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Re: Santa Cruz wine tasting

Posted by mkuller on October 16, 2016 at 18:04:32:
...I took my wine tasting group down to Santa Cruz for a drizzly wine tasting weekend.
On the way down Friday we stopped at Ridge Winery in Cupertino, way up on top of the ridge for a sit-down $30 Estate Tasting. We tasted the Lytton Springs, a Pagani zin, a merlot and their flagship wine, Monte Bello. Nothing special here that you can't get for discounts locally. The guy pouring said their Three Valleys (made from the left-over estate zin grapes) was a bargain and his favorite but wouldn't open one.
After lunch on the Wharf we went upstairs to Vino Prima wine bar with a great view of the Boardwalk. They had generously poured flights of pinot noir and zinfandel we sampled.
Saturday we stopped at Swift St. where there are about 8 wine tasting rooms.
MJA was our first stop. We tasted about 8 different wines, nothing really impressed us. In past years I have bought their cabs and merlot, but not this year. The best they poured was a 2011 cab from their library.
Next stop was Rexford. Joe Miller, the winemaker, used to post here on AA. His were the most impressive wines we tasted. All of them were interesting and tasty, a couple of pinot noirs, a dry rose, a merlot and a few others. We all ended up buying a few bottles.
Silver Mountain Vineyards had about a half dozen wines to taste. The first pinot noir ($40) we tasted was by far the best wine there.
Things went downhill from here. Some went to Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards to taste some unusual wines (like tempranillo) and a few of us went to Sones Vineyard next door. None of the wines were that good. At least Sones had some interesting artwork and t-shirts for sale.
Next time we'll go when the weather is better and hit wineries in the hills on the Corralitos Trail.