Russian River Wineries

July 3 thru 8, 2012

Leaving my sister's house we decided to head over to Hwy 101 and the Russian River Wineries.  We have been down Hwy 101 many times but we have not been to the wineries in the Russian River area since about 1990 when we moved to Washington.

We found the West Side Road along the Russian River and there must be new wineries every 1/2 mile.  We were looking for a small winery called Porters Creek.  Sure enough we finally found it and it's still very small and the wine still very good.  But, when did wine get so expensive?  Or, have we been drinking too much "two-buck-chuck"? (Which is actually $2.99 in Washington but $1.99 in California).

We stayed in Cloverdale a small little town a few miles north from the Russian River wineries.  This was only about 170 miles from my sisters place in Auburn, CA so we had plenty of time to visit a couple of wineries before we checking in to our motel.  (Motels and eating out all the time is sure strange)

All the pictures in this blog were taken with my phone.  Some are good and some are not but it's all I have and many times it was so bright out that I could not see the screen when I took the picture.

This is Hop Kiln Winery.  I was not aware that many many years ago hops were grown along the river valley here.  This is the kiln used to dry the hops.  After visiting this place we started noticing other old hop kilns in the area but not preserved like this one.

Beautiful grounds around the winery

This is the Porter Creek Vineyards  that we were looking for, I'm amazed that we found it, 

everything has changed so much.

The parking lot, house and the tasting room is a small shed behind the house.  Excellent wine.

Gracie was there to met and greet Buddy

Leaving the winery, this vineyard across the street was a major dairy last time we were here

in fact at one time we came around the corner and saw a dead cow in the pasture so we always knew where this winery.  We had joked about this being  "the dead cow winery"

Leaving the next morning was July 4th, and everyone was lining up to see the parade, we were the last car through before they closed the street.

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Continuing north on Hwy 101 we spotted this herd of elk just south of Big Lagoon

Our next stop was in Gold Beach, Oregon.  More on that in the next blog

Safe travels to all, thanks for stopping by

Joe and Nancy