Santa Cruz Passport Weekend (1/17/2009)

This was my first experience with "Santa Cruz Passport Weekend" (http://www.scmwa.com/passport/index.htm) and it was a great time. Once purchased, the passport allows you to taste free of charge at many local Santa Cruz Wineries. Many of the smaller wineries are only opened on the Passport Weekend. For this tasting we rented a large van and a group of 8 of us tried 5 different wineries in the Santa Cruz area. I'm writing these reviews a couple months after I have been to each of these so my memory may be a little rusty

Our first winery we tried was Soquel Vineyards (http://www.soquelvineyards.com/) They were located half way up a mountain and had great sweeping views of Monterey Bay. This winery is open during weekends and well worth a visit. For Passport weekend they had tables set up outside to try some of their wines before finishing off the tasting inside the tasting room.

The second winery was Nicholson Vineyard(http://www.nicholsonvineyards.com/). This winery was a favorite of our bus driver but we were not sold on the winery. Everybody was very nice but this winery is just like any other winey and with so many options I just don't see making another trip to this winery in the near future.

Hunter Hill (http://www.hunterhillwines.com/) tasting room is very nicely done. They have an out door kitchen and really seem to enjoy cooking. They had different dips and stews to try allong with the wine whcih is helpfull when you are trying 5 wineries in a day. The grounds were very nice and had outdoor area that you could enjoy your wine at why you tasted. I would definately recomment this winery for another trip.

Martin Alfaro (http://www.martinalfaro.com/) is another winery that is definatly worth another trip. During passport weekend they had a ton of great food and some of the best Meringue I've had in a while. They had a large amount of wines to taste and a ton of people in their tasting area. Everybody was very nice but with so much of their staff pouring wines it made it near impossible to actually to purchase wine.

Pleasent Valley Vineyard (http://www.pvvines.com/) was our last winery for the trip but was well worth the stop. This very small winery is located on aprox 5 acres which surround the winery owners house. Almost everybody pouring was related someway to the owner. The winery only appears to be open on Passport weekends and other special weekends throughout the year so be sure to plan ahead to make sure they are open. We were extremely impressed with their wines but that could of been that we had been tasting all day so our taste buds were shot :)