Kunde Estate Vineyards

Browsing through all the wonderful shots on Blipfoto's popular pages in search of inspiration, I found beaches, pets, birds,, flowers and people. I found cities parks, waterfalls, bugs and bridges. I even found a skeleton in the process of being unburied, but I didn't find any vineyards, so here from the heart of Sonoma County California wine country I offer a picture of the Kunde Estates Vineyards just a couple of miles down the road from our house. 

We live in the foothills of the Mayacamas range which forms one side of the Sonoma Valley or, as Jack London called it, The Valley of the Moon.  Kunde is quite an old winery which is why vineyards can be seen climbing up toward the ridge. There are now new regulations on how much of the watershed can be planted in order to limit  erosion and run off. 

A Sonoma County Guide to wineries lists over 400, so many in fact, that there is beginning to be a backlash against the dwindling diversity in agriculture in the county and the growth of wineries as "event centers", rather than the humble tasting rooms we used to visit in Napa and Sonoma counties.

 Sebastopol used to be a major apple producing region, Healdsburg's Alexander Valley grew prunes and and OilMan's uncle managed a sheep ranch on its slopes. Petaluma was known all over as the "chicken capital of the world". Sebastopol still has an apple festival and Petaluma features "Butter and Egg Days". Healdsburg, which had dirt streets when OilMan was growing up in neighboring Marin county, is now home to four star restaurants, tasting rooms, world class hotels and tourists. 

It is still a beautiful place to live, and not a day goes by that I'm not grateful to be living here. For a very entertaining view of the early days of California wine making see if you can find a movie called "Bottle Shock". I agree that the love triangle is completely extraneous, but the rest is based on a true story.