AN EXCLUSIVE SONOMA Wine Country Experience...

To enhance your wine tasting experience, Paradise Ridge Winery is pleased to introduce our new Wine & Artisan Cheese Tasting.

Using the bounty of local ingredients from Sonoma County, we now offer a sampling of local cheeses carefully paired with seasonal toppings. This unique tasting highlights the exceptional characteristics of the Paradise Ridge wines.

As with our wines, each cheese pairing is about balance. With a wine in mind we select a cheese from a local creamery, and then add a tempting garnish to showcase unique wine characters; including fruit, tannin, texture, barrel flavors and other special nuances. This specially crafted experience will change with the seasons.

We offer Wine & Cheese pairing by appointment from 11 to 3 each day with 24 hour advance reservation. The price is $20 per person and $10 for Paradise Found Wine Club Members.

To book your Wine & Artisan Cheese Pairing, contact Ruthanne at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 707-528-9463.  

Current Wine & Cheese Pairing Menu

2009 Sauvignon Blanc, Stetson Greene Vineyard, Dry Creek Valley
Paired with Vella Cheese Company Manchego with mango jam topped with a Cilantro Lime Almond

Our delicious Sauvignon Blanc has a bright keen acidity, with great notes of tart grapefruit, citrus flavors and fun herbatious undertones. We really wanted to showcase the complexity in this clean crisp Sauvignon Blanc. For a harmonious pairing a full flavored cheese is perfect to balance the acidity. We selected Manchego with its structure & nutty profile with a fun mango jam topped with a cilantro lime almond. This combination brings out the grassy notes as well as highlights the tart fruit on the palate.

2009 Chardonnay, Nagasawa Vineyard, Russian River Valley
Paired with Vella Cheese Company Toma Italian Served with Chardonnay Onion topped with a Rosemary Cashew

Our Chardonnay has a lovely creaminess from Malolactic fermentation. The Toma also is rich & creamy. Combining these components plays on the high notes in both the wine & the cheese. This Chardonnay is also very fruit driven with exotic notes of banana, pineapple, citrus with great herbatious undertones on the pallet & finish. We really wanted to showcase all these complex components with this pairing. The Chardonnay onion with the rosemary cashew really brings out the oak profile while encouraging the tropical fruit to pop on the palate, leaving us with the delicious lingering flavors of all the components.

2008 Estate Zinfandel, Hoenselaars Vineyard, Russian River Valley
Paired with Valley Ford Old Style Fontina Cheese Served with fig preserve topped with a spicy pecan nut

This wonderful Fontina was aged for 10 months and has the right balance of salty and creamy, hard and soft to perfectly pair with our fruity Zinfandel. The age on the cheese adds a salty flavor which softens the fruit to bring out the tannins, barrel flavors & other nuances in the wine, which has tart fruit flavors of blackberry, cranberry, pomegranate and fun smoky and spicy notes. The addition of the fig & spicy pecan re-emphasizes the depth of fruit and oaky notes in the wine.

2007 Elevation Cabernet Sauvignon, Rockpile Vineyard, Rockpile
Paired with Valley Ford Estero Gold Cheese Served with Cabernet Sauvignon onion topped with dry Italian Salami

Hard cheeses are a perfect pairing for big wines. The robust flavors of the cheese are deliciously nutty, intense & balance the strong tannins in the wine. As with our wines this pairing is all about balance the sugars of the Cabernet Sauvignon onion plays on the fruit of this wine while the Italian salami with its fats really cuts through the tannin structure to soften out and showcase the fruit & the oak profile.