Within a few walkable blocks, Carmel-by-the-Sea holds one of California’s densest concentrations of tasting rooms — a self-guided late-summer afternoon among the small growers and winemakers of Monterey County, framed as the art of unhurried discovery.
Twelve miles inland at the northeastern edge of the Carmel Valley appellation, Holman Ranch farms 100% estate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, pours in a 1928 hacienda, and keeps a historic tasting room in the Village. A high-summer visit to a boutique, family-scaled estate and the terroir behind the bottle.
A late-summer portrait of Folktale Winery & Vineyards in Carmel Valley, where an old-world chateau, a coastal winemaker, and the rituals of harvest turn a single piece of land into a story worth following.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s 2018 Winemaker of the Year works not in Napa but from a Salinas warehouse, championing the Central Coast’s forgotten old-vine sites — and pouring the evidence in Carmel Valley Village.
In the weeks before harvest, the Santa Lucia Highlands reach their most beautiful moment — fog off Monterey Bay, wind through the benchlands, fruit hanging heavy. A drive up River Road, written as a standing invitation.
Another Party Heard From Mari’Antonia Dudley Mme Mari’Antonia Dudley, better known locally as “Nubbi” Dudley, was one of the first to recognize the need in the early years of the