Sonoma Part 5 - Cline Cellars

Our last stop for the day was Cline Cellars, set in some very pretty gardens.

Here, the tasting menu has around 15 wines which are free to try. The menu says you can try 5 of these but as our very helpful guide Rene put it "no-one really counts". Following this are a further 8 or so which cost $1 each, which is waived if you buy any of the wines.

In the end we tried 13 different wines.

First up was a 2009 Viognier which was drier than expected, with peach and apricot flavours and a nice crisp finish.

We skipped over the rest of the whites and went straight for the 2008 Ancient Vines Carignane, tasting of red fruit and plum, with a peppery finish.

The 2007 Cashmere was next. This is a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mouvedre and tasted of rich red fruit with hints of chocolate, and the slight spiciness we were coming to realise features in many Californian wines.

Next we had another Ancient Vines bottle, the 2008 Mouvedre, which had lots of rich ripe chery fruit, a nice bit of spice and the smokiness you expect from Mouvedre.

A trio of Syrahs followed, starting with the 2007, a wine with cherry flavours and a hint of spice.
We compared this side by side with the 2007 Cool Climate Syrah which was much more intense, tasting quite jammy and with blueberry and blackberry flavours. The final one of our trio was the 2006 Los Carneros Syrah which was even richer still, with even more jammy richness and blueberry flavours and some oak. Rene told Mike he had "a very good nose" when he picked up on the French oak.

Zinfandel was next and we tasted 5 in a row, starting with the 2008. This had flavours of berry fruits, particularly raspberry and a nice hint of black pepper spice. The 2008 Ancient Vines Zinwas richer and darker, tasting more jammy and with more black fruit flavours, but still with hints of raspberry and a slightly sweet finish.
The 2008 Big Break Zin had flavours of cherries and black fruit, and a really interesting herbaceous, eucalyptus smell to it. When we mentioned this to Rene we discovered the vineyard is surrounded by eucalyptus trees.
The 2007 Live Oak Zin had a sweet edge to it, with lots of black cherry flavour and a bit of spice.
Finally, we tried the 2007 Heritage Zin which is a blend of the Big Break, Live Oak and also Bridgehead (which we didn't taste). This was delicious, rich and intense spice, with dried fruit flavours which reminded me of Christmas pudding.

We finished up the tasting with a 2006 Late Harvest Mouvedre which was really good, tasting of raisins and rich sweet spice.

A bottle each of the Heritage Zin and the Mouvedre were added to our growing collection as we left.