Stop and use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides of the mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper, and mix again for 10 seconds. Taste the mixture, correct the seasoning, transfer to a small serving bowl, and refrigerate, covered, for 2 hours. Remove from the refrigerator, garnish with the reserved herbs, and serve, with the toasted baguettes alongside. Click here for a printable version of this recipe. Today, grapes dominate in Carneros, but its agricultural history includes pears, apples, truck farms, and, of course, the sheep for which the region is named.
Some sheep still graze here, but there are probably more goats.
Laurel Chenel tends her growing herd and makes her cheese at the old Stornetta Dairy in the heart of the region. Carneros is the truest gateway to the wine country, the first appellation visitors from the south enter, a diminutive flower of a region that opens toward Napa Valley to the northeast and Sonoma Valley to the northwest. Standing near a century-old bridge over Huichica Creek, you can see the two valleys as they unfold northward, the Mayacamas rising between them. The view from this vantage point is singularly moving, and reveals the spectacular grandeur of this land in ways that motorists, zooming by not far from this isolated enclave, never even suspect. If ever there was an argument for getting off the beaten track, for turning onto that back road we pass daily, this is it.