Joseph Phelps Vineyards

Beautiful winery situated at the sonoma valley Freestone region. I remember seeing their tasting room at Napa before and I was right. However, this winery specialize in Pinot! They have a few pieces of land that grows pinot noir grapes in the region. Interesting how weather can be different within a few miles. Anyhow, they set a pretty high standard for the tasting experience in the area. Pinot hasn’t been my favorite but their pinot is pretty good. Had a group of 6 for tasting in our party, we were seated in one of their room. We decided to do 3 tastings and they were able to help us split the tasting portions up! Also we switched different glasses for different wine. $ 35 well spent!

The very high wines are some of the best I’ve had. The setting was lovely and the staff pleasant and knowledgeable. It is worth a stop!

This is it!!! This is where my newfound love for Pinot’s in Sonoma began. This absolutely amazing vineyard is not much to look at from the outside and I rarely stop at tasting rooms away from the vineyard… But I am glad I did. I no longer even care about Napa wines or Napa valley itself. I will forever be a Sonoma wine drinker. And it all started here. I am a lifetime at JP now!

Joseph Phelps offers some of the finest wines around. While not being a member, I still find their wines a bit over priced, especially the tasting fees. I am a firm believer that if you want the best, you often have to pay the price. Only issue I see is, it would be nice to have the tasting fees reduced, especially if you are making a purchase or multiple purchases. Completely understand those who just show up wanting to taste and not make a purchase. This was noticed several times when people stopped by wanting to try their wines only to notice the prices and leave without doing so. On a positive note, we did receive a discount for making a purchase as well as to our tasting fee (10%) which is better than nothing, however we would have purchased more had the fee been waived. All in all, still a fan.

A wonderful winery to sit and sip, the staff is friendly and generous with their pours and they even offered to help us find a place to have dinner and called for reservations. We arrived about an hour before closing and they were super patient with us and didn’t kick us out until we were ready to go.
Tasting are $ 20 (or $ 35 if you want to try their signature wine) and they were willing to do a white tasting for members of our group who get headaches from tannins. The whites are mostly aged in oak for a strong, buttery flavor.

After coffee and amazing bakeed goods from across the street, we popped in for a wine tasting. Martina was our ‘wine educator’ and she was most informative. The wines were are exceptionally balanced and well made, with prices to match. The setting is terrific. The wine club is definitely worth joining, if you can make it to the events, held monthly.

This winery claims to use Biodynamic farming practices, by placing Biodynamic displays on the walls.
In truth, although they may use yarrow, they also use bee toxins in the vineyards at Freestone (Boscalid, and more).
They are not Demeter certified Biodynamic.
I think it’s very misleading to consumers. Not an ethical stance that I think one can defend.
If you want to be Biodynamic, then only do those practices and get certified. Don’t create the (false) impression that you are Biodynamic while you use fungicides like Boscalid. Shame on you, Joseph Phelps.
Personally, I’d take my wine business to someone who actually is certified (like Porter Creek, or Benziger — the latter grows Pinot across the street from Phelps in Freestone and is certified Biodynamic. Or Radio Coteau’s wine from Benziger’s vines.)
If you are going to frame photos of Biodynamic practices and put them on the wall, what do you expect consumers to think?
If you’re going to frame the yarrow (used in Biodynamic farming) on the wall, I think in all fairness you should also frame the labels of all the toxic chemicals you use in farming your vines, including Boscalid, which is a bee and bird toxin.
There may have been a time when you were Biodynamic, but if you aren’t Biodynamic today (and you clearly are not, looking at the state mandated pesticide use reports you filed with county and state officials), please don’t insinuate any association with Biodynamic practices. It would be like putting a CCOF sign in your tasting room when you are not organic.
The confusion is not what a staff person said; it’s what the physical objects on display in your tasting room say.

Wines are just ok from Freestone. Way over oaked and over priced. Chardonay was $ 75. Of course the Napa wines are great.
The best thing about Freestone is the Wild Flower (bread store)
The help there did not know to much about the wine or winemaking, I had the manager helping me also. She sure knew alot about the over priced cheese shop down the road though. She also would pour a taste then she would never come back. So I had to get up and ask for my next pour. Still promoting the cheese shop to some other poor victim. She‘s a perfect example of why the other staff is lacking.
Go to Napa if you really want to taste Phelps wines… really!

I hosted my visiting English cousins to a fireside wine tasting in Freestone yesterday. While I have visited before, this time was par excellence. Our host, Martina was a knowledgeable, passionate and persuasive host. Her family has been making wine in Austria for 100 years, and she herself a winemaker in Australia and California for a decade plus. Minerality, terroir, acidity — she explained all these terms with skill, aplomb and clarity. The Pinots and Chardonnays we sampled were doubly satisfying as a result. Exited the tasting room with happy relatives and a couple of bottles of FogDog Pinot for Thanksgiving dinner.
Forget about Napa’s «Wine Disneyland». Come to the real Wine Country in the Freestone Valley !

I came here for a Hawaiian themed event and had a great time! Staff was very friendly, and the wine selection was great. It is quite out there in the boonies. But then again, aren’t all vineyards…
The plus is there is a great bread shop around the corner to the entrance. I saw many people eat bread from this place while enjoying a nice glass of pinot.

I’ve been going to the Phelps St. Helena location since 2009 and finally had the chance to visit Freestone this past weekend. While a little bit off the beaten track, about 6 miles from Sebastopol, Freestone is more west than Sonoma.
The staff and members are incredibly friendly and inviting here. The tasting room and ambiance are cozier and more quaint than the one in St. Helena– definitely more family-​oriented. There were a number of people just sipping on wine and lounging on chairs during the Second Sunday event.
If you’re into Pinot Noirs or white wines, Joseph Phelps in Freestone is a great winery option!

We love Joseph Phelps wines, but our visit to Freestone was just ok. We did not feel the same warmth and welcome that we have all the time when we visit St. Helena. In fact, after driving out all the way to Freestone for Second Sunday (while the scenery is beautiful, there is not much really around except the winery, Wild Flour and a small shop for miles), we felt like they wanted to leave pretty quickly. Our tasting seemed very impersonal, whereas maybe we expected incorrectly that it would actually be more personal. We quickly finished our tasting, and left. We won’t be back to this location unfortunately.

Were it not for Freestone, I doubt that I would have considered Joseph Phelps a winery worth waiting for. That may sound harsh or incredibly naïve, but it’s not intended to be: simply that one cannot possibly try all wines all the time — even if they are ultra premium products, as Phelps wines most certainly are.
Think of it like great literature. It took me more than 30 years to actually get around to reading Melville. Had it not been for Richard Henry Dana Jr.‘s Two Years before the Mast (an amazing memoir of California before the gold rush), I doubt that I would have been interested enough in whaling and sailing to finally read Moby Dick. And truth be told, I enjoyed it much more than if I had been high school age. Probably it will be the same with Phelps — and not illegal anymore, either.
So Freestone — laid back, walk-​right-​in, Freestone, was the Dana gateway moment. I’ll get to Spring Valley Ranch and to Backus Cabernets, eventually. Insignia — a vintage bottling — will be my Moby Dick (the novel, not the whale, mind you). But until then, Freestone should suffice.*
The best way to imagine what the Freestone vineyards represent for Phelps, to my uninformed mind at least, is an on-​going, 15-​year old experiment in making Burgundian-​style California coastal wines using newly-​planted (1999) sites whose day-​to-​day operations are entrusted to a younger, rising generation of winemakers.
But it’s not like you suddenly become experts in one style of wine because you’re great at others. John Williams at Frogs Leap knows how to grow magical wines in and around Rutherford, for example, but he’s not bottling dry Riesling or Pinot Noir, either, not unless he wants to move his organic farm and geothermal powered production facilities to the Dundee Hills of Oregon. By working with a team of winemakers overseen by an experienced winemaking director, and presumably by investing a lot upfront in vineyard management, grape selection, and barrel purchasing, the learning curve is less steep, but 15 years is still not a long time for a vineyard to reach its fullest expression. This is not an expert opinion, however. Money and effort can do wonders in the short-​term when it comes to crafting fine wine. It’s still just juice and yeast and dried oak, after all.
I think that the most appealing wines of the 5-​flight Sonoma coast series (2 Chardonnay, 3 Pinot, for $ 20) were the Freestone Vineyards offerings at $ 55 bottle that blended grapes from the Pastorale and Quarter Moon vineyards ($ 44 with 20% club discount). They were fairly young wines (2012 vintage) so I guess you’d have to imagine them after a few years of cellaring, but they were intriguing enough to make me consider repeat visits to get a better sense of what the Goldridge soils in the area are capable of yielding.
I’d still be more inclined towards Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir from David Bruce or Thomas Fogarty or Chardonnay from Ridge (Monte Bello) or Mount Eden than the current Freestone offerings, but maybe that’s just local Woodside bias showing. I also would recommend that visitors who enjoy their visit to Freestone make the trip to Navarro Vineyards in the Anderson Valley, too, to compare their Chardonnay and Pinot to what Phelps is offering from Sonoma. Navarro’s tastings are free and their Burgundian wines are in the $ 20 – 30 range, even for the reserve and unfiltered bottlings. It’s great that Phelps is still family-​owned and operated in its 2^nd generation, but clearly it’s Napa first and Freestone second, and a lot of the money and energy is still concentrated in the former — where a new visitor’s center is under capital-​intensive construction.
No worries, though. Wines that are good and vineyards that are well cared for are worth waiting for. California remains an embarrassment of wine-​drinking riches and that’s due in no small part to the global success of Joseph Phelps. I’ll certainly raise a glass to that!
(*) We did actually leave with a bottle of Phelps 2013 estate Sauvignon Blanc after our tasting, which our pourer generously let me sample, along with a sip of the outstanding Eisrébe late harvest desert wine. Not because it was cheaper — but because it was a superb oak-​aged version of this versatile grape and very expressive of the St Helena area where the wine was vinted.

Great winery! A scenic drive helps the fact that it’s a little far.
The tasting fees are outrageous $ 20 or $ 35, depending on which tasting you want. Joseph Phelps was a pioneer of winemaking, as our pourer explained all the great contributions he’s made. You’re really paying for the name. But we came on Wine Tourism Day, so it was included in our event ticket price.
I loved the Sauvignon Blanc (it was slightly oaked, which I haven’t really tasted in a SB before). Their Chardonnay was delicious — starts with a fruity taste and finished w a smooth and slight oaked taste. I also enjoyed their Pinots and Cab Sauv.
The pourer, who was very knowledgable and friendly, gave us an additional taste of their Insignia, a red blend. This is their big deal wine. Each one has earned amazing points in the 90^th percentile to 100. Not gonna lie, it wasn’t my favorite, which I’m guessing either means it hadn’t aged to it’s potential or my hubby and I suck. Either way, get out here and decide for yourself if you have the money!

Stopped in on the recommendation of a friend in the industry and they did not disappoint. We really loved the Chard and Grenache Rose. Pinot was nice. Cab was too young to form a solid opinion but based on Phelps other wines I’m sure it would age nicely.
Second Sunday’s feature nice pairings with tastings… if you find yourself in the area you might check that out…
Not exactly romantic or picnicky due to the close proximity to the highway, but worth the trip. I appreciated the sit down tasting service experience and the staff was super friendly.
Don’t forget to stop at Wild Flour Bread next door (and the cute little boutique) and then make your way to (or back from) the coast. It makes for a very nice day.

Tips: Join wine club so you can get the Preferred Member Tasting.
When we first got to Joseph Phelps, the place screams Corporate. When I walk into the reception area, I saw a room that could sit 20 people. Wall to wall people. I freaked out, almost peed my pants. Did I just join wine club to taste wine with 20 other people?
A guy came over and notified me that Claude will be with us in a couple of minutes.
Phew… Everything was pure awesomeness after Claude showed up and took us to the private room for the tasting.
The Insignia 2010, even though still a baby, was surprisingly approachable! We did get a side by side tasting of the Insignia 2005 along with the 2010. It was about an hour 15 minutes of sit down tasting/​chatting with Claude about wine. At the end of the tasting he offered to pour us more Insignia to enjoy the beautiful weather outside at the terrace exclusively for preferred members. Pure paradise!
I am looking forward to check out the cheese pairing next time!

Joseph Phelps Vineyards has turned this dedicated red-​lover to a white fan
After stocking up on breads & cheeses, we went around the corner to Joseph Phelps to share a tasting of their suite of whites & reds… there was already a bachelorette party well into their tasting on the lovely sunny patio & 2 other couples came in right after we did — I’m thinking we’re onto something good here
I really liked how the nice person guiding us through our tasting talked about how the 1^st white was what they consider their «rebel» wines & it was what they consider restaurant quality. The 2^nd tasting brought out the signature brand — or the more «collectible» variety of their whites. Same experience w/​the red
Totally clicked w/​a lovely Chardonnay of their Signature Brand & it was cold & crisp & dry enough for the Mr yet sweet enough for me. Never knew a white could be so delish & had this not been our 1^st winery & we still had lots more to explore, we could have totally enjoyed a bottle right then & there
As we were leaving, we were provided w/​some GREAT recommendations of additional wineries to check out so that we could truly enjoy the Sebastapol region & explore new-​to-​us wines
We’ll be back for sure!

Freestone Vineyards is just up the street & around the corner from Wild Flour Bread Bakery so get bread first, then go to this winery.
We went Sun 2÷12÷12 and they gave out FREE chocolates from Sonoma Chocolatiers & gave out roses to the ladies. So very Nice!
B. got a tasting of wine for $ 10. If you spend over $ 100, tasting fee is waived.
He bought a bottle of wine Fogdog Chardonnay & charged it.
They have separate bathrooms across from the tasting room.

Even if Freestone Vineyards didn’t have a darling, classy-​meets-​country tasting room, quality wines from the Joseph Phelps dynasty, and friendly, well-​trained tasting room staff… they’d probably still get plenty of business from their fortunate proximity to the glorious Wild Flour Bakery. But, that’s for another review…
Pondering Freestone’s tasting room, we weren’t completely sold on the idea of spending $ 10 on a few sips of wine, but we decided to at least scope it out. It was surprisingly quiet on a Saturday afternoon, and the tasting room staff seemed excited to have a group of 6 appear. They offered us a private tasting room where we could all sit comfortably, and even offered us plates and knives to dig into our Wild Flour spoils while we tasted. Um yeah… we like this place already.
We took our seats in the cozy, cottage-​like room. An older gentleman tasted us through 5 wines — 3 chardonnays, 2 pinots — which were all very refined and complex. We had 3 French guys with us, and this was a good spot to remind them that California wines are no joke (let’s not forget the Château Montelena story, boys). Freestone did us proud.
With Freestone Vineyards and Wild Flour as next door neighbors, you’ve got the perfect one-​stop-​shop for a sampling of Sonoma County’s bounty. Make the most of it: get some Fougasse, and trot over to Freestone for the perfect pairing.

WEEKEND GETAWAY IN SONOMA: November 20, 2010
Freestone Vineyards in Sonoma lacks the posh and polish of Napa Valley. What it offers is plenty of cozy country charm.
Located among the idyllic countryside among grazing cattle and right next to rustic bakeshop is the small Freestone Vineyard. Freestone is a small and simple unadorned building. It does not try to pretend to be anything fancy.
I was not expecting much since I have been initiated in the glory of grandeur of Napa and Yountville’s faux chalets as my only wine tasting experiences.
While Freestone lacked the funfare of Napa Valley, what my fiancé and I got instead was personalized, genuine and friendly service during my wine tasting. My fiancé who does not drink wine was offered a glass of water and was felt welcomed during the tasting.
Freestone’s Visitor Center felt more like being at a living room decorated by LL Bean – simple, rustic yet cozy. We sat at the long communal wood table along with the other guests. A small wood-​burning fireplace was at the other side of this small winery.
Tasting was also much cheaper than Napa. For $ 10 I got 5 tastings with plenty of info about their PInot Noir and Chardonnay.
They take pride in producing excellent Pinot Noir because of Sonoma’s conducive climate for this variety.
I liked the 2007 Ovation Chardonnay for its spiciness and fell in love with smooth complexity of 2007 Freestone Pinot Noir. I decided to buy a half-​bottle of the their Pinot. First I needed a bathroom break…
I got up to use the bathroom and when I returned my fiancé handed me a box containing 2 full bottles of the above! He paid for my tasting and surprised me with the wines that I showed interest in. What a sweetheart! The wines were priced at $ 46 and $ 55 each. Very reasonable!
Before we left the staff insisted we visit Wild Flour Bread next door for their amazing pastries. And we sure did –even in the rain!
So grab wine from Freestone Winery, load up on freshly baked bread at Wild Flour, have a nice picnic!