Sonoma Tasting Notes Harvest moon and Porter Creek -- Added Photos

WINE TALK
1

Porter Creek:

These guys are not mentioned a whole lot, but I e tasted there three times now and am always impressed with the quality. The chardonnay and viogner are always spot on, but their old vine Chardonnay is a beauty. REally concentrated but light on its feet. The pinots are all very good, but the Fiona and Reserve were both showing exceptionally on this visit. Deep California fruit but old world restraint, depth, and earthy/mushroom character. Slight preference to the reserve. The carignan and Zinfandel were full of everything you’d hope for, but the showstopper again was the Timbervine Syrah. ALL the guts and glory of northern Rhône syrah with just a tiny extra touch of Cali fruit!

Harvest Moon Winery was a place I came across in a strange Alice in wonderland rabbit hole a few weeks ago. Turns out they are making really nice and balanced cooler climate Zinfandel. Lot of bramble and pure fruit in a cool, lower alcohol style

2

Porter Creek is great. Last time we were there they let my kids play with the chickens and we brought our glasses out to taste. Everyone had a blast. Timbervine and the Viognier are usually what we leave with.

3

How can you talk about tasting at Porter Creek with mentioning Paul. That guy is a legend and usually out drinks everyone who stops by to taste

4

Yeah sorry to have left that out. First time tasting with Paul yesterday, and I could tell instantly that it was going to be a good one!

5

Thanks for the trip report, Dan!! [cheers.gif]


I have always been a little curious about how the Harvest Moon wines tasted. A bit of trivia I saw on a video interview on Harvest Moon’s website: the family sold its old-vine Zinfandel fruit to DeLoach for 28 years before establishing its own winery. I noticed that the internet site has been polished up some recently.


Porter Creek may not receive much attention, yet I have never read a negative review of its wines - white or red.

6

Haven’t been to Porter Creek in years, loved the wines, I remember the tasting room as being marginally larger than a closet and there was a laundry line, with clothes on it, running to the house nearby

7

And some photos from Russian River, too:

Harvest Moon, January

Vineyard marked online as “Silverado Sonoma”, January

From Porter Creek, but the vineyard is MacMurray Ranch (July)

8

I haven’t thought about Harvest Moon in quite a while but I found the winery while driving around the Sonoma Valley area in preparation for opening our wine shop/wine bar back in 2005 (the shop was sold after just a few years in business). The son, Randy Pitts, was very personable and I recall liking just about everything he poured, thinking they were ‘likeable’ wines that would be great for our shop. Unfortunately Harvest Moon was rather new and not selling wholesale at the time (not uncommon, of course) and I don’t know if they ever have.

Randy got on the phone and introduced us to his then next-door neighbor Jon Phillips, whose Inspiration Vineyards turned out to be a great source for us and Jon became a friend (he’s now located in Pine Creek Business Park, Coffey Lane, Santa Rosa).

I’m glad to hear that Randy is still making good wine. I don’t know if Luna, the winery dog, is the same one we met that day almost fourteen years ago, but I still remember her too.

9

Thanks for the additional info there. I did ask about willingness/desire to distribute, and it was confirmed that they neither have nor do they intend to. Explains the deep library in their online store!