The Secret Life of Grapes

Sonoma County

Sonoma County is often compared with neighboring Napa Valley, but it's twice the size and nowhere near as tidy. There's no way to see it all in one flying trip. So I plunk down in Healdsburg. It's the portal for the southern end of two wine valleys that run parallel to each other: Dry Creek Valley and Alexander Valley.

Dry Creek, 15 miles long and perhaps 2 miles wide at its broadest, narrows the farther north you go. The landscape here is different from Mendocino: much drier and no towering trees. Driving down Dry Creek Road, I pass a small house with a modest sheet-metal warehouse alongside. A sign reads, "David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery. By Appointment Only." On an impulse, I make a U-turn and pull into Coffaro's driveway. All anyone can do is ask me to leave.

Coffaro emerges from the house. I apologize for not having an appointment. He laughs and says, "Almost no one ever does. They just fall in on me like you're doing now. Want to taste some wine?"

I visit unfamiliar wineries all the time, and I'm almost always disappointed. There's a reason why many wineries are obscure: they deserve it. New wineries are usually still finding their way. "This is only my second vintage," says Coffaro. He's a nice guy: straightforward, modest, no wine maker mumbo-jumbo. I like him, but I have little hope.

Then I taste his Cabernet Sauvignon, and I'm astounded by its purity. This estate-grown Cabernet Sauvignon ($16) practically sings. The same for the Zinfandel ($14). Both have the textural density and distinctive tar flavors that distinguish Dry Creek reds.

There's no one right way to make wine. It all depends on your grapes. Coffaro knows his perfectly. He bottles his wines relatively early, rather than allowing them to age longer in the barrel, as some other wine makers prefer. His wines offer a piercing freshness precisely because they're bottled young and see less oak influence.

"Where have you been all these years!" I exclaim.

"I ran a small stock fund before I came to my senses," he replies. "I bought this vineyard and started selling grapes in 1979. I made a little wine for myself and entered it in the local amateur wine competition. I kept winning every year, so I thought, Why not start a winery? So here I am. You really like my wines?"

Do I ever. Coffaro epitomizes modern wine making at its best. Too bad he sells most of his 20 acres of grapes to other Dry Creek Valley wineries, keeping enough to make just 1,500 cases a year.

Prime Sonoma Eatery Everything I want is right around the plaza in the center of Healdsburg. My favorite place to stay is the Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza. It's a bit duded-up with Victoriana. But it's quiet, and the welcome is warm. Across the plaza is my favorite Healdsburg restaurant, Bistro Ralph, featuring California cuisine that stays just this side of tasteful sanity. The wine list is all local Sonoma stuff, reasonably priced.

Coordinates: Healdsburg Inn on the Plaza, 110 Matheson Street; 800-431-8663. $145 to $210. Bistro Ralph, 109 Plaza Street, Healdsburg; 707-433-1380.

Napa Valley

When I reach the city of Napa, I turn onto Monticello Road to rendezvous with William and Leticia Jarvis. The Jarvis estate embraces 1,500 acres, 1,000 feet above the valley floor. Most of it is pasture land. Jarvis meets me at the gate.

I've been in a lot of wine joints and I'm here to tell you that I've never seen the likes of Jarvis Vineyards. For one thing, it's all underground : barrels, presses, tanks, offices. Rooms are lined with brass wall sconces and fiber-optic lighting. There's even an underground waterfall. It's all improbably, preposterously beautiful. And breathtakingly expensive. Jarvis admits spending at least $20 million to build 45,000 square feet of tunnels. "I stopped counting after that," he says.

Usually, rich guys make nowhere wines. They're happy with whatever their hired-gun wine maker puts forth. Not Jarvis. You can taste the vineyard's cool microclimate in his Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Elevation helps, as does a relatively close proximity to the breezes of San Pablo Bay, just 12 miles away. Jarvis's wines are distinctive and genuinely fine. But you've got to see the winery.

I leave Jarvis shaking my head in wonder, and make a bee-line for one of my Napa Valley favorites: Mayacamas Vineyards. No winery could be more antithetical to the glitz of Napa Valley than Mayacamas. Its entrance, 2,000 feet high on the slopes of Mount Veeder, is adorned by only a weathered sign tacked to a tree. The winery's roots go deep, back to its founding in 1889. Its label hasn't changed a jot since 1950.

But it's the wines that set Mayacamas apart. They are California's longest-lived. Mayacamas Chardonnay ($18) is famous for lasting -- and improving -- for 20 or 30 years. The same goes for the Cabernet ($30). Some bottlings from the 1950s are still going strong.