Victor Hill and the love of old school wine

What do you get when you mix…

the incredible wine growing of Sonoma County with a guy named Hill who grew up in Germany and around the great wine regions of France, and another guy named Vic who’s been making wine in Sonoma for almost 40 years? Well, you get a boutique Sonoma winery named Victor Hill that specializes in producing a blend of authentic, old world wines, along with elegant Sonoma wines, that are refined, balanced, and delicious, exemplifying true Sonoma winemaking tradition.

Victor Hill is a small production winery by design, only producing about 1000 cases per year. They feel it’s better to focus on quality, making only the right wine from the best grapes grown in select regions.

Their red wines tend to follow what Sonoma does best, offering deep and structured Cabernet Sauvignon and a selection of delicate and interesting Pinot Noir. But the whites they produce aren’t necessarily your standard Sonoma wines and show off winemaker Vic McWilliams’ love for more traditional Rhone Valley grapes.

Sure, a quality Sonoma County Chardonnay is on the menu, but so are the much more interesting – and award winning – Grenache Blanc, Viognier, and the quite fabulous Belle de Blanc – a white Rhone blend of Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, & Viognier. Even their Sauvignon Blanc is produced in an old-world fashion, allowing it to develop and age, presenting as a bit bigger and unique compared to offering from other local wineries.

Due to the limited quantity of wines produced and the speed at which they are sold, being a member of their Royalty Club is the best way to secure a selection. But, Victor Hill does operate a small tasting room right on the Sonoma Plaza that is focused solely on the experience of tasting their wine and sharing in the experience. That seems a bit counter-cultural these days, with more and more big wineries coming to town, producing massive amounts of wine and shifting tasting room focus to more wine-bar service and happy hour parties. Then again, this is what you get when you focus more on tradition and simply making delicious wine.

Victor Hill might seem a bit obscure to the novice Sonoma wine-hunter, and their wines a tad less well-known, but they represent all that is truly great about Sonoma wines and wine makers; the feeling that the only thing that matters is making good wine from grapes grown in one of the best wine growing regions on Earth.

Check them out at www.victorhillwines.com.

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