Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
work without feeling much pressure to interact or purchase. One tasting (a
chardonnay or a merlot) is free, and then you pay $5 for three more. Consider it
the big dog of Sonoma.
Grapes have been planted on this property since the 1830s, and in 1857,
Hungarian nobleman Agoston Haraszthy took over the 833 acres of land in one
of his several attempts to establish winemaking in California; he used European
cuttings. That original parcel of land, buried back in the woods and of a different
character than the wide-open English topography common elsewhere, has been
split into
Bartholomew Park Winery
5
(1000 Vineyard Lane, Sonoma;
%
707/
935-9511; www.bartpark.com; daily 11am-4:30pm)
and Buena Vista next door
(see below). The vineyards are certified organic. Take-away food isn't for sale here,
but the property includes some good hiking trails over the hill above the town.
The winery, which is now owned by a trust, maintains a good (but usually unpa-
tronized) museum about the history of winemaking in Sonoma and Carneros, the
microclimate that this winery falls into. My favorite exhibit is the set of stereop-
tic images taken by Eadweard Muybridge in 1872, when the area was rural in the
extreme. But it's also hard to forget this little tidbit about the adventurous Mr.
Haraszthy: He was probably eaten by a crocodile in Nicaragua in 1869. I'd have
stayed in Wine Country.
For those interested in the history and origins of winemaking in Sonoma, also be
sure you visit
Buena Vista Carneros
5
(18000 Old Winery Rd., Sonoma;
%
707/
938-1266; www.buenavistacarneros.com; daily 10am-5pm),
where the buildings
actually date to Haraszthy's age. This isn't a place to buy food, but it's a lovely setting
for picnics—a creek, a stone bridge, leafy trees, and rustic stone buildings. Upstairs
in the tasting room, there's a brief self-guided history tour that tells much of the same
story as the museum at Bartholomew Park. Tastings start at $5 for four, and bottles
at $22. Don't neglect the old wine vault, which Chinese laborers carved into the hill;
you can't tour it, but you can peer in.
One of the best historical tours is at
Korbel
555
(13250 River Rd.,
Guerneville;
%
707/924-7000; www.korbel.com; May-Sept daily 9am-5pm,
Oct-Apr daily 9am-4:30pm),
the best-selling premium champagne maker in
America that, for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, claims it is permit-
ted to call itself a champagne maker (usually only wineries in the Champagne
region of France may do so) and does not call itself a maker of “sparkling wine”
(as most other wineries have to). It's been doing it here since 1882, started by a
Czech cigar-box maker who got in trouble back home for political unrest. His
mom snuck him out of prison by smuggling civilian clothes under her skirts dur-
ing a visit. That story is interesting enough, but the place is full of stuff like that.
For example, the cleared area in front of the work buildings was once the site of
the train line to San Francisco, 70 miles south, and 50-minute tours of the prop-
erty start in the old railway station. Call them whistle-stop tours, then: The old
winery is now a history center, with lots of period winemaking implements and
photographs, including some fascinating snaps of the property when it was full of
redwood stumps. (They called Guerneville “Stumptown” then. There are none
left.) Guides keep things witty and fresh, even if some of the language is
overblown in that giggle-worthy Wine Country fashion, but you'll learn a lot
about the tools and the process of champagne making wrapped in a mini-history
of the area. They run tours every hour on the hour from 10am to 3pm in winter,
