Sonoma Valley, CA

As a wine growing region, the Somoma Valley is much older than the Napa Valley. Already the Fransicans cultivated wine in the area. The Valley has 13 sub-appellations. About 500 wineries harvest on an acreage of 60.000 acres about 200.000 tons of grapes per year. In the East, Sonoma’s frontier are the Mayacamas Mountains, int the West we have the Sono-ma Mountains. The fog coming from the San Pablo Bay and the Russian River is responsible for the moderate temperatures that never exceed 29° Celcius in Summer and 4° Celcius in Winter. The soils give no clear picture. Alluvial land, rock, sand and volcanic ashes follow in an irregular pattern. As a rule of thumb, we can say that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are in the South, Cabernet Sauvignon is on the Eastern hills and Zinfandel rules the West. The first settlers were Russians which explains names like Russian River or Alexander Valley.