Stopped by the Imagery Winery on Highway 12 north of the town of Sonoma this afternoon. Quite a pleasant place-this is a modest winery that pushes artsiness, but given that I am a sucker for a beautiful label, who's going to complain? Very earnest "educational tourism" feel to the place just like at the home winery, Beniziger. Still, beautiful grounds, lovely view, and nice clean modern architecture with plenty of books, geegaws, and even art. It's not The Hess Collection, but still quite pleasant and appealing-and the staff are very pleasant as well.
I tried the reserve tasting for $10, and it had some interesting wines, Mostly well below 1,000 cases in production. They had Petit Verdot that was very tasty, a Lagrein that I could see as a summer quaffer, a nice Benziger blend, Onopais (not the proper spelling, but I'm too lazy to google it) that was savory and nice, an interesting single vineyard Cab, a stunning Pinot Gris Late Harvest that blew me away, and an ok Petit Sirah "port." The Cab Franc was an interesting contrast to the Loire wine from last night. Even given the heat of 2003, the Loir wine was subject to, the California Cab Franc was still lusher-but it still had the nice vegetal/harbal/balanced green pepper character I like in the better Cab Francs that I've tried.
The star for me was the Taylor Vineyard (Dry Creek Valley) 2004 Zinfandel. At 14,5%, this is not a bomb-just a very flavorful, balanced, claret-style Zin. I think I actually liked it a little better than the Storybook Mountain Mayacamas I tried last fall.