Tasting the Big Six

Ever since I started flipping through Andrea (Immer) Robinson's book Great Wine Made Simple, I have been itching to try out her series of recommended tastings to train the palate and help you learn to identify certain aspects / flavors / styles of wine. Well, last weekend I finally got my chance, as Kris and I held a "Big Six" tasting event!

The Big Six
The idea behind the Big Six is twofold: First, by tasting the big six grapes (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon), you will have tasted the "guts" of roughly 80% of all wine produced throughout the world; Second, you get the opportunity to experience the full range of "bodies" - light, medium and full- in both red and white wines.

Robinson helpfully recommends specific wines in "budget", "moderate" and "splurge" monetary categories that she thinks will best illustrate varietal character and appropriate body for each grape. I found her list a very helpful starting point, and I stuck to it fairly closely. She recommends that all wines be selected from within the same price category, as you don't varying quality of wine interfering with the point of the tasting, namely varietal expression and body.

Kris and I decided in advance upon the "moderate" category - we wanted wines that tasted good, and were of high enough quality to accurately express varietal character and body, but we wanted them affordable enough so that participants could consider purchasing their favorites for casual dinners at home. This goes along with our general philosophy that wine is an "everyday beverage" - we like good wines that are affordable enough to enjoy each evening with dinner without feeling like we are blowing our budget.

Our Wine Selections
On to our selections. As I mentioned, the purpose of the Big Six is to distinguish differences in body across the major wine grapes of the world. For whites, Riesling typifies light-bodied, Sauvignon Blanc medium-bodied, and Chardonnay full-bodied; for reds, Pinot Noir typifies light-bodied, Merlot medium-bodied and Cabernet Sauvignon full-bodied. The following wines were purchased from Total Wine in McLean, VA:

Riesling: 2004 Domaine Trimbach (Alsace, France) - $16
Sauvignon Blanc: 2006 Stony Bay (Marlborough, NZ) - $12
Chardonnay: 2005 Franciscan Oakville Estate (Napa Valley, CA) - $13

Pinot Noir: 2006 Sockeye (Chile**) - $14
Merlot: 2003 Chateau St. Michelle (Columbia Valley, Washington) - $11.50
Cabernet Sauvignon: 2004 Simi Winery (Alexander Valley, CA) - $14

**Note: This is what happens when you don't do your research. I am a Pinot Noir neophyte, but have been interested in trying some Oregonian Pinots. Sockeye (like the salmon) sure sounds Northwest-ish, and this wine was filed under "Oregon". Turns out Sockeye sources grapes from different locales, and their 2003 was from Oregon, their 2004 was from Australia, and as I discovered upon returning home, their 2006 was from Chile! I thought this boded poorly for the tasting, since I have heard of a lot of great wines coming out of Chile and no one has ever mentioned Pinot...

The Wine Tasting Setup
To really be able to directly compare the different wines in the Big Six, Robinson recommends using 6 different glasses so that all wines could be poured at once. Thinking that this could end up pretty chaotic, I made a nifty little tasting mat to keep the wines in the right order.


Note to my viewers at home: this is actually a legal sized sheet of paper (8.5" x 14") - a standard 8.5" x 11" paper was just too small to allow for adequate spacing between the glasses!

So, everyone was provided with 6 glasses and a tasting sheet listing the wines we would be tasting and allowing space for them to take notes and rate them. Kris and I own a fair number of wine glasses, but at six-per-person, we had to make this a partial BYOGlasses event. In terms of the rating system, I wanted to keep this fairly straight-forward so used what many are now familiar with - the Netflix rating system: 5 stars Loved It, 4 stars Really Liked It, 3 stars Liked It, 2 stars Didn't Like It, 1 star Hated It.

The Tasting
So how'd it all work out? I must say, I was quite pleased with the results - not only did all of the wines rock in my mind (with the exception of the Chilean Pinot, which was just "OK"), but I was totally getting the whole "body" thing after about 30 minutes or so! The "tongue memory" of wine body is slightly fading, and I'd love to do this sort of tasting one more time to really solidify it, but I think the Big Six is an excellent tasting to start training your palate, and really fun to boot!

I think I will follow up this post with a second one detailing exactly why the Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay (and I didn't even think I *liked* Chardonnay!), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon rocked. But suffice it to say that I would rate them all as exhibiting Excellent Quality-to-Price Ratio (QPR).

So What's Next?
Having had so much fun with the Big Six, I am already looking forward to the next of Andrea Robinson's recommended tastings. This next tasting involves 8 bottles, and is designed to help illustrate exactly what is meant by the tasting terms "dry", "crisp", "oaky" and "tannic". You pit a Dry Riesling vs. a Sweet Riesling, a Crisp, High-Acid Sauvignon Blanc vs. a Low-Acid Sauvignon Blanc, a "No-Oak" Chardonnay vs. an Oaky Chardonnay, and a Low-tannin Pinot Noir vs. a High-tannin Cabernet Sauvignon. This grouping seems a little more intuitive to me, as I think you pick up these terms while tasting easier than you may with wine body. But I trust Andrea's advice, and figure it's just too much fun to skip a recommended tasting! I'll let ya know how it turns out...

Sonoma County Partie Deux

This post is continuing my post from April 15th about my Sonoma County wine tasting experiences while living in the Bay Area. This was 6 or 7 years ago, when I knew very little about wine and only recall the "stand out" events, but I wanted to write this mainly as a way of looking back and using my current perspective on wine to better understand the great opportunities I had while living driving distance from California wine country. Yeah, these "background" posts can get sorta long, and don't have any pictures or anything visually stimulating so you may want to just skim and look for the good stuff. I tend to get off onto tangetns quite a bit, so perhaps those will be more interesting. Anyway, today I want to touch on my recollections from tastings in the Russian River Valley, Green Valley and Alexander Valley regions of Sonoma wine country as I covered Carneros, Sonoma Valley and Dry Creek in my previous post.

Russian River Valley
In Northern Sonoma County, the Russian River Valley was first known for its Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, although also produces some excellent Zinfandels and increasingly, Syrahs. This seems a little strange to me, because from my limited grape knowledge it seems that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay always "pair" well in a similar climate, one that has cooler nights (often accomplished by the coastal fog settling in and cooling things down) and a slightly longer growing season, but Zinfandel and Syrah are happy baking in the sun a bit, so I wouldn't expect to find them within the same AVA. Since it has been so long since I was there, I'd guess that the Pinots and Chards came from vineyards in the hills while the Zins and Syrahs must be grown on the valley floor.

The only winery that I visited in the Russian River Valley that left enough of an impression on me that I still remember it today was Korbel. Up until visiting Korbel, I had never particularly cared for sparkling wine; it's not that I disliked it, but I'd just never found it to be that interesting. Slightly tart, not very flavorful wine with bubbles - big deal. I recognize now that this was likely due to two reasons: 1) The limited sparkling wine I had consumed to this point in my life was all quite cheap (as in, $3 a bottle cheap); and 2) I had typically only drank "one toast's worth" of the stuff before returning to whatever other beverage was at hand, and I had certainly never tasted two (or more) sparkling wines within months of one another, much less minutes. So it came as a bit of a shock to me to learn that there was actually a great deal of variety to sparkling wines, and that they could taste a) quite different from one another, and b) really good!

One of the things I most remember about tasting at Korbel is that they had several little tasting "carts" set up outside along a path leading throughout the grounds. I liked this approach, because it allowed for a little separation between the different groups of people tasting that day, and you didn't get that "cattle at the trough" sensation that so often occurs when too many people are crowded around a small indoor wine tasting bar. The other thing I recall is how we were instructed to taste - instead of sipping at it like still wine, we were encouraged to bottoms up and take it all as one big swig. Probably not the best advice, but it was fun at the time! I remember my favorite being the Korbel Natural. It's very easy to find and probably costs around $13, although I think I'd probably spend a couple extra dollars and pick up a Gloria Ferrer sparkling wine instead (almost as easy to find nowadays as the Korbel).

And now, an educational moment
I used to call U.S. sparkling wines (all sparkling wines, really) "champagne"; in fact, many U.S. winemakers (Korbel included) still market their product as "champagne", or even "Champagne", and at the very least mention "méthode champenoise" (i.e., made using the Champagne method), so it's not suprising that a large number of Americans refer to it in this way. However, "Champagne" has actually been a legally-protected name for the sparkling wines from the Champagne region of France for some time now. The French reaffirmed this legal protection in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 (the larger purpose of which was to officially end WWI). The catch here is the although signed by President Woodrow Wilson, the Treaty of Versailles was never ratified by the U.S. Senate (think Kyoto Protocol); instead, the U.S. ended up making a separate peace agreement with Germany. Thus the legal protections for all things "Champagne" do not apply to U.S. winemakers, many of whom happily exploit this loophole and name their wines after renown French wine-making regions (Champagne, Chablis and Burgundy being the most obvious examples).

And while we're on the subject, lots of countries make sparkling wines: the Spanish have their Cava, the Italians have Spumante, the Germans, Sekt. Just because a sparkling wine isn't truly "Champagne" does not make it inherently inferior - I recommend trying out some of these other sparklers and see for yourself!

Green Valley (technically a sub-region of the Russian River Valley)
My then girlfriend, now wife and I visited Iron Horse Vineyards back in 2000 or so. I believe this is the only winery we visited within the Green Valley AVA. While Iron Horse does produce quite a few still wines, it was their sparkling wines that brought us there for the tasting as our visit to Korbel had made us interested in exploring the world of sparkling wines a bit.

As luck would have it, we arrived on a day where they were pressing Chardonnay. Before our tasting, we were asked if we would like to try the juice straight off the press - but of course! They dipped our tasting glasses beneath the stream of juice flowing out of the press, and handed them to us. Yum! That is definitely the best grape juice either of us have ever had - so good in fact, that I still recall it quite clearly almost 7 years later! At this point, we joked that we were sure there wine was good, but we'd just take a couple gallons of the juice to go, please. Alas, that was not to be, but at least we had the tasting to look forward to.

I only recall Chardonnay and Pinot Noir based sparkling and still wines in the tasting, but there may have been others - I see their website mentions Sangiovese, as well as Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petite Verdot (the final four being sourced from the T-bar Vineyard in Alexander Valley). Our favorite wine by far was their "Wedding Cuvée", a Blanc de Noirs made from predominantly Pinot Noir. We splurged and bought a bottle, and ended up saving that bottle for almost 5 years - breaking it open to celebrate when I proposed to Kris on a beach in Ventura! Needless to say, it was the perfect wine for the occasion!


Alexander Valley
I recall tasting at several wineries within Alexander Valley such as Chateau Souverain and Murphy-Goode, but it was Clos du Bois that made the biggest impression on me - and it wasn't even because of the wine! Oddly enough, what ended up being a life-altering (albeit in a very small way) experience for me was the way in which they opened their wines: it was at Clos du Bois that I first discovered the world's perfect wine opener.

The perfect wine opener
I don't think I'm alone in that I started off my bottle-opening days using a "winged" corkscrew, often referred to simply as "wings". Why this device has so thoroughly infiltrated most stores, supermarkets and kitchen drawers I'm not sure: it typically has a rather large diameter corkscrew, which really destroys the corks as you try to remove them, and downright pulverizes older, more brittle corks; the corkscrew also never seems quite long enough to fully extract the cork, so you are left tugging at the device once the wings have "closed", trying to pry those last fractions of an inch of cork out of the bottle.

Not really thinking that there may exist an alternative, I went along twisting and yanking and cursing my way through the uncorking process for many years, always rather annoyed that such a small hunk of bark could so effectively bar my entry into the treasures waiting within the bottle. I have since come to think of using wings to open wine bottles as like trying to cook using cheap, dull knives - sure, they'll do the job they were designed to do (cut things), but they'll likely badly mangle the final product in the process (ever try cutting a soft, sweet heirloom tomato with a cheap knife? It isn't pretty).

Enter the the Pulltap Wine Opener. When I saw the Clos du Bois tasting room associate whip one of these out and effortlessly open a new bottle for the tasting room, I realized that wine openers had evolved far beyond the wings with which I was accustomed. There are several aspects which make the Pulltap the perfect wine opener: 1) The serrated foil cutter - easily remove the foil blocking your access to the cork; 2) a relatively thin, Teflon-coated corkscrew - goes in easily without destroying the cork, and since it's Teflon-coated doesn't get stuck on the way out, either; 3) the dual-stage arm - you crank the corkscrew down all the wine into the cork, and use the first stage to life the cork most of the way out and the second stage to finish the job - simple!; and 4) they're cheap! You can buy them at Trader Joe's or on the 'Net for $5 or $6 dollars - forget those expensive wine openers that allow you to re-cork the bottle (that's what Vacu Vin is for). So I strongly recommend picking up a couple of these babies - your bottle-opening will be much more pleasant from now on!

Sayonara, Napa and Sonoma...
After making trips up to Napa and Sonoma for a couple years, we were ready for something different - different wines, different attitudes, and definitely a difference in the number of people crowding into the tasting rooms. That's when we stumbled across the Santa Cruz Mountains Winegrowers Association's Passport Program. This great program opened up a new world of wine tasting in the Santa Cruz Mountains for us - I'll talk about this in another post!

Three Fox Vineyards

On Sunday Kris and I took a special trip out to Virginia wine country specifically to visit Three Fox Vineyards. As always when visiting wine country, we were accompanied by our wannabe-winery dogs, Owen and Iris. As border collies, you might think their goal in life would be to herd sheep, but ours seem much more content herding vines (and greeting everyone at the winery, and chasing bees, that sort of thing). It's always interesting for us to see how different wineries react to the dogs; we've seen the entire spectrum, from having to tie them up outside, to allowing them to wander in and out of the tasting room (and wine cellar, in the case of North Mountain Vineyard & Winery in the Shenandoah Valley - apparently Owen kept visiting their winemaker while we were up in the tasting room!).

This picture is pretty clearly NOT from the winery (it's actually from Assateague) - no, our camera batteries died, so I have no photographic documentation of our visit to Three Fox. Dezel at Virginia Vine Spot has posted some good pics of Three Fox which can make up for our technical malfunction. I just wanted to post a pic of Owen and Iris since they're so cute.

Anyway, Three Fox Winery passed the "dog test" with flying colors! Not only are they "dog-friendly", but owner Holli Todhunter absolutely loved the dogs, and invited them to come back (presumably with their owners!). She said she would like to get a "winery dog" or two, as the scent helps to keep deer and other critters out of the vineyards.

This laid-back approach is definitely the norm at Three Fox, where they have a croquet set, bocce ball and horseshoes set up for their guests' enjoyment, and tasting room staff wear shirts saying "Will Work for Wine". In fact, the "will work for wine" thing is part of the reason Kris and I wanted to visit Three Fox - they take in volunteers to help out in the tasting room and possibly other duties, and we're considering giving it a shot. True, it's about an hour and 15 minute drive from our house, but I think it would be a pretty fun weekend activity once or twice a month or so.

But first we wanted to taste their wines! They were pouring nine wines the day we visited (it would have been an even 10, but they ran out of "the favorite"). For whites, they had a 2005 Leggero Chardonnay, a 2006 Giacosa Chardonnay, a 2006 Calabrese Pinot Grigio, a 2006 La Boheme Viognier, and a 2006 Appassionata Vidal. My clear favorite of the whites was the Leggero Chardonnay. This no-oak Chard had a great pineapple & citrus nose which leapt from the glass, with both flavors continuing on to the tongue. There was a hint of creaminess to it, but overall it was very crisp and refreshing (the whole "no-oak" thing). This sells for $20/bottle.

For reds, they had a 2005 Il Volpe Sangiovese, a 2004 Il Cigno Merlot, a 2004 Classico Cabernet Franc, and their "port alternative, a 2006 Rosso Dolce Chambourcin (they would have also been tasting a 2005 Alouette Cabernet Franc, but they were sold out). I had another clear favorite on the reds, their Il Volpe Sangiovese. This 89% Sangiovese, 11% Cabernet Franc Super-Tuscan had a nose of fresh berries, cherries and red fruit. This easy-sipping wine had some spice to it, with a brightness and balance that was very enjoyable. This is a good "summer red" - light enough to enjoy when the temperature starts to peak but definitely a red wine at heart. This sells for $22/bottle.

I liked all of their reds actually, which is a unique experience for me at a Virginia winery - oftentimes Virginia reds seem too watered-down, lacking the punch of California or South American reds. It appears as though Three Fox has found a way to create a little bit of Tuscany in Virginia, with the effects carrying over from their Italy-themed tasting room and wine names to the vineyards and wines themselves. Although John Todhunter has only been running his own winery for a few years now, his more than 25 years of winemaking experience really shows through in the final product. I look forward to tasting their Nebbiolo and Sangiovese Reserve once they are released!

Overwhelmed at today's tasting

Wow - there were a lot of people at FineWine.com Gaithersburg's French Wine Tasting event today! I think even FineWine.com were pretty blown away by the turn-out As it turned out, there were 11 French winemakers present, pouring a total of 24 wines! I'm not sure how long this link will be remain live, but here's a list of *most* of the wines poured (two winemakers signed up too late to be included on the list).

As a transplanted Californian, I am a French wine neophyte, so I was looking forward to this opportunity to directly compare between wines from different regions of France. Represented were Burgundy, Loire Valley, Northern and Southern Rhône, Cahors & Madiran, Bordeaux, Alsace, and Langeudoc.

First off, I want to mention that Kris and I escaped with only a $265 dent into our bank account - I was very impressed with our restraint, given that we tasted some absolutely fabulous wines! Since I doubt anyone is interested in reading tasting notes from 24 wines in a row, I think I'll mention my general impressions of the event, and will post about the wines as we drink them :)

This was the first tasting I've ever done where I've consciously spit. I admit, I did swallow on some of the truly spectacular offerrings, but I probably only drank the equivalent of one full glass even though I tasted 24 different wines. It wasn't easy - with so many people crammed into a realtively small store, the spit buckets were few and far between. We ended up carrying an extra glass with us as a "spit glass", which we periodically dumped into a bucket as we came across one.

With so many great-sounding wines, I really wanted to be able to fully appreciate them, so spitting was key. The wines were arranged by winemaker, obviously, since the winemakers themselves were present. Although predominantly a "red guy", I'm struggling to appreciate whites and really wanted to give them their fair share of attention. Thus we ended up making two loops - first to taste the whites, then to taste the reds (with one final stop for a yummy late harvest + botrytis dessert wine). This made for a rather long tasting, as we had to wait in line not once but twice for each winemaker, but overall I'm glad we did it because it allowed for a more direct comparison of more similar wines.

My overall impression of the event was that it was a bit overwhelming - between the hordes of people and the often thick accents of the winemakers, it was very difficult to glean much information about the wines I was tasting beyond the descriptions I had printed out from FineWine.com's website. I think the fact that it was a free wine tasting, combined with decent advertising and the most beautiful weather we've had since last fall all came together and created a "perfect storm" of wine consumers descending upon the store. I'm very glad I attended - I left with some great wines! - I just wish I would have had more time to talk with the winemakers and expand my (incredibly limited) knowledge of French wines.

Here's a quick list of the wines we ended up purchasing - as I mentioned, I'll put up tasting notes from when we actually crack open the bottle, not the ones I took during this tasting event:

Whites (see, I'm giving whites a fair chance!)

• 2005 Dom Jean-Luc Mader Gewurztraminer (Alsace) - $17
  
• 2005 Dom Jean-Luc Mader Pinot Gris (Alsace) - $17
  
• 2005 Dom Berthet-Rayne Côtes du Rhône Blanc (Côtes du Rhône) - $13
  
• 2006 Ch Les Arromans Entre-deux-Mers (Bordeaux) - $10
  

Reds

• 2005 Dom Berthet-Rayne Chateauneuf du Pape Rouge (CdP) - $27
  **My favorite wine of the day! I just love strong, smooth CdPs...
• 2001 Ch Mondesir-Gazin Blaye (Bordeaux) - $23
  **Very tasty - a "close second" in the running, but hard to beat a CdP for me.
• 2005 Dom Renée Bouvier Le Chapitre Bourgogne Rouge (Burgundy) - $20
• 2004 Dom Le Pas de l'Escalette Les Clapas Rouge (Languedoc) - $20
  **Perfect timing! A Coteaux du Languedoc just in time for this month's WBW!
• 2005 Dom Le Pas de l'Escalette le 1er Pas Rouge (Languedoc) - $15
• 2004 Ch Les Arromans Rouge Cuvée Prestige (Bordeaux) - $14
  **We bought two - seems like it could have excellent aging potential.
• 2005 Dom Berthet-Rayne Côtes du Rhône Rouge (Côtes du Rhône) - $13
  **We also bought two of these - excellent Quality-Price Ratio.
• 2005 Ch Les Cedres Heritage Cahors (Cahors) - $12
  **Again, we bought two - excellent QPR!

In case anyone's adding up our purchases, we also bought the Frascati Superiore that I just reviewed for $12, as well as a Cateller Cava Brut (sparkling Spanish wine) for $14. All in all, not a bad haul! Looking forward to breaking in to them and writing them up in the weeks / months to come.

Breaking Tasting News: 10 French winemakers at Finewine.com in Gaithersburg!

Seems like a bit of last-minute notice, but I just received an email from FineWine.com (both the name of the stores and the website) mentioning their exciting double tasting they're having this weekend! FineWine.com has two stores, one in Gaithersburg, MD and one in McLean, VA. One Saturday, the Gaithersburg store will be hosting a free French wine tasting event, with 10 French winemakers at the store pouring 20 wines from Bordeaux, Loire, Burgundy, Rhone Valley, Cahors, Madiran and Alsace! Cool! Then on Sunday in their McLean store they will be featuring 5 Spanish winemakers with an assortment of Spanish wines.

FineWine.com is one of but a few exceptions to the general rule that it is impossible to find good wine (at non-inflated prices) within Montgomery County. That said, I have only visited their store twice in the past (to pick up Beaujolais Nouveau on the third Thursday in November! More on this fun wine world tradition next fall...). Thus I don't want to be too enthusiastic in my recommendation of this event, but needless to say I have high hopes. I plan to attend the French wine tasting at the Gaithersburg store, so I'll report back on how it goes!

The "Sonoma Story"

This post continues with my long-winded wine tasting resume that I feel compelled to lay out before I can get into the guts of what I want this blog to be, namely my journey towards a deeper understanding and appreciation of wine, and my continual quest for enjoyable "everyday wines" (i.e., those that can be consumed on a nightly basis without going broke in the process!).

So as I described yesterday, Napa was great when I was a grad student and could visit during the week. Once the real world crept in via a 9-5 job (more like 8-6, being a consultant), wine tasting trips were relegated to the weekends, and Napa become a distinctly less-fun place to be. Enter Sonoma County - take a different bridge , add on 30 minutes or so to your drive time from the East Bay, and voila: you're in a totally different wine world! Just compare the map of Sonoma County wineries to the map of Napa wineries: I think you'll notice a distinct "linearity" to Napa with the majority of wineries sprouting directly off of Hwy 29 or Silverado Trail, while Sonoma appears more like a braided river channel (to me anyway, but I'm an enviro-geek... perhaps "spiderweb" might be a better general descriptor) with a couple major roads (notably the 101) weaving through it. This makes Sonoma a little more challenging to successfully navigate between the wineries and string together a pleasant day's tasting. It's this challenge that keeps some of the masses away, and makes for a much more pleasing experience.

Anyway, my Sonoma tasting experiences are at least six years old at this point, so the memory is a bit dim. And keep in mind that while I was definitely enjoying the wine tastings at this point, it was on a purely "gut-reaction" level - I'd either like something or I wouldn't, I couldn't really describe what it was about a wine that made me like or dislike it, and I had very little intellectual background as a reference to understand how one type of wine differed from another.

With that as the caveat, here's what I can recall from my Sonoma experience. First off, Sonoma County is divided into several American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) although I wasn't aware of this at time. The wineries that I visited during my several tasting trips were located in the Carneros, Sonoma Valley, Dry Creek, Green Valley, Russian River Valley and Alexander Valley. I think I'll cover the first half of these in one post, and continue with the Green Valley, Russian River Valley and Alexander Valley tomorrow. So, here's the scoop on the first half:

Carneros
Carneros is the southern-most region of Sonoma, and the first one you hit coming up from the Bay Area. It's a pretty small AVA, with only a handful of wineries.

• Gloria Ferrer: Gloria Ferrer "Champagne Caves" (thus labeled, much to the vexation of the French I'm sure) specialize in sparkling wines, but also offer a variety of still wines. (If you're new to wine-speak, "still wine" just means "normal" wine - wine without any bubbles like sparkling Champagne-like wines). Anyway, Gloria Ferrer offers a tour of their "Champagne Caves" (which in reality is a glorified basement used to keep the wine cool while aging in the barrels - that said, it *is* pretty interesting to tour, but I think "cave" is a bit of a stretch), and describes how the process of creating sparkling wine differs from other wines. My wife and I brought her parents here on one of their visits to the Bay Area, and ended up being their favorite stop of the trip! Gloria Ferrer produces some great sparklers, which can be found just about anywhere across the U.S. I recall our favorite being the Royal Cuvée.
• Other Carneros wineries visited included Cline, Schug and Roche. Although I can comment on some of their wines I've had more recently, looking back on it none of these wineries left much of an impression on me.

Sonoma Valley
The Sonoma Valley region is the next stop up from Carneros. This region is home to several big-name producers, many of which I visited upon multiple occasions. The stops I remember:

• Gundlach Bundschu: Lovingly known as "GunBun" (likely to prevent the non-Germanic inclined from slaughtering their name), this unpretentious winery even sells (sold) Hawaiian shirts with their logo on the back. In keeping with the theme of taking the "stuffiness" out of wine, the GunBun folks pulled a "train heist" of the Napa wine train, holding up the train on horseback and serving Sonoma wine on the *Napa* wine train! Quel horreur! I love any winery that challenges the notion that wine has to be serious to be appreciated - wine can be enjoyed on many levels, but at least one of those levels should be "fun"!
• Ravenswood: As I mentioned in my previous post, Ravenswood probably ended up becoming my favorite Sonoma winery. Absolutely obsessed with Zinfandel, they make break-out-of-the-bottle big, juicy wines. Although they make a couple non-Zins, they joke that they just love that grape so much that everything sort of ends up tasting like Zin anyway. Nullum Vinum Flaccidum - No Wimpy Wines here! They definitely live up to their mantra. And what's great about touring the winery is they take this "No Wimpy" concept to a hilarious extreme: almost *everything* in the winery is labeled as no wimpy this, no wimpy that. Examples: No Wimpy Restrooms, No Wimpy Water Fountain, No Wimpy Pen... you get the picture. Basically, the only thing serious about Ravenswood is their wines. They have crafted three categories of wines, from the everyday Vintners Blend to the moderate-production County Series and the select Vineyard Designates wine. One thing I find interesting about Ravenswood is that they use native vineyard yeasts for fermenting their wine - slightly unusual for such a large producer, whom you may think would be more concerned about consistency over the possibility of added complexity (as well as possibility of a ruined batch).
• Kenwood: Kenwood made its biggest impression on me with their Jack London Series of wines. Even if you haven't heard of them before, you'd probably recognize them - the "labels" are rather stunning, with a a large wolf's head and all text etched directly onto the bottle. I recall the Jack London Cabernet Sauvignon to be particularly delicious.
  
• Other Sonoma Valley wineries that I know I visited but don't have anything memorable to report include Arrowood, Benziger**, Chateau St. Jean, Kunde** and Wellington.

** Quick note: While going to these websites to snatch their URL for the blog, I noticed that both Benziger and Kunde have really well developed sustainable vineyard / organic and/or biodynamic farming practices in place (so does Grgich Hills, from my Napa post). Getting "sustainability" into all aspects of grape growing and wine production is a major interest of mine - this is the perfect intersection between my "real job" as an environmental professional and my passion for wine. I plan to do a full-blown posting on this in the future, but for now here are links to Benziger's, Grgich Hills, and Kunde's sustainable winery initiatives.

Dry Creek
Dry Creek Vineyards was the only winery I believed I visited within the Dry Creek region of Sonoma County. To be totally honest, I think I visited them mainly because I love their labels - all sailing-inspired paintings. That was more than enough of a reason for a sailing wino like me to drive up and check them up! Sadly, all I can recall from that single trip was that their gorgeous grounds made for an excellent picnic.


I'm getting paranoid about how long these initial posts keep getting - long, and totally visually un-interesting since these trips were well before digital cameras were the norm, and I'm not even sure I could find old pics to scan even if I wanted to. So I apologize for that - it'll get more interesting soon! I'll finish up with Sonoma County tomorrow, then head down to Santa Cruz and Monterey later this week. Santa Ynez and Paso Robles will come next, hopefully moving in to my current location of Maryland and my experiences thus far with Virginia wine country. After that, we can put the past behind us and move gloriously on with the present - I've got a lot I'd like to cover!

My humble beginnings in Napa...

I feel like I should finish off my "wine resume" before I get in to a regular blogging routine - just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from oenologically speaking. It is my ultimate goal to post my musings on my "wine of the day", our new favorite "house wine", and whatever random vino trivia I've stumbled upon. But I feel it's important to give a complete picture of how I got to where I am, and thus why I (currently - for I've found that my taste is constantly shifting and evolving) enjoy the wines that I do. So to continue my big "first post"...

While in grad school at UC- Berkeley, I started off my wine tastings at countless Napa wineries right off the "main drag" of Hwy 29: Robert Mondavi , Heitz, Cakebread, V.Sattui, Sterling, Domaine Chandon, Beaulieu (BV), Grgich Hills, Prager Portworks, and probably several others that have since disappeared from my memory (in my defense, it *has* been almost 8 years since then... wow, tempus fugit). My recollections of these early wine tasting adventures:

• Robert Mondavi wines are what initially hooked me onto wine back in my undergrad at Eckerd College. This was rather fortuitous, since Mondavi was the first winery I ever visited, and they have (had? It's been a while...) a truly spectacular and highly educational tour and tasting. I remember having a guided tour through the winery with the guide explaining every step of the process, even stopping at a large video screen to watch a video about how the oak barrels were created - great! At the time, they made you sign up for a tour before you got to taste any of their wines. I liked this "wine education requirement" - I hope they've kept it.
• V. Sattui was memorable in that the winery has an excellent gourmet deli and cheese shop - we would always stop by V. Sattui and pick up picnic supplies, either for consumption on their beautiful grounds or elsewhere down the road. Also memorable to me was their Madeira, which used to be only sold out of their winery, but I see is now available online! Too bad I live in Maryland, specifically Montgomery County which is a wine lover's purgatory (more on this topic in a later post). Just as memorable as the fantastic Madeira was the poem they attached to each bottle of it sold - I was able to find it online here.
• I visited Sterling Vineyards mainly because of a gimmick - the vineyard is perched atop a hilltop, and they have an aerial tram to transport visitors from the parking lot up to the winery proper. It's not a particularly long ride, so not really necessary, but fun! As for the winery itself - they had a "self-guided" tour with signs posted at various spots when I was there; that didn't really do it for me. I also don't remember any wines from them in particular, but I do remember the view - it was fantastic! Sitting out on their terrace and looking down into the valley, watching the fog creep over the coastal range in the distance... spectacular.
• I'm not so sure I knew this at the time, but owner and winemaker Miljenko "Mike" Grgich of Grgich Hills is Croatian. This is much more relevant to me now as my wife and I are also budding sailors (have taken a couple cruises to the British Virgin Islands and are working our way up the American Sailing Assocation (ASA) ladder of sailing certifications towards getting our bareboat chartering certification - ASA104). What would possibly be my absolute dream job is running a sailing & wine tasting combo chartering company, possibly out of Croatia. I am vicariously in love with the country - miles and miles of Adriatic coast, a near-perfect climate, tons of great islands to explore, and coastal wineries to boot! I sincerely hope to sail Croatia in the not-too-distant future. But I digress - Grgich Hills. So Mike Grgich is Croatian, and noticed that Zinfandel, "California's grape", tasted an awful lot like wine made from a grape from his homeland, Plavic Mali. He convinced Dr. Carole Meredith of UC - Davis to investigate. Italy's Primitivo had long been suspected as a parent or clonal variety of Zinfandel - and it has now been confirmed by Dr. Meredith that Zinfandel and Primitivo are in fact the same grape. But that still doesn't answer the ultimate question of origin: Primitivo is a relatively recent addition to Italy's crop of Vitis vinifera - it has only been documented in the boot of Italy for a couple of hundred years. After several years of searching (must have been rough fieldwork - wandering around Croatian vineyards, sampling wines and testing grapes - tough life), an almost extinct native Croatian grape called Crljenak Kasteljanski was determined to be the parent of Zinfandel/Primitivo. The holy grail of Zinfandel! So true wine geeks now refer to this grape as "ZPC" - Zinfandel/Primitivo/Crljenak. I do not aspire to such heights of wine snobbery however, so it'll always be Zinfandel to me...
• I visited Prager Portworks twice while in my Napa wine touring days; the first time was at the urging of Sarah, a college friend of mine (and hardcore knitting blogger) who at the time had a binary view of the world of wine, separating all wine into either "yummy!" or "not yummy...". At this point, anything relatively sweet earned the "yummy!" rating, while everything else was distinctly "not yummy". The first time I visited Prager was before I had gotten hooked on V. Sattui's Madeira, and thus was unprepared for a serious port tasting. I tasted the two or three unfortified wines Prager offered, and called it a day. Sarah, meanwhile, happily tasted their ports, declaring each and every one high on her yummy-scale. Fast-forward a year or so, and my discovery of the value of fortified wines. Visiting Prager a second time, I eagerly partook of their port and left very impressed by the vast differences between ports crafted from the different grapes grown on their estate. If you are even remotely interested in learning more about port wines, Prager is a must on any Napa visit.

Ah, the good old days. Well, those happy days of Napa Valley tastings started to get a bit strained after graduating from grad school, starting in on a "real job" and only being able to visit the wineries on the weekends. On the weekends in Napa, Hwy 29 is (maybe was - don't know if improvements have been made) utterly choked with cars, and more importantly, buses. These tourist-toting buses descend upon tasting room after tasting room like a swarm of locusts, monopolizing the time, space and attention of the tasting room staff up and down Napa. You're lucky to be able to elbow your way to the tasting table, much less quiz the staff on where the grapes for the wine were grown, how it was made, or why it tastes the way it does.

It was right around this point that my wine education took its next step, in the direction of Sonoma County. Sonoma is very similar to Napa in terms of quality of wine, only with much windier and indirect roads leading to more far-flung wineries and significantly fewer tourists, and a distinctly more laid-back approach to wine appreciation (as evidenced by what would become my favorite Sonoma winery - Ravenswood; in fact, I still have a button stuck into my office cork board from Ravenswood - Nullum Vinum Flaccidum - No Wimpy Wines). Since this post has gone on far too long already, the "Sonoma Story" will have to wait until my next posting.