Northern California Wineries: Kunde Estate Winery
Kunde Winery is in the Valley of the Moon in Kenwood in Sonoma County. This is an estate winery, which means that all of the wine they produce comes from their own vineyards. There are almost 2000 acres in grapes. You can see some of the vineyards right on the valley floor as you drive along Highway 12, but the vineyards go up into the mountains to the east of the Valley as well. Several times a year, a vineyard tour is offered which takes about 4 hours, includes a lunch, and covers the parts of the vineyards from the valley floor up the mountainside. There is also a small hill behind the main parking area where Kunde has built wine caves for aging wines. These caves are open for wine tours more often, but not all of the time.
This is one of the old California wineries with an interesting history. The first vineyard, Wildwood, was originally planted with cuttings from famed French wineries by its first owner, John Drummond. That vineyard was acquired in 1904 by Louis Kunde, who emigrated to the California from Germany. The winery and vineyards survived Prohibition and has been substantially expanded by acquisition, especially in the last 30 years. The Kunde family still owns and operates the current winery and is particularly dedicated to sustainable wine growing. They are green!
The tasting room, built in the 1990s, is in a replica of the old Kinneybrook cattle barn situated right in the middle of the Kinneybrook vineyard and has huge floor to ceiling windows. It has an inviting picnic area next to a small pond right outside the winery building. There are two parts to the tasting room. When you walk in, there is the standard tasting bar in front of you with tastings available for $10, pretty much the same as other wineries. To your right, there is a separate section of tables called the Kinneybrook Room where a special tasting of Kunde’s reserve wines is offered, along with a tasting of cheese and crackers to accompany the wines. The cost for this tasting is $20.
We decided to try the Kinneybrook tasting since we felt that this should be an example of the best wines Kunde has to offer. The reserve chardonnay was excellent and fairly reasonable in price (in the $30 range). However, we both prefer red wines and these did not hold up as well. The Zin needed more character and the Cabernets needed more depth. The cheese, however, was most excellent.
We’ll stop by again and try the tasting at the regular bar. We’d also go back for the cave tour.
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