Tasting is a relaxed hands-on affair in the barrel room – a mobile bottling plant was rattling in the parking lot when I visited – and promises some exceptional wines and barrel tasting. He’s an unconventional winemaker whose talent has been recognized by others in the business – he also makes high-end wines for boutique wineries and has supplied Business Class pours for a major airline. Sal’s wines focus on grapes from unique vineyards so his list is constantly changing. Sal and his wife Claudia opened Galvan Family Cellars in 2003. Cold nights, high daytime temperatures and a breeze from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that appears like clockwork every afternoon (Suisun means ‘west wind’ in the language of the Patwin Native Americans) are the factors that make this small valley a happy place for grapes.Īnd Salvador Galvan’s garage winery is a happy place for wine drinkers. If you could throw a stone over that eastern ridge, it would land in the Napa Valley. Suisun Valley is part of the California Coast Ranges, located between the Howell Mountains on the west and the Blue Ridge of the Vaca Mountains on the east. Petite Sirah is the signature grape of the Suisun Valley but the region’s microclimate is ideal for growing many varietals. Their pretty pink sparkling sirah rosé is a deserved best seller but the standout in their tasting room for me was the Lanza Family Petite Sirah, a smooth dark beauty with rich flavours of jam and plum. They also make their own wines in the Italian style – designed for the table and convivial company. Their top-quality grapes are supplied to winemakers all over the US, including big names like Gallo and Coppola. The original Wooden Valley vineyard was planted just after Prohibition and acquired by their grandfather in 1955. Lanza and his three brothers operate Wooden Valley Winery and Vineyards. The sun is rising over the vineyard, setting purple clusters of grapes aglow as Ron Lanza completes an early morning harvest of a barbera grapes for a client in Wisconsin. It’s a modern town with manicured malls, tidy ranch houses and wide boulevards lined with flowering trees, but cross under the highway and you’ll enter another world as urban streets give way to wine country backroads and the hands of the clock rewind. But it’s hard to keep good wine country a secret and those in the know say that “Napa’s Backside” is getting ready to boom.įairfield is the seat of Solano County and hub of the Suisun Valley wine region. Many of the valley’s wine growers have been on the land for generations, supplying grapes to wineries elsewhere (including Napa) and making small amounts of wine for local consumers. But while Napa ultimately attracted corporate winemakers (and tourists) with very deep pockets, Suisun followed a different star. The Suisun Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area) in was designated just 6 months after Napa and boasts a similarly favourable grape-growing terroir. Welcome to the Suisun Valley.Ī ridge of hills is all that separates the Suisun and Napa valleys in Northern California. Magine Napa Valley without the hype or the hefty price tag – the same fabulous wines, beguiling scenery and elegant tasting rooms, but no shortage of parking, no exorbitant tasting fees and no wine snobbery.
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