by the county’s offerings.

Do your cravings lean more toward cheese? Hop on the Sonoma Marin Cheese Trail to meet local cheesemakers, tour farms and, of course, get your fill of cheese tastings. You can even sign up for a class to learn how to make your own cheese.

Wherever your Wine Country adventures take you this summer, be sure to stop by Sonoma-Cutrer. Enjoy a crisp glass of Chardonnay on the patio and soak up the sweeping views from the newly renovated tasting room. Festive events throughout the summer include Full Moon Croquet featuring food, wine and live entertainment.

We look forward to seeing you in Sonoma this summer!

This summer, Sonoma-Cutrer opened the doors to newly expanded tasting rooms where a variety of wine tasting experiences are now offered. Whether you’re a longtime Club Cutrer member or a casual visitor who’s new to Sonoma-Cutrer, you can customize your visit to suit your preferences.

The breezy new space brings the picturesque Russian River Valley into the tasting room, with oversized café windows and doors that open onto the lovely terrace overlooking the pristine greens of the croquet court. At the heart of the tasting room stands an elegant island bar. Unique to Sonoma-Cutrer, the marble bar features cropped edges and a chevron pattern that pay homage to the winery’s logo.

Belly up to the bar, grab a spot by the café windows or settle into an umbrella-shaded table on the terrace for a casual tasting that includes a game of croquet. You can also opt for a more in-depth guided tasting that features a flight of four wines. For a more personal experience, make a reservation online for a private hosted tasting in one of the intimate new tasting salons. For the first time, hosted tastings now include a Pinot-only option that showcases the winery’s award-winning Pinot Noirs.

The cozy new salons are also an ideal place for a grand tasting of six of Sonoma-Cutrer’s most exclusive offerings. From limited production single vineyard wines to Founders Reserve offerings from the Winemaker’s Release series, you’ll sample Sonoma-Cutrer’s finest offerings.

Want to extend your experience beyond the tasting room? Go behind-the-scenes at Sonoma-Cutrer with a tour that lets you walk among the prized vines and take a peek into the production area and barrel cellar.

On weekends you can add a culinary element to your wine tasting with the Savor & Share Food Experience. Sample wine, cheese and small bites paired by celebrated Wine Country chef John Ash.

Whether you’ve planned your trip around an in-depth tasting experience or wander in for a sip of Chardonnay, we look forward to sharing a glass with you in the heart of the Russian River Valley. Visit us and discover what makes Sonoma-Cutrer wines unique—and stick around for a quick game of croquet.

This April, Zidanelia Arcidiacono (better known as “Z”) joined the Sonoma-Cutrer family as Assistant Winemaker of Pinot Noir. As fate would have it, it’s not the first time she has worked with Cara Morrison, Chardonnay Winemaker, and part of the Sonoma-Cutrer family since 2005.

After gaining experience early in their careers by working harvests across the globe, a deeply rooted passion for wine led both women to Sonoma-Cutrer, where their paths first intersected in 2007.

Cara hired Zidanelia as her first Harvest Enologist, a position she created to run a variety of experiments on everything from winemaking techniques to the materials used in processing. Not only was the job a valuable learning experience for Zidanelia, the women formed a professional bond that would last for years to come.

Though Zidanelia had experience in wineries from Argentina to France, Cara was the first female winemaker that she ever worked with—a refreshing collaboration for both women. Zidanelia credits Cara with challenging her, helping her grow and giving her the tools she needed to be successful.

Throughout her years working in the winemaking industry, Cara has seen a trend toward more female winemakers. She recalls some words of encouragement from one of her own early mentors, Susan Lueker, when working her first ever harvest: As the two fellow “cellar rats” carried heavy buckets up the stairs, Susan turned to Cara and said, “We can do anything the guys can do … it just might take us a little longer.”

When it came time to hire someone to head up Sonoma-Cutrer’s expanding Pinot Noir production, Cara immediately thought of Zidanelia. Her experience as Winemaker for Fetzer Reserve Wines and Little Black Dress made her a perfect candidate.

The supportive professional relationship between these two talented winemakers speaks to the spirit of collaboration that defines the Sonoma-Cutrer family. Zidanelia has always been drawn to the winery’s team environment, where the lines aren’t drawn between Pinot Winemaker and Chardonnay Winemaker.

At Sonoma-Cutrer, everyone is involved in each other’s projects—which elevates the end results every time. The benefit of this mutual trust and respect is, quite simply, better wine all around.

Tired of serving the same dishes at every holiday gathering? Try some unique alternative dishes from Chef John Ash and serve a menu that will have your guests asking for more!

• Pumpkin Soup with Wild Mushrooms
• Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Pancetta and California Goat Cheese
• Crab Newberg
• Cider Brined and Smoked Game Hens
• My Grandmother’s Apple Batter Cake
• Pumpkin Soup with Wild Mushrooms

Perfect for the Thanksgiving (or harvest) table, this seasonal soup showcases pumpkin along with another fall favorite – – wild mushrooms. Serve with a glass of the Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Chardonnay.

Warm Red Cabbage Salad with Pancetta and California Goat Cheese

For the goat cheese, I especially like the Bucheret, Camellia or Crottin from Redwood Hill Farms (www.redwoodhillfarms.com) or the Humboldt fog or Bermuda Triangle from Cypress Grove (www.cypressgrovechevre.com). Serve with Sonoma-Cutrer Les Pierres Chardonnay.

Crab Newberg

Dungeness Crab season begins in Northern California right around Thanksgiving, so we try to use it in as many ways as possible. This is a great dish from the past, and uses a classic egg yolk thickened sauce. It’s traditionally served on toast points but can also be spooned into little puff or choux pastry shells or in crepes. The mineral-ality of Sonoma-Cutrer Les Pierres would be a great match here.

Cider Brined and Smoked Game Hens

This brine works equally well with chicken or turkey. Brining is sort of a magical process that adds both flavor and moistness to the meat. In this recipe, I’m using a covered barbecue to both cook and smoke the birds. Be sure to use the indirect heat method described below in the barbecue and monitor both temperature of the barbecue and the birds with a thermometer. The objective is to cook the birds slowly enough, so that they can pick up a rich smoky flavor and you also want to be sure that they are cooked through. Enjoy a glass of Sonoma-Cutrer Pinot Noir while you are cooking.

My Grandmother’s Apple Batter Cake

This is a simple cake that my grandmother used to make often. I’ve used apples, but any fruit such as peaches, pears, berries or a combination could be incorporated. If possible, serve with Sonoma-Cutrer Late Harvest Chardonnay.

There is no mystery to this but it’s amazing how some of the old rituals have intimidated us all. Here are a few pointers that will help you serve wine:

Temperature: Truth is that we often serve red wine too warm and white wine too cold. First reds – the old adage is to serve at room temperature.That’s all well and good but depending on where you live and the time of year, room temperatures can vary widely. When reds get too warm above 76 degrees or so the alcohol begins to volatilize or evaporate. This can do funny things to the flavor and aromas of wine and cause the wine to be unbalanced. Ideal serving temperature is in the 66 to 72 degree range. It’s perfectly acceptable to stick a red wine in the refrigerator for 15 minutes or so to get it to this temperature. For whites we often take them right out of the refrigerator which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 38 degrees. At this temperature the wine is completely “closed” and you can’t taste or smell very much at all. Unscrupulous restaurants will sometimes take advantage of this in their wines by the glass. If they’ve got a white that isn’t very good, they’ll serve it to you very cold so that you can’t taste how poor it is! Best to serve most whites in the 45 to 55-degree range so they flavors and aromas can emerge. This means take them out of the fridge at least 20 minutes or so before serving.

Letting Red Wines “Breathe”: One of the oldest myths that still hangs on is that wine, reds especially should be opened ahead of time to let them “breathe” (it always conjured up for me little lungs in the bottle!). The reason given for this is that airing will help the wine to open up and develop flavor. If you think about it very little air is going to get to the wine through the narrow opening of the bottle neck. If you want the wine to “breathe”, the best way is to splash it into a glass and swirl it around vigorously as you enjoy it. The only exception is with old, fragile wines where opening too early can actually diminish the flavor.

In recent years we’ve seen the development of a whole host of wine aerators built into pourers, spouts and more. The idea is that wine (either white or red) is improved by vigorous swirling, even more than you can do when poured in a glass. Turns out that this is in fact, true. Next time you open a bottle of wine, pour a glass and take the rest and actively splash it back and forth between a couple of decanters for at least a couple of minutes. Pour a glass of the “agitated” wine and compare it to the one straight from the bottle. I’ll bet you’ll prefer that which has been actively aerated.

Decanting Red Wines: It’s a charming practice but unless you have some old trophy wines it’s not necessary. Most red wines made today have been filtered to remove sediments and, although there is a school that believes that this diminishes the flavor, most of us will rarely encounter a wine that needs decanting.

If you do have a wine that is labeled “unfiltered” my advice is to stand the bottle upright and undisturbed for a day or two and then open it carefully making sure not to disturb the sediment on the bottom. You can then slowly and carefully pour it into a decanter or pitcher in one pouring until you begin to see sediment in the neck of the bottle. If the bottle is dark glass, do it over a lit candle or flashlight so that you can see the liquid. Stop at that point and if you’ve done it properly you should only have an ounce of so of cloudy wine left in the bottle.

Choice of a wine glass: Most people know that it is traditional to serve different wines in different glasses – at least to the extent of having different styles of glasses for red wine, white wine, and champagne or other sparkling wines. But did you know that there are particular styles of glasses for Chardonnay or Cabernet?

Here are my suggestions. It’s really not so terribly important which glass you use unless you’re a serious traditionalist. The single exception is the glass you choose for sparkling wines like Cavas or Champagne. For these you want a tall, narrow, flute-shaped glass, which encourages and shows off the bubbles. Never, never use the flat, round, saucer-shaped glass. For still wines choose a glass that allows you to perform the three S’s easily: that is, Swirl, Sniff, and Sip. You want a good-sized bowl on the glass so that when you swirl you won’t spill wine all over you, and swirling helps develop the aroma. Finally, the bowl needs to be big enough for even the largest nose to fit in, to enjoy the liberated aromas while you sip which means that you shouldn’t fill it more than half full. Also choose glasses that are perfectly clear, so you can enjoy the color of the wine. Finally for sweet wines like ports, sherries and late harvest varietals, don’t use those little dessert wine glasses. Sweet, rich dessert wines have lots of amazing aromatics so pour them into a glass that allows your nose plenty of room to enjoy them