A visit to Limerick Lane Cellars does not begin at a tasting bar. It begins in the vineyard rows, where gnarled old Zinfandel vines frame a carpet of yellow mustard flowers and the land rolls gently toward low Sonoma hills. This is the kind of place where the setting does half the talking before a glass is ever poured.
The vineyards are on the edge of the Russian River Valley AVA. The AVA ends at the nearby hills, the boundary where the fog rolls into the area.
On my visit, tastings were set outdoors, under a line of bright orange umbrellas shading long wooden picnic tables placed directly between the vines. There was no sense of hurry, no background music competing for attention. Instead, the experience was defined by space, quiet, and time, all rare commodities in modern wine country.
A Vineyard With A Story
The old growth vines at Limerick Lane are central to everything here. Some of these vines date to 1910, others to the 1940s, and they are still producing fruit today. Walking the rows, you can see the physical evidence of that age in the twisted trunks, wide spacing, and low yields that come only with time. The oldest of these vines have endured Prohibition, changing ownership, replanting cycles elsewhere in Sonoma, and decades when Zinfandel fell in and out of fashion…