TASTEMAKERS
Sonoma Wineries With Buildings People Stop For
From Spill
16 wineries
Napa gets the architecture conversation. Sonoma quietly has the better version of it in places, partly because there was less money involved and more improvisation.
We asked which Sonoma buildings make people slow down. Two answers came back immediately and the data filled in the rest.
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The two that were named
Artesa is built into a Carneros hill under a grass roof, so from the approach it barely exists, and then you come over the rise and the whole southern county opens up. Obsidian Wine Co took the opposite approach, a room just off the Sonoma Square with an outdoor space beside the obsidian, urban and small and easy to walk to.
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What the data added
Three Sticks works out of the Vallejo-Casteñada adobe in Sonoma, one of the oldest structures in the county, restored rather than replaced. Ferrari-Carano went full formal garden in Dry Creek. Michel-Schlumberger built Mission Revival into the benchland. Davis Family, Heir Apparent, Peter Paul and Sapphire Hill each did something considered on a smaller budget, which is often the more interesting problem to solve.
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The honest caveat
Architecture is the hardest thing to sort for, because a striking building and a good tasting are unrelated variables. A few places here are beautiful and modest about the wine. A few are the reverse.
We are not ranking them. The list is here so you can see the buildings and decide which afternoon you want.
Every one has hours, tasting details and photographs on Spill.
04
The Sonoma approach
Where Napa built to announce, Sonoma more often built to belong. Adobe, barn conversions, farmhouse restorations, buildings set into hills rather than on top of them.
Three Sticks working out of a restored 1840s adobe is the clearest example. So is Artesa, which put a winery under a grass roof and let the hill keep its outline.
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The formal exceptions
Ferrari-Carano and Michel-Schlumberger went the other way, gardens and Mission Revival and a certain amount of grandeur, and they are more fun for the contrast.
06
Practical
Several of these are working farms as much as visitor properties, so the gardens that make them photogenic are also seasonal. Ferrari-Carano's gardens peak in spring. Hillside estates are best when the fog burns off, usually late morning in summer.
Booking is the norm rather than the exception at this end of the county.
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