Rodney Strong Vineyards Tasting

Rodney Strong Vineyards Viticulturist, Ryan Decker, and Social Media Manager Laura Perret were in Houston recently. Local media was invited to meet them to learn more about their current vineyard and winemaking techniques at the award-winning Sonoma County winery. We arrived at the CRU Food & Wine Bar and met Laura who then introduced us to Ryan.

Ryan described his viticulture duties for the 1,150 acres of vineyards that Rodney Strong has. That sounds like a lot of acres, especially when compared to a Texas vineyard, but with all those acres, that only covers about one third of the wines they make. The rest of the growers that Rodney Strong use are within 30 minutes of the winery. The winery practices sustainable and Fish Friendly Farming, and they are Sonoma County’s first carbon neutral winery. The winery makes 800,000 cases of wine a year.

While learning about the viticulture and winery, we enjoyed a tasting of their primary estate series wines from winemaker Rick Sayre. These are the wines we were able to taste:

• 2013 Chalk Hill Chardonnay
• 2013 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
• 2013 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2012 Symmetry Meritage (75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Malbec, 2% Pettit Verdot)

Also in attendance at the event were Rodney Strong wine club members who live in Houston. This was a great opportunity for the wine club members to enjoy the benefit of the representatives visiting Houston. All the wines we had were excellent and we can understand why people from Texas would become wine club members of Rodney Strong Vineyards.