Wineroad 2008
Wineroad Gang - 2009
Denise and I spent Saturday and Sunday attending our January ritual in Sonoma County. This will be our 4th year drinking and discovering new wine and winemakers along the Russian Wine Road. The annual event is a three day affair over the MLK weekend with over 100 local wineries taking part and always a lot of fun. This year, the unusual spring-like weather made for a great couple of days in the famous and beautiful Dry Creek, Russian River area of the north San Francisco Bay. Seemed like short sleeve and shorts weather to me and difficult to believe it’s January, when nearly the rest of the country is freezing in record cold weather. Certainly one of the few aspects of living in California that I still like. 
We were joined this year by our friends from church and fellow wine lovers, Janet and Daryl Sisco and had a blast driving around this beautiful country. Here is a listing of the wineries we visited this year.
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Hey Guyle,
I hope you are felling well and doing OK.
Dry Creek Valley is awesome. Just a bit of info for you. I lived on Rafanelli Winery ‘88-’89 off of West Dry Creek Rd with a former girl friend. There’s a little house built in 1893 right in front of the winery which we lived. The only heat was a small wood burning stove. It was great to come home after a days work and sit out on the porch and eat dinner over looking Cry Creek Vineyards. One time we had a party there and one of our guests backed over one of the Old Zin vines. It was $300 back in ‘89 to replace!
Down the road is Raymond Burr – also used to raise Orchids. Back in 1997, my roommate from SSU was a guy named George Mara who was the emperor of Fiji’s son, Ratu Mara. Raymond Burr was a close family friend and owned several of the Fijian Islands. When we need furniture for our apt. we went to see Raymond and he lent us a couch, chair and dinning room table.
He was a huge man at 6′5″ and as big around as he was tall. Because George was in Fiji when I had to pick out our apt., Raymond signed a check for George’s part of the deposit/1st months rent. My father still has the cashed check with Raymond Burr’s name on it.
Be well,
Stephen
Guyle,
Did Dan tell you that we used to live within walking distance of Simi Winery? I was born in Sebastopol and raised my kids in Windsor/Healdsburg. We’ve been to all those wineries, too. Both my sons make wine and my daughter-in-law works for Francis Ford Copola’s winery in Healdsburg/Geyserville. Dan and I were married at the Trentadue Winery in Geyserville. I went to school with a lot of the winery owner’s kids.