A Return to Moon Mountain
An email from a guy named Augustus reminded me of early morning drives in a mysterious kind of place in Sonoma Valley
I’ll open any email sent to me from Augustus Weed, if only because of the likelihood that someone with this name is announcing either some sort of gunfight or shootout at a corral or that a posse has successfully apprehended a notorious cattle rustler named Wilbur McGee.
To my disappointment, this was not the case. However, Augustus was writing to alert me to the upcoming Moon Mountain District Winegrowers Association’s Reach for the Moon! master class and grand tasting on Saturday, June 1, 2024. The mention of the Moon Mountain area got me reminiscing.
Were I still living in Sonoma or Napa as I did for over 20 years I’d be going to this “masterclass”. The Moon Mountain region has a certain air of mystery that was always confirmed when I would venture up into its confines in the Mayacamas mountains that form the eastern edge of Sonoma Valley.
The Moon Mountain AVA is among the newer American Viticultural Areas, having been designated by the Feds as such in only 2013. The AVA benefits from being more than a marketing vehicle and actually defines a fairly unique region for grape-growing. (if you ever see a map of an AVA and it has straight lines defining its borders, you know you are looking at a politically-derived region that has less to do with unique terroir and more to do with marketing).
The Moon Mountain District consists of 17,633 acres in total with only 1,500 acres planted to vines. This is due largely to its steep and rugged nature, a nature I used to regularly explore with my BMW Z3 convertible.
From 1997 to 2010 I lived in Sonoma Valley in both the little hamlet of Glen Ellen and the town of Sonoma. For a while during that period I owned a little, black BMW Z3 convertible. Driving this car fast and around tight corners was among my favorite things I’ve ever done. My favorite way to test the car was to take it out at dawn, put the top down, turn up music, and race around the roads that snake through the Mayacamas mountains overlooking Sonoma Valley.