Sonoma Part 2 - Buena Vista

On the advice of the lady at Ravenswood and with the help of a "2 for the price of 1" voucher, our next stop was Buena Vista. The tasting room is set in a lovely wooden building surrounded by trees, a nice spot for a picnic as demonstrated by the many people with picnic baskets who passed us on our way out.

Here we tried 7 wines for $10. The tasting menu only had 6 on it but while Mike was chatting to the very knowledgable girl who was serving us she mentioned another wine which he said sounded interesting so she let us try that too.
The first five wines were all from Ramal Vineyard and first up was a 2006 Clone 17 Chardonnay
I'm not really a fan of Chardonnay but I'd say this was the most interesting one I've tasted, mostly because it didn't taste much like Chardonnay! It had a lot of stone fruit and sweet spice flavours and even hints of caramel.

Next was a 2006 Chardonnay which was more of a traditional Chardonnay taste, citrusy with hints of green apple. It was slightly oaky but had a good balance of fruit and acidity which meant it was quite light.

Then we moved onto the reds, starting with a 2006 Pinot Noir. This had quite a flowery, perfumed smell and tasted of raspberries and plums with a bit of spice.

The 2005 Syrah was next and I found the smell of this really interesting. It's the first wine I've tried which I could say smelled of blueberries. It tasted very fruity, lots of black cherry and the peppery-ness you expect from Syrah.

The 2006 Merlot was very jammy, with hints of chocolate and black cherry. The tasting notes also mentioned tobacco, soy and ginger, none of which I could taste but other people did pick up.

Finally on the reds was a 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Buena Vista's sister winery Atlas Peak
This had lots of black fruit and blueberry with a nice hint of vanilla.

The "bonus" wine was a 2008 Carneros Rose of Syrah which actually has 4% Chardonnay in the blend. It has a very light colour, due to only being in contact with the skins for 8 hours and smells quite floral, almost like turkish delight. It's very dry and quite light bodied but with a nice refreshing taste of raspberries. We bought a bottle of the Rose.