California - Sonoma Valley Top 10 Wine Makers

Picture, Christian G.E.Schiller, Schiller Wine and Katharina Schiller,Restaurant Venus, Berkeley, at the Golden Gate Bridge

Sonoma Valley Top 10 Wine Makers

Sonoma Valley is home to some of the earliest vineyards and wineries in California, just a few miles north of San Francisco. The Franciscan missionaries led the way, bringing the Mission grape to make wines for religious services. Cradled between the Mayacamas and the Sonoma Mountain ranges, Sonoma Valley encompasses a rolling patchwork of vineyards, quaint farms and 13,000 acres of scenic parkland, with many famous wineries.

Robert O'Maoilriain CSW, a Food and Wine Critic at Sonoma Sommelier Wine and Food Review, has put together an interesting list of his Top 10 Sonoma Valley winemakers. He describes his passion for wine as follows: I am obsessed with wine terroir and have entrench myself in the vineyards, working hard to get to the bottom of wine and vineyard flavors.“Why” is as important as “What” to me in my reporting and reviews. No Wine Critic to date has embedded themselves in their Wine region to the degree that I have. I dig in the soil, taste the grapes, taste the juice, smell the insides of the barrels, meet the workers, sort the grapes, crush and press, fill and top the barrels, walk and photograph the Vineyards, know my Valleys Vineyards blind, most of all I am a reporter in the trenches and on top of the newest details and developments in my district. Instead of noncommittally reporting on World Wine I am a specialist. I will rewrite what the world knows about the Wines of my district. I am onto something here. Please follow my passion, this is not a business. This is my life’s work.

Here are his Top 10 Sonoma Valley Wine Makers of 2009 – an interesting selection. Next time, I am over in Berkeley, I will check them out.

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