I Indulged in Rare, 135-Year-Old Wine at This Sonoma Resort

In Hotels With Great Taste, we’re pulling back the curtain for a peek at the “special sauce” that hotels use to create memorable, meaningful culinary experiences for their guests.

Look closely at the lodgings that make up Dawn Ranch and you’ll notice they’re actually a patchwork of historic structures in different shapes and sizes. Each building at the luxe 15-acre Russian River resort, which is nestled amongst the towering redwoods in the petite town of Guerneville, California, is linked to a different era of the property’s past.

Built in 1905, it was originally Murphy’s Ranch, a getaway for well-to-do families that operated for seven decades. Later it served for more than 20 years as the pioneering gay resort Fife’s. Today, it’s a refined wine country escape that exists at the crossroads of nature and high-end luxury. The hotel is situated in a floodway, which limits construction for safety purposes, so since 1993 the site’s various owners haven’t been able to build anew; renovating ad infinitum has proven to be just dandy though.

In fact, this limitation turns out to be central to Dawn Ranch’s retro, summer camp-adjacent charm, which feels like a happy throwback even with its modernized facilities and amenities. Spectacularly refurbished in 2023, the current upscale iteration features 81 California-cool rooms, a tremendous spa, a fine-dining restaurant that may very well become impossible to book once word gets out, and a thoughtful, dynamic wine program that highlights some of the world’s most unique bottles.

The property and rooms

When it comes to bunking, you have choices that span a hodgepodge of rustic-chic cabins, chalets, cottages, bungalows, and glamping tents. On the main campus, cabins are cozy and compact, while the cottages and chalets offer more space. Most include private outdoor decks, equally ideal for taking in a morning cuppa or an evening tipple. The bungalows are the roomiest accommodation, outfitted for families and large groups with two bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, and gas fireplaces. Across the street, the resort’s Grove campus offers more options, which range from snug single-room affairs to spacious two bedrooms.

They’re all scattered amongst the tree-filled property’s sycamores and redwoods, so traipsing to your room feels like a walk in the forest. Inside, the aesthetic is a study in NorCal quiet luxury, with plenty of smooth blonde wood, layered textiles, and eclectic furniture pieces, plus Parachute linens and Le Labo bath goodies.

More adventurous guests will appreciate the smartly furnished glamping tents, situated in Dawn Ranch’s 120-year-old apple tree orchard. The walls may be canvas, but the beds feature the same Bear hybrid mattresses as those in Dawn Ranch’s more conventional rooms. You will, however, have to share a bathhouse—albeit an extremely nice one—with your fellower glampers.

No matter where you sleep, make sure you lay eyes on the resort’s namesake, a 70-year-old pair of rare dawn redwoods located near the pool on the main campus.

The restaurants and dining experience

The Lodge at Dawn Ranch, which houses the hotel’s main dining, bar, and lounge areas, manages a laid-back vibe that nonetheless feels rarefied and celebratory, with plush mauve-colored banquettes and dim romantic lighting.

But food is the real draw: Co-executive chefs (and husband-and-wife team) Ignacio “Nacho” Zuzulich and Juliana Thorpe center a nine-course, $155 tasting menu informed both by their respective Argentinian and Brazilian backgrounds and their experience cooking in lauded kitchens from Mugaritz in Spain to Napa Valley’s Meadowood resort. A truncated version of the tasting menu is served at the bar for $90.

Seasonal Golden State ingredients take top billing. On a recent visit, corn was a standout, taking the form of a delicate tostada set atop a fire-roasted corn custard. Festooned with the marigold-like flowering herb huacatay, it conveyed an impossibly large, flawless lobe of Santa Barbara uni.

In the morning, don’t skip breakfast at the Lodge, which is best taken on the sprawling outside deck. Soft scrambled eggs with avocado and furikake on homemade brioche are straightforward but deeply effective, while the cinnamon rolls glossed in cream cheese frosting are the perfect excuse to eat dessert before noon.

The inside scoop

When drinking, whether in the dining room or bar, vino is the move. This is wine country, after all. The handwritten “Sommelier’s Notebook” dispenses with formality, breaking wines into playful categories like “The Wild Ones,” “Extrovert Whites,” and “Quiet Elegance.” You’ll have plenty of fun ordering by the bottle or glass; if you’re after just a taste, some offerings are available in one-ounce pours.

But for the deep-pocketed, the $400 Decades Wine Pairing is a voyage through time and space, guiding you through wines bottled across generations. The offerings frequently shift, but this past summer, the oldest pour was an intensely molasses-forward D'Oliveiras Verdelho Madeira, first put under cork in 1891.

With its decadent syrup-like texture and vibrant acidity, the Madeira made for a complex complement to the tasting menu’s show-stopping dessert course, which presented local peaches in three manners: a quenelle of peach sorbet; a crystal cupful of peach nectar; and a tart of roasted peach jam and white chocolate ganache, topped with intricately woven, paper-thin peach slivers and served alongside a peach sabayon.

Best of all, returning to my cottage after dinner required only a brief, tipsy walk through the redwoods, the stars lighting my way.

Dawn Ranch, Guerneville