Sunday, May 24, 2015

Highway 12: Ledson, Landmark, En Garde and Kunde Wineries

With an infallible sense of the adventure my husband chose Highway 12 as a spectacular wine tasting road for our weekend with friends in late December last year. It was a sort of Pre-Christmas happiness that brought us together, and we were drifting from one winery to another with no purpose more apparent than our desire to taste wines and catch the changing colors of the valley and the dramatic Mayacamas mountains in the distance. 




Rising like a gothic dream out of rolling, vine-covered hills, this French Normandy Castle is simply spectacular. The Ledson family specializes in small lots of hand-crafted impressive wines: Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Rosa, Madera port, and others.   



Located at the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains on the corner of Highway 12 and Adobe Canyon Road in Sonoma Valley, the Landmark Winery offers complex, aromatic wines with deep, lasting flavors. 2013 Pinot Noir and 2012 Syrah are terrific!




The En Garde Winery is a little tasting room with remarkable red wines and happy atmosphere whose winemaker and proprietor, Csaba Szakal, is a fourth generation winemaker from Hungary. Csaba is famed for his passion for Cabernets of high elevation sites (Diamond Mountain District in the Napa Valley) and Russian River Valley Pinot Noir. 





Kunde Family Winery is a winery with incredible history that shows family's great passion for life, land and winemaking. Five generations of the Kunde Family have carried on the tradition of crafting delicious, estate-grow wines. Kunde Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma Valley, has been my favorite white wine for a long time. It is a rich, refreshing, elegant Sauvignon Blanc with bright citrus notes and soft melon flavors. Kunde Syrah and Kunde Zinfandel (both Sonoma Valley) are also my favorites.        


More wine, please!

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