There are no vineyards.  Instead, wine barrels on the edge of the coast signal that you’re at a winery.  Welcome to Pacific Star, on the northern California coast in Mendocino County wine country.

Pacific Star is north of the town of Mendocino and Ft. Bragg.  While the remote location is remote, Sally Ottoson’s wines are accessible and highly drinkable.  Choose from a number of varietals, including a few Italian grapes, such as Barbera and Charbono and Carignane.  I highly recommend Barbera with a spicy tomato ciopinno stew.

She also makes a lovely Viognier/Rousanne blend.  Recently the winery learned that a fault line runs directly under the tasting room and winery, which has been named the Pacific Star fault.  Sally made the It’s My Fault blend — Syrah, Charbono and Carignane — in honor of that fact.

This is the definition of a destination winery.  Plan a visit here with a picnic in mind, and enjoy the view with a glass of Sally’s wine.

Bottlenotes also organizes wine tasting events, where you can meet up with other members and taste and talk about wine (yes in person!). Called Around the World in 80 Sips, it’s a great opportunity to taste wines you may not ever come across — like a passionfruit wine from Thailand.

This event was held at Crushpad, the custom crush facility in San Francisco.  Crushpad is relocating to Napa Valley, so this was probably my last time for visiting the city location.  The tasting takes place amid all the barrels of wine aging.

These wines stood out for me and should be on your radar:

2008 Tierra Secreta Malbec – really smooth!

2009 Eradus Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand – this was one of the best SB there.  Classic New Zealand, gooseberry with good acidity.

Radee Passionfruit NV and Pineapple Ambrosia NV – both from Thailand.  I preferred the Passionfruit which had true fruit varietal character. The Pineapple was not as sweet as some Hawaiian wines that I’ve had.

2008 Donelan Venus Rousanne/Viognier and 2008 Donelan Cuvee Christine Syrah – if you were a fan of the Pax Syrahs, the new owners are carrying on the Pax style.  This is the first vintage from Donelan Family Wines and it’s darn good.  Prices are a little easier on the wallet too, at $45.  The Rousanne/Viognier is lush and well-balanced; the Syrah is smoky and meaty.

Scholium Project.  I’ve read lots about Scholium and winemaker Abe Schoener and his unconventional approach to winemaking.  But I’ve never tasted them until now, and I totally get what all the fuss is about.  The 2008 Naucratis Lost SloughVineyard is made of 100% Verdelho, and has lots of good acidity and round fruit.  The 2007 Choephoroi , another white, is completely different and very unusual for a Chardonnay.  The 2006 Tenbrink Vineyard Gardens of Babylon is primarily Petite Sirah.  All soulful wines.

Skipstone wines were also there – and I’ve written about their wines before.  Two bottlings; the 2007 Viognier, is one of the best made in California.  Has all the wonderful peach and nectarine flavors.  The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon is powerful without being agressive.  The layers of flavor linger a long time.

With labor day fast approaching, it’s hard to believe summer is almost over.  If you live in northern California, you might think summer started only last week.  As today it’s already over 97 degrees in my backyard, I’m already thinking about what wine to pop the cork on this evening.  I want something fragrant, something luscious.  That can mean only one thing – aromatic white wines.

Viognier, Riesling and other varieties come to mind.  Definitely not Chardonnay and probably not Sauvignon Blanc.   These are my top choices:

Viognier – I love the Rhone wines, and it’s for the heady perfumed wines that Viognier, and other Rhone varietals have.  I have two choices for Viognier, Cold Heaven, made by Morgan Clendenen, with Santa Barbara fruit, and Skipstone Viognier, Makena’s Vineyard with Alexander Valley fruit.  Each has its own lovely flavors that linger on your tongue, like a delicious nectar.  Makes me think of biting into a really ripe peach, and the juices run down your chin.

I’m also in love with Sarah’s Vineyard Cote de Madone Blanc, a blend of white Rhone varietals Rousanne, Marsanne and Grenache Blanc that is just amazing.  It was included in my wine club shipment, and I want more.  It’s crisp and rich and easy to sip.

I met the Cinnabar winemaker, George Troquato at a wine event, and we got to talking about aromatic whites.  He told me about Cinnabar’s Picpoul Blanc, made with another white Rhone variety.  He was nice enough to send me a bottle, and I have to tell you it is fantastic! It’s fresh, with great acidity and alluring tropical and honeysuckle aromas.  You can buy it only at Cinnabar’s tasting room in downtown Saratoga.  I’m glad I live close by!

I’ve been drinking Qupe‘s Marsanne for a few years now, whenever I can find a bottle.  The fruit is from Santa Ynez Valley, and a little Rousanne is mixed in to round out the wine.  It’s lively and fresh, with bright citrus and pear flavors.  The Rousanne contributes to the plush mouthfeel.

I’ve also been a fan of Crios Torrentes, made by Susana Balbo in Argentina.  It’s a wonderfully aromatic white, with honeysuckle and jasmine giving off heady scents.  It’s medium bodied and also great for just sipping.

Perhaps we’ll have a late summer, so we can enjoy these wines for a few more weeks.  Cheers!

Good Viognier is hard to find, and I wasn’t completely sure about one from Washington State.  But the wine was wonderful.  Honeyed and floral, with stone fruits and minerality.  I added it to my list of favorite wines.  I also love the label, graphic and bold and distressed.  Could that be a reflection of the winemaker himself?

A few weeks later I was at my local Whole Foods,  and another bold graphic label caught my eye.  The Velvet Devil Merlot from Washington State.  I guessed it to be from the K Viognier family.  On the back of the label, Charles Smith Wines.  Same guy, different label.  The winemaker for both is Charles Smith.  I didn’t know much about him beyond the F&W article, but was looking forward to trying this Merlot.  The price was right too, $14.99.

Maybe if Miles had tried this wine, he wouldn’t be bashing Merlot.  The aroma just jumped out of the glass…blackberry, violets and very lush.  Just like the label says, it’s got a velvety texture.  I decided it was time to look up this label and find out more.  I learned that Charles Smith is a Rhone specialist, focused manly on Syrah.  He’s racked up an impressive list of scores, many 95 to 98 points from Parker and other critics.  His wines, with the exception of his top bottlings (Royal City Syrah) are $20 or less.  For me, as a big Syrah fan, this is definitely a wine brand to seek out.

It wasn’t until I did a Google search to see what other people were saying that I learned about some controversy surrounding Charles Smith and blog comments.  If you like drama, pour a glass of wine and sit down at the computer (or iPad).  The story is a good read, starting with this post on  The Gray Market Report. I do agree that blog comments shouldn’t be anonymous.  It’s interesting how quickly scathing comments disappear when posters have to identify themselves.  Regardless, having a chance encounter with the K Viognier led me to want to drink more of the Charles Smith wines.  The winemaker and the wines are certainly memorable.

I like to look at the menu and wine list before I go to a restaurant.  As long as they keep it updated that is.  So that’s what I did before going to Wayfare.  There were a couple of dishes I really wanted to try.  Reading the wine list, once I got to the Cold Heaven Viognier, I didn’t have to look any further.  I love Viognier, and this winery’s Viogniers in particular.  Cold Heaven is made by Morgan Clendenen in Santa Barbara County.  If the name Clendenen rings a bell, Morgan’s ex-husband is Jim Clendenen of famed Au Bon Climat, a leading Chardonnay and Pinot Noir producer.

I have been a fan of Cold Heaven for many years.  Alas, Viognier remains a wine varietal that most people don’t know.  And they certainly don’t know how to pronounce it.  Vee-on-yeay.  Viognier’s spiritual home is Condrieu, in the northern Rhone Valley region of France, best known for Syrah-based red wines.  This white wine is perfumey, luscious and I wine I want to go back to again and again.

When we all met up for lunch, we were all talking about the menu.  I told a few people I said I already knew what wine I was drinking.  That got a good laugh.  Some people start with the food; I start with the wine.  It’s kind of like a way to get dressed. I usually start with the shoes, or a piece of statement jewelry that I feel like wearing, then I build the outfit around it.  When cooking or dining out I pick the wine first, then the food to match it.

At the table, a few other club members said they wanted to try the Cold Heaven since I’d been raving about it.  So we decided to get a bottle.  That quickly became two bottles, since just about everyone wanted to try this wine.  Talk about pressure – I certainly hoped they’d all like it.

I shouldn’t have worried, everyone loved it.  We had the 2009 Cold Heaven Le Bon Climat Vineyard Viognier.  Even the servers love it.  Ken Wagstaff, Wayfare Tavern’s Wine Director tells me later that he really likes it too.  The wine’s floral aroma, with apricot and honey is irresistible, and its voluptuous body paired well with most of the dishes we ordered, from sea bass to crab Louie to fried chicken.  I’m pretty sure at least one or two more bottles were ordered.  Best of all, the price, at $52 per bottle, was reasonable especially for such a wonderful wine.  It’s even better at retail; you can find bottles priced in the $29-$35 range online.

Icing on the cake – after our lunch I found an article that Wall Street Journal wine columnist Jay McInerney wrote just a week earlier that features Morgan Clendenen and Cold Heaven Viognier.   No, I was not influenced by this article.  It just confirms what I’ve known for a long time.

There are two other Viognier producers in California that I highly recommend.  Skipstone is a small boutique winery, with vineyards in Alexander Valley.  The Viognier comes from a special place, a hillside plot called Makena’s Vineyard.  In Livermore Valley, Thomas Coyne makes an ethereal Viogner that’s a bargain at $16.
For Viogniers that are more widely available, Cline Cellars in Sonoma and McManus Family Vineyards make wallet friendly Viogniers that are reliably good.

Viognier as a crowd pleaser?  Give it a try.

And no wonder.  You get a critical mass of 300 or so bloggers blogging about Virginia wine.  Add in the thousands (if not tens of thousands) 0f tweets all of us sent out while visiting Virginia wineries and tasting Virginia wines.  The Virginia wine industry has been growing over the past 40 years.  I had never tasted a Virginia wine, and knew nothing about the state’s wineries.  Now that I’ve been to six Virginia wineries, and tasted dozens of the state’s wines, I can tell you that Virginia is on its way to being a player in the wine world.  Not all wines were good, and they do make a lot of sweet wine. Even so, you must get to know the wines coming out of this state.

Before the conference began, I joined a small group of bloggers on a tour of Virginia wine country.  We visited four wineries in Loudon County, called D.C.’s Wine Country, as it is 30 minutes to an hour outside of Washington D.C.  During the conference I visited two wineries near Charlottesville.  I can tell you I was very impressed not only with the quality of the wines — most very good, some not so much — but also with the passion of the winemakers and what they are doing.

When all is said and done, there are 10 takeaways from my time at the Wine Bloggers Conference, on Virginia wine and on blogging.

1.  Thomas Jefferson never made wine. I think we all assume since Jefferson loved and collected wine, that he also made it.  Not true.  He planted cuttings from European varietals, but the vines died.  Jefferson is basically the figurehead of Virginia wine.  He would be very proud of how the contemporary Virginia wine country has taken root and continues to grow.

2.  Norton, a red varietal grape, is native to Virginia. But Missouri has claimed it as its state grape.  Norton is the rare red skinned grape that also has red juice.  Most red grapes have clear juice.  The jury’s still out on this grape for me.  I much prefer the Cabernet Francs poured at several of the wineries.

3.  Virginia is for Viognier lovers. Viognier is Virginia’s state grape, and there is a good reason for this.  Nearly every Viognier I tasted was wonderful — full of peaches, white flowers and honey.  I even had a sparkling Viognier, from Horton Vineyards and a fabulous aged Viognier, a 2002 vintage, from Barboursville Vineyards that was amazing.

4.  There are 193 wineries in the state of Virginia. The state’s vineyards have come a long way since the early days of the Jamestown settlers.  In 1619 a law was passed that required every male settler to plant and cultivate at least 10 grapevines.  None of the plantings took root.  It wasn’t until the early 1970′s that growers tried again, and vineyards started to flourish.

5.  Virginia wine producers use (and often prefer) Virginia oak barrels over French or other American oak barrels. Didn’t know Virginia produced oak for wine barrels.

6.  Twitter has jumped the shark. That’s according to a few wine bloggers who feel Twitter is just noise and ego (I have to agree).  Do we need 300 wine bloggers tweeting about the wines we had at dinner?  On the flip side, an initial analysis of tweets generated on the last day of the conference (a half day really) shows a reach of 404,903 people.  What I can be sure of is that Virginia wines probably have never received this much (free) publicity.

7.   About four out of 300 bloggers depend on their blogs as their primary income source. The rest of us have a long way to go before we see any profit from our writing.  Most bloggers have “day jobs” that pay the bills.  I certainly do!

8.  Wine bloggers are really wine writers. That’s according to Jancis Robinson and Eric Asimov.  Finally, validation that we’re all not hacks.

9.  Bloggers will start calling out wineries or distributors who still ship wine in styrofoam and/or use heavy glass bottles. The wine industry needs more greening.  Please don’t send me samples in styrofoam shippers.  You’ve been warned.

10. Eric Asimov challenges all of us not to write wine tasting notes for a year. Think we can do it?  I know I’ll try my best not to write useless tasting note.  That’s so boring.  You just want to know whether a particular bottle is good or not.  You know how to taste it.

A group of wine bloggers is interested in creating an an online community for writers and our readers where we can have a collective conversation.  One goal would be to impact on the wine industry. For example what would happen if we all blog about direct shipping laws or styrofoam?  Could we move the debate to one side or the other?  It’s an interesting concept, and we’ll see if anything like this gets off the ground before the Wine Bloggers Conference 2012 in Oregon.

I took advantage of an option to visit a few Virginia wineries before the conference.  I’m glad I did as I discovered some wonderful Viogniers.  This white varietal is the state’s official grape, even though Viognier is native to France, where its spiritual home is in the northern Rhone Valley, in the region of Condrieu.  Virginia is also known for Norton, a red grape variety that is native to the state.  However, Missouri claims Norton as its state grape. Go figure.

I’ve sipped Condrieu that was life changing – and tempted me to splurge on a bottle with a $100+ price tag. I’m always on a quest for the next great bottle of Viognier (at a much lower price too).

Why does Viognier do well in Virginia?  Earthquakes aside (a few of the state’s wineries had minor damage and bottle breakage), it’s a warm growing climate.  The grape clusters on the vine are bunched loosely, allowing air to flow through and dry any moisture that might lead to mildew.  The grape also has a thicker skin and can stand up to rain.

Loudoun County was the destination for our Virginia winery tour.  Loudoun calls itself “DC’s Wine Country” because the 22 wineries there are within an hour drive outside of the nation’s capital.  As we left metropolitan Washington, DC, the landscape turned into gently rolling hills, pastures and vineyards as we approached Tarara Winery.  The 475 acre property is on the Potomac River (although we never saw the river and it’s too bad that we never got to go into the vineyards).

I’d never tasted a wine from the state and wasn’t sure what to expect.  Winemaker Jordan Harris put my mind at ease.  Virginia is home to serious, talented and passionate vintners.   The first sip was memorable: Tarara’s 2010 Viognier from the Williams Gap Vineyard ($15).  I thought was a lovely wine with a beautiful floral nose and peach notes.  It’s summer in a glass, and a great introduction to Virginian Viognier.  Otherwise Tarara is known for Chardonnay and their red blends.

At Breaux Vineyards we met owners Chris Blosser and Jennifer Breaux Blosser.  Jennifer is a WineFashionista with a great sense of style.  Her family is Cajun and they honor that heritage with the red crawfish on the wine labels and with the Cajun Fest in June (too bad we missed that!).  Breaux has been voted Virginia’s favorite winery for the past three years running.

We went on a hayride through the vineyards on the 404 acre estate.  Breaux grows 18 varietals, including Viognier, on 105 acres.  In the barrel cellar we tried the 2010 Viognier ($24), full of stone fruits and white flowers.  Breaux is also known for Nebbiolo, and a barrel sample of the ’07 was fantastic.

I also went to two wineries in the Charlottesville area during the conference.  Vintner Dennis Horton is a legend in Virginia wine country.  At Horton Vineyards, he was at the forefront of the state’s modern day wine industry by being the first to produce Viognier and Cabernet Franc.

Horton makes a beautiful Viognier (2010 – $20), but the real gem here is the sparkling Viognier.  I’d never even heard of such a thing.  It’s a non-vintage wine made in the traditional Champagne method.  This brut sparkler is delicious and lively.  I bought one bottle ($25) and now wish I had more.

Barboursville Vineyards has deep roots in Virginia’s history.  James Barbour was governor of Virginia and Secretary of War under President John Quincy Adams.  He was also friends with Thomas Jefferson, who designed the Barbour home, which was reminiscent of Monticello. Ruins of the home still remain from the fire which destroyed it in 1884.  You can stay in a small in next to this, in a restored carriage house from the Barbour estate.

The Barboursville Viogniers were not just good, they were the best I’d tasted during the entire conference trip.  Off the charts good.  We got to taste a vertical that included a 2002.  It was divine, complex and still had plenty of fruit.  Who knew Viognier could age this well? Ok, maybe some Condrieus do.  I convinced them to sell me a couple bottles of the 2002 and I also bought the 2009 ($22) which was completely different, fruiter and not as complex as the older vintage.  Both yummy.

You’ve probably noticed that the Virginia wines don’t cost what comparable wines in California or even from France cost.  makes them a great bargain (and why I shipped a case of wine home).

If you’re a Viognier lover like me, you want to get to Virginia wine country as soon as possible or seek out some pretty amazing bottles.  Now I can’t say every Virginia wine is good or worth seeking out.  Me and my fellow bloggers had some that we’d call plonk at best.  The point is that it’s about time the really good wines – especially the Viogniers -  get the recognition they deserve.