Tin Barn Vineyards

Our pourer Amy was great-​affable, knowledgeable and just an interesting person. I’ve been here once and this was sis’s first visit and we loved it. The wine is thoughtful and has that coastal flavor. The atmosphere is unpretentious and wine-​focused. It’s located in an industrial park so if you want great view and aren’t a wine person, go to Gloria Ferrer. If you’re a wine person, I think you’ll love this place-it’s small and personal. They’ve got an award winning cab and some very interesting zins. A good time was had by all!

Absolute hidden gem in Sonoma. It’s in a slightly odd part (you’ll start driving into a very industrial area and think to yourself… Google Maps may have lost its mind) but it’s a cute tasting room with awesome folks in it who are very passionate about wine making.
I love that almost all of their wines are single vineyard wines. I thought it made the flavors of each varietal really interesting and good. I loved their Savignon Blanc and their Zins. Everything was excellent honestly.
Highly recommend you pay them a visit!

Love the fact that all wines are vineyard specific and interesting info on their micro-​climates. The lack of pretense is as refreshing as their wines. Michael gave us far more info /​knowledge than any of the other wineries my wife and I have visited over the last few years (20 or so). If you want a wide selection of experiences we highly recommend including the Tin Barn.

I like the neat texture of their wines and find a few wines which I quite enjoy. Among the 8 wines I taste, I choose the Zinfandel’s from 2011

Nice little tasty room. Worth the search through the industrial park. Steve was great and referred us to several other small cool wineries in Sonoma square.

We stopped in because it was close to Larson, where we had an appointment. It was tucked away in an industrial park, but they post plenty of signs so it was nice and easy to find. It really is in a big tin building. They have windows looking into the processing area and a small tasting bar. We showed up with no reservation. There was a large group there but we were able to get seats at the bar. I give it props for the very cool looking location, but I wasn’t a fan of the wines. I know a lot of other people liked them, but I didn’t. The best of the group was the Rose though. I’d recommend it for the unique setting.

Wonderful, Tasty, Refreshing «Joon: Rose of Syrah!»
SITREP
I got to hang out with special friends Ethan Z. & Gee at Tin Barn Vineyards recently in Sonoma Valley, and we really enjoyed some of the new varietals that Tin Barn was featuring here.
THE SETUP
After doing some wine tasting and enjoying all of the varietals here (Zinfadel, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc) I was immediately drawn to «JOON — Rose of Syrah», which is a very different sort of Rose since it is made from the Syrah grape:
Many roses are made from Cabernets & Zinfandels. But the Joon has a more refreshing, fruity & exotic splash of flavors on my palate. Joon is priced at $ 23 per bottle, but I was able to obtain at my wine club discount of $ 18.
HISTORY
In one of the legends of Syrah’s origins, the name comes from one of its homonyms — Shiraz, because Shiraz was a very old city in Iran and produced the well-​known Shirazi wine, and so legends claim the Syrah grape originated in Shiraz and then was brought to Rhôné.
The person in another legend who brought the variety to Rhôné is named as the crusader Gaspard de Stérimberg, who is supposed to have built the chapel at Hermitage.
Another legend of the grape variety’s origin, based on the name Syrah, is that it was brought from Syracuse by the legions of Roman Emperor Probus sometime after AD 280.
Suffice it to say, there is a lot of mystique related to this delicious grape, with lots of cultures & cities wanting to take credit for it.
JOON
June or «Joon», is the brightest month of the year in the western hemisphere, and is named for the Roman goddess Juno, and also means «dear», a term of affection in the Persian language. This is the affection and sentimentality associated with this lovely varietal.
THE LOWDOWN
A very lovely takeaway from Tin Barns: the 2013 JOON Rose of Syrah, from the Sonoma Coast’s Coryelle Fields off of Tin Barn Road. A delicious & fragrant rose indeed!

Wonderful little gem tucked away into a more industrial and non-​descript warehouse area. They do a lot of bottling for other vintages but offer some really wonderful wines themselves.
Was here for a Unilocal event and Amy was so knowledgeable and descriptive in telling us the stories behind each wine we sampled. We even got to try some wine that hadn’t been bottled yet. Super friendly and great fun.
They had a really wonderful rose and another tasty, complex zinfandel that we greatly enjoyed.

Every once in a while you find a hidden gem in the most unexpected place. Thanks to Jonathan and Sarah at CellarPass, I am now finding more and more wine country treasures here in the North Bay. Tin Barn Vineyards is one of those Sonoma County secrets that is hiding right under your nose. Who knew there was an amazing winery tucked away in this warehouse district of Sonoma?! It may surprise you to learn that Tin Barn Vineyards is one of ten wineries in the small Eighth Street Winery community.
I recently worked with Kevin B. to host one of our Unilocal Flight Club events at Tin Barn Vineyards. As always, it was a great event with wonderful company. Thank you so much to Amy, Steve, and the rest of the TBV family for hosting us. I came away with a greater understanding of what it takes to produce small batches of wine through a single vineyard. It always amazes me to learn more about the wine making process, especially when it’s with a company that is so passionate about their craft.
I brought a bottle of the famous 2012 Sonoma Zinfandel to a dinner party last week and it was a huge hit. If you have the chance to explore this community and make an appointment for a wine tasting I highly recommend it. Last weekend the crew hosted their Eighth Street Wineries open house, which sounded amazing. I plan to keep up-​to-​date on their events and visit again sometime soon!

This place is great. A hidden gem in an industrial lot. The staff was friendly and engaging and the wine was tasty.

Out of all of the places I visited in Napa and Sonoma, Tin Barn was easily the most enjoyable. Everyone was so friendly and went above and beyond to make sure we had a good time. Amy was our wine leader and walked us through all of the different varietals. She opened up some barrels of the 2013 just so we can taste the contrast in taste. And she gave us some paella while we drank! Very generous pours and I walked away more knowledgeable about the wine I had just tried. Tin Barn is a hidden gem inside of an unassuming industrial park area.

Zinfandel was phenomenal! Very smooth, natural and gorgeous flavor.

We visited here on Easter Sunday this year. Thank goodness they were open, because so many wineries in the Sonoma & Napa area were closed that day! And thank goodness for Unilocal helping us find it. I was starting to worry that planning a wine tasting trip on Easter was a bad idea, then we found this gem (seriously a little confusing to find, but so worth wandering around the industrial park where it’s hidden). Because it was a quiet Sunday, we had the great fortune to have our tasting with the Tin Barn winemaker himself, Michael Lancaster. He was so warm and welcoming, and gave us great information on local grape varietals and the different wines they offer. And then, the wine… so good! Our favorites were their Syrah (bought 1 bottle) and Cabarnet Sauvignon (got 2 of these!). My in-​laws liked the Merlot, Cabarnet Sauvignon, and Zinfandel (they picked up a bottle of each). When we were done with our tasting and purchases, he even pointed us to some tasting rooms that would be open, so we could continue with our adventure. Great wine made by great people… can’t get better than that!

Our group of 13 had a great time, thanks to Amy, but she was under pressure from other big groups that had not reserved. So if you plan to go, please reserve a tasting time, especially if you are a large group! I say this as I sip some delicious wine, here at home as I write this review. I’m so glad we stayed, listened and tasted. There are definitely some gems here.

We accidentally stumbled across this gem. The wines are phenomenal and the little tasting room is cozy with great staff. My sister likes it so much that she joined the wine club and we attended one of their events which was fabulous… great food, some wine education and… well, the wine. PLEASE! I love living in Napa when I get to go to locations such as this! I can’t believe the price-point…I feel rich and decadent when I open their wine!

It’s in a warehouse, but they have tasty wines. Like another Unilocaler said, industrial chic! We had a $ 10 tasting of 5… wines? The staff was not happy that we were several tastings in, and a little too sloppy to listen. Oops. It was good for a big group though (we rolled 27 deep).

Tin Barn is so so great. I stumbled upon this winery a few years ago while researching tasting rooms for a bachelorette party I was hosting. It’s such a fun, unpretentious atmosphere… and I always learn something about wine and wine-​making while I’m there. Also, the wines are delicious!
It’s a warehouse winery, so don’t expect the view that other places have. But it should be a definite stop on any southern Sonoma tour nonetheless. And join the wine club… they send great selections at really reasonable prices.

I organized an offsite to Wine Country for my team at work and Tin Barn was one of the vineyards we visited as part of this excursion. They were nice enough to accommodate a big group (there were like 30 of us) which can be kind of rare for tasting rooms.
When we arrived they had a nice table set up for us already w/​the right number of glasses and all the bottles ready to taste; the organization and forethought was definitely appreciated. I don’t know too much about wine, but it seemed ok for its price (the bottles were like $ 20 – 50). They specialize in red wines and had a generous tasting menu — I believe it was 1 white + 6 reds for $ 5.
The place is located in like an office facility /​storage unit looking type building, so if you’re looking for like rolling hills with neat rows of grape bushes, you have come to the wrong place. (Shouldn’t be a dealbreaker necessarily in my opinion — just go to one of those before/​or after; most look the same after you’ve been to 1 or a few anyway — but I feel it’s worth noting.) They also do a little tour of their facility where they show you some of the machines that are used to make the wine.
I would not put this as high up as the MUST VISIT category for wine country but would certainly recommend a visit if it fits into your schedule etc.

The wines were impeccable.
The concept (in a warehouse) was awesome.
Amy — LOVE LOVE LOVE her — cool, engaging, knowledgeable and rockin’. You so have to go!

Yes.
Every single wine is singular, solid, and delicious. As a tasting experience it’s also surprisingly nice. Don’t be put off by the location. Nobody’s ever come here by accident. It’s actually very nice inside, a perfect setting, but it’s in a metal sided warehouse at the back end of an industrial park next to a small rural airport. Not exactly what you’d expect. Whatever you do, don’t get scared and turn around. You really feel like it’s not going to work out, but just go and try their wines.
So, no vineyard (they buy all their grapes from here and there), no château, no cave tours. The winemaker makes half the wine for their own label, another half for smaller winemakers as what they call «custom crush» (he makes their wine for them). He also moonlights as a consulting winemaker for other wineries. So this is his passion.
Some of the wines are a little odd, but amazingly good. The pinot this past year was heavily oaked in new charred French barrels, so it tasted like the wine equivalent of a barbecue grill. But in a good way, it was brilliant actually, like a new flavor. The Syrah was strong, and the peppery Napa zinfandel, top rate. Wines are in the $ 25 – 40 range, and tasting is $ 6, unless you talk them out of it… they pour as much as you could ever want, and don’t mind pouring seconds and thirds.
I guess, if you’re traveling form out of town you’re imagining a giant French castle or ultramodern piece of lego architecture… I think, if you want the full experience you have to try a high end little winery like this one, or one of the several even smaller (seldom open) wineries in the same complex. That’s where the real wine is at.