This weekend my wife and I took a short trip up to the Guerneville area, which is in the Northwest section of the Russian River Valley. I highly recommend it. If Napa has become completely fancy, pretentious, and expensive (which it has… see this SF Chronicle article), and Sonoma is more relaxed but getting quite a bit of the spillover from Napa, then the Russian River Valley is their inbred country cousin. It’s very relaxed, quite rural, and absolutely beautiful.

The Russian River area is known (at least by me) for its Pinot Noir. One of my favorites, though we didn’t get to visit the winery this weekend, is Marimar Torres Estate. We did go visit Gary Farrell, which has a gorgeous facility at the top of a hill overlooking the river. The tasting is only $5, and they waive it for your whole party if anyone buys a bottle. Their 2003 Pinot Noir – Russian River Valley / Russian River Selection is their lower-priced bottling, though at $35 it’s not cheap. Still, it blew us away with a balance of raspberries and sweet red apples and a lot lot lot of clove. But in a good way. We also tasted some of their special bottlings, and they were great but out of our price range.

I also wanted to write about the 1999 Martinez Bujanda Conde de Valdemar Reserva. I looked for a long time for this wine after having a bottle about 4 months ago, and finally found it at BevMo in Jack London Square. I cleaned them out. This is a moderately fruity wine where the spice and earthy tones mostly dominate. The tannins aren’t too big, and I found it was wonderful to drink with nearly any food, but also without food. At $14.95 it’s a real value.