Location
Bennett Valley is located in the heart of Sonoma County just southeast of Santa Rosa in a minor mountain range sometimes called The Sonoma Mountain Range and sometimes called Los Gulicos Range. Its location directly west of the Santa Rosa Plain or Petaluma Gap gives Bennett Valley a unique, cool, climate heavily influenced by the Pacific.
Because there is no easy way through Bennett Valley, it has become almost lost in time the last 50 years. Highway 101 took the easier way up the Santa Rosa Plain to the west and highway 12 took the easier way up Valley of the Moon to the east. That left Bennett Valley relatively untouched by the commercial development in the last 50 years.
Topography
Bennett Valley's climate, soils and history, make it totally unique in California - and probably the entire new world. Bennett Valley is one of of the newest and smallest AVA's in the US.
The cool, marine climate, combined withe volcanic soils, give the wines produced from Bennett Valley a unique personality not found anywhere else.
Climate
Bennett Valley's location gives it a climate that is unique in Sonoma County - and probably the entire west coast. Situated directly west of the Santa Rosa plain, Bennett Valley sits in the path of the mass of cool marine air moving from the Pacific inland to replace rising warm air.
The Crane Canyon Gap, a low saddle between Mt Taylor and Sonoma Mountain, allows that cool, marine air to enter Bennett Valley, keeping Bennett Valley cool on warm summer days and moderating the maximum temperature. Most days the fogs starts about 4:30 to 5pm and stays until 10:30 or 11 the following morning. As cool as most of the cooler areas of Green Valley (Russian River), harvests in Bennett Valley are mostly in October for all varieties - Red and White.
Bennett Valley's unique location gives it a very cool, heavily marine influenced climate sitting directly west of the largest opening in the coastal range between the Golden Gate to the south and hundreds of miles to the north. Cool marine air, trying to get inland to fill the void created by rising warm air in the central valleys, comes straight across the Santa Rosa or plain (or Petaluma Gap) until it runs into the hills that form the southwestern boundary of Bennett Valley.
A small saddle in that ridge of hills, called the Crane Canyon Gap, sucks the cool air into Bennett Valley creating a steady sea breeze every afternoon in the summer and a dense blanket of fog most nights.