Petaluma Tasting Rooms: Barber Cellars
We moved to Sonoma with one goal in mind: to become the ultimate wine hipsters. Well, two goals: to become the ultimate wine hipsters AND drink a ton of wine from the best wineries in Sonoma. And eat a lot of good food. Fine, we have a lot of goals. Enough about our goals. We’re scouring Sonoma County for the best little known, small run wineries we can find in order to achieve the greatest virtue of hipsterdom: telling you all about the really cool places we love that you've never heard of. We’re doing this for you. Trust us.
If we’re being honest, we kind of dropped the ball on this review of Barber Cellars. Cherish this moment. We’re almost never honest. We’re inveterate liars. It’s been about 4 months since we visited the Barber Cellars tasting room, so we’re relying on our wine stained memories and our tasting notes to write up this review.
The distaff member of our duo stayed at the Hotel Petaluma when she was looking for a place for us to live in Sonoma. In true wine country fashion, there’s a tasting room connected to the lobby. When we moved to Petaluma a few months later she made sure we stopped by there on our first family trip into downtown.
The tasting room itself is cute. It feels like a neighborhood joint. There’s an arcade table near the entrance to the lobby, a bookcase full of board games by the front window, and a guitar in the corner. They host game nights, which would be great for us if our kids were a bit older. Basically, it’s like a neighborhood pub, but better, because of the wine. Speaking of…
2013 Sonoma Coast Pinot Gris ‘Rougissant’: Bruised apples on the nose. Peaches, white grapes & lime zest on the tongue. The lime zest builds the longer the wine sits on your young. Faint lime juice and a bit of pepper on the finish. Full bodied. Looking at the picture, the wine has a slightly pinkish hue. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘Rougissant’?
2015 Russian River Sauvignon Blanc ‘Lumiere’: Pears and a hint of pineapple on the nose. Crisp apples & lime with big pepper on the finish. Clean on the palate with a medium bodied.
2013 Sonoma Mountain Zinfandel ‘Mr. Beast’: Currants, cranberry & bakers chocolate on the nose. Cherries & blackberries on the tongue with lime juice & juniper berries on the finish. A pleasant amount of cracked pepper on the tail. We prefer our Zinfandels with less tang, but this one was interesting. Our current favorite is the Maffei Zinfandel from Seghesio.
2014 Sonoma Mountain Cabernet ‘Scuro’: Black cherries and dry soil on the nose. Ripe cherries, hints of vanilla bean and oak on the nose. A wee bit of citrus on the tail. This was a decent mid tier Cab. We would happily drink it. We’d just go with something different if we were going to spend $40 on a bottle of wine. It comes down to taste.
Barber Cellars is a friendly little place. We really enjoyed our visit. The host, one of the owners, did a great job walking us through each wine and we ended up splitting a cheese and salumi plate with our kids while we hung out at the bar. The wine’s good. The only thing that stood out, however, was the juniper finish on the Zinfandel. There were no ‘must try’ wines on this list, but, if you’re in downtown Petaluma it’s well worth a visit.
The Barber Cellars tasting room is located in downtown Petaluma, attached to the Hotel Petaluma. Learn about their wines and any upcoming events at http://barbercellars.com/.
