“I’ve been to Napa and Sonoma,” you hear people say, as if they were one and the same. Sure, Sonoma’s 300-plus wineries, like those of vine-centric Napa, offer peak wine tasting, from Ravenswood’s deep Zinfandels to Gloria Ferrer’s sophisticated sparklers. But if you’ve visited only the county’s wineries, come back to sample the astounding diversity that makes Sonoma one of America’s travel treasures.

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Sonoma has been harvesting a growing crop of prestigious awards of late, having been named the nation’s first Cittaslow city, being named to the National Trust for Historic preservation’s list of “distinctive designations,” and being chosen this year as one of Forbes magazine’s “prettiest towns.”

Now we learn that National Geographic Traveler has named Sonoma one of its, “Best of the World 2012.” To be fair to Healdsburg, Petaluma and Cloverdale, when Nat Geo Traveler says “Sonoma,” they’re talking about all of Sonoma County. Our fair city is distinguished by the sobriquet “Sonoma town.”

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Decades ago, when Reynaldo Robledo Sr. scraped together enough cash to buy a patch of southern Napa County, the bayside hills were pasture, part of an early California rancho named Rincón de los Carneros (Haven of the Rams). “Nobody thought the land was worth that much,” recalls Robledo, who at age 16 moved here from the city of Zamora in Michoacán, Mexico. He planted his 13 acres with pinot noir vines.

Today the area has 8,000 acres of vineyards, and Robledo Family Winery, with 350 of those, regularly wows tasters with its sumptuous Los Carneros pinots and other bottlings. The official viticultural area, or appellation, centered on Highway 121 near the city of Sonoma, has since 1983 claimed slices of both Napa and Sonoma counties, yet many wine country travelers roar right past it. And that’s their loss. Along 20 miles of vine-draped roads are wineries—roughly 25 in all—where you can taste at least a dozen varieties while enjoying grand architecture, fine art, rustic barns, or all three.

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Mother Nature has dealt growers statewide a potentially winning hand. Low yields are driving prices up across the board. Markets are tight across all varietals and Insiders say that when an annual crop starts out small, it only gets smaller as it approaches full maturation.

Napa/Sonoma
Pockets of each valley were affected with spring rains which have led to low yields in some vineyards and average to just below average fruit set in others.

Bloom in white varietals in Alexander Valley affected the crop so significantly that one Industry Insider said some sites will be lucky to get one ton per acre.

Another Insider in Napa said that they would be running their harvesting machines for nothing this year.

Estimates range from between 20 to 50 percent lower crop yields between the two valleys. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and
Cabernet varietals have been affected the most.

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