The Wine Traveler on the Bottle Line at Inspiration Vineyards


We stumbled on Inspiration Vineyards about two years ago when visiting Inspiration’s neighbor, the Harvest Moon Winery on Olivet Road near Sebastopol. Randy Pitts at Harvest Moon told us “you have to visit Inspiration Vineyards, the guy makes great wine.”One problem however, Inspiration owner and winemaker Jon Phillips holds down a full time job for the county of Sonoma. Randy calls Jon on his cell and convinces Jon to take a break, pour us some wine in his garage-sized winery. We were quite impressed with the wines and have been in touch ever since.

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The Wine Traveler Visits Russian Hill Winery

After having a leisurely picnic lunch at the Martin Ray Winery, we head out to find the Russian Hill Estate Winery. To get there, we head north on Laguna Road, a left on Trenton Road to River Road. At River Road we take a right turn and make our way to Slusser Road, a couple … Read more

Martin Ray Winery – Hidden Winery

Martin Ray Winery
From our home base in Sebastopol, the Martin Ray winery is about 15 minutes away. To get there, we take the Gravenstein Highway towards Forestville and take a right turn onto Guerneville Road. About two miles later, a left onto Laguna Road and then about one mile to the winery. Laguna Road is a quiet country backroad and Martin Ray truly qualifies as a hidden winery.

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In Sebastopol Wine Country


Why wine travel to Sebastopol? Because Sebastopol is the gateway to the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, the AVA that produces some of the finest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the world. Plus, the city of Sebastopol is very much, to this day, a wine country secret. Lodging rates are still reasonable and there are some very good eats in Sebastopol. Here are my best bets for Sebastopol.

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