Cooking
Melissa had to meet with a client in Sonoma, and she knew I'd come along if she suggested we go wine tasting afterwards. After her meeting and our lunch at Sonoma Saveurs (always enjoyable, though they recently lost their head chef) we set out for the various wineries on our list. I love small wineries because the producers are often more passionate about their product, but for various reasons we ended up at three of Sonoma's biggest wineries. We felt like such tourists. It's funny how we shy away from big producers, assuming they'll be mediocre. Talk about unfair preconceptions. But economics imposes its cruel logic; if you're going to make 40,000 cases of wine, you've got to make sure that they appeal to a large swath of people, so you create a lowest common denominator wine. Our first stop was Sebastiani. Three years ago I knew nothing about wine and drank it only occasionally, but even I'm aware of Sebastiani's reputation. Most people know them for inexpensive and uninteresting wines. In 2001 they changed direction. They sold the Turner Road brand that accounted for 98% of their production, and now they're all about quality. Wine maker Mark Lyon is over the moon, since he's now getting to do what he's always wanted (one wonders why he's worked there for twenty years if he wasn't thrilled about it). The winery (which was mobbed and unpleasant on a Saturday) wasn't pouring their top-tier wine, the single-vineyard Cherryblock Cabernet Sauvignon. Instead, they were pouring their second-tier wines. Even these were quite respectable, and I liked their 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. It's worth noting that I don't normally like California wines from that grape. I neglected to take detailed notes, but I'll keep an eye out for that 2002. Our next stop was Ravenswood, a lodge-esque building on a hillside at the edge of town. A friend of ours works in the tasting room on Saturdays, and he invited us to stop by. The main counter was swamped, but he set us up at the side counter where they pour their single-vineyard wines and the like. Ravenswood produces various levels of wine (most but not all are Zinfandels). Grapes from all over the state go into the vintner's blend, the bottle you're most likely to see at the grocery store. One notch up are their county blends, which you can find at upscale supermarkets. These wines come from grapes in a particular region. Finally they produce some vineyard designate wines where the grapes are all from one site. You'll only find these at actual wine shops. A common rule of thumb about buying wines is that the more specific the source of the grapes, the more interesting the wine. You're more likely to get a sense of a vineyard's uniqueness in these bottles, though that assumes that the vintner doesn't muck with the wine too much and obscure the vineyard's character. We tasted seven different bottles. I won't bore you with all the notes. Some were standard but unremarkable Zinfandels, and a couple were intriguing. We bought the 2001 Cooke Zinfandel from Sonoma Valley. The vineyard's high altitude and unfriendly volcanic soil produce unusual Zinfandel grapes. My tasting notes mention "strawberry, apple, pine, cream, candy, balloon, soap" as well as "smooth" and "keeps offering more". Zinfandels are usually dark cherries and berries, not strawberry balloons. Next we went to Gundlach Bundschu, a winery that sits on a sprawling vineyard just past the sparse residences at the town's edge. Yet another mobbed tasting room probably explained the staff's apathy. The first wine they poured was the 2002 Sangiacamo Ranch Chardonnay. One whiff and Melissa and I practically gagged. This wine managed to encapsulate everything that's wrong with California Chardonnay. I don't know why wineries bother with expensive grapes for these wines; they're just going to obliterate them in the winery. If you want to save yourself some money but get the same experience, slather some slightly rancid butter on a wet oak dowel and suck on that. Next was the Rhinefarm Gewurztraminer, which had a delicate but promising nose of standard Gewurz smells. But the wine was all hat and no cattle and lacked any taste to live up to the smell's promise. Most of the wine we tried here was uninteresting, but I sort of liked the Rhinefarm Zinfandel. At any rate, Melissa and I won't be buying any of their wines. We finished our little day trip with dinner at the girl & the fig, one of Sonoma's best regarded restaurants. We enjoyed our meal quite a bit, though I sadly didn't take notes on what we had. It was nice to actually drink some wine after a day of spitting.
- Wine On Fridays: Sequoia Grove Winery - A Taste Of Cabernet
A few years ago I wrote a story about Chardonnay and consumers perception of it. It's a wine that while very popular, is also held in disdain by many consumers. Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is another such wine. Not that there is just one Napa...
- Wtn: 1995 "pagani Vineyard", Ridge, Alicante
The average time between buying a bottle of wine and drinking it is surprisingly low. My friend Mark recently suggested forty-eight minutes, but I don't know if that was in jest or if he read it somewhere. Everyone agrees that, whatever the actual...
- How I Score Wine
Most of you know my opinions about wine scores. I don't believe you can rank a subjective experience in a way that's useful for someone else. I'd rather just write a tasting note that describes the wine and lets you judge for yourself. I've...
- Wtn: 2002 Puligny-montrachet, Chateau De Puligny-montrachet
I have avoided learning much about Burgundy so far. I love the wines from this region, but I worry that its convoluted swirl of soil types and tiny producers will trigger my obsessive personality, to the detriment of my pocketbook. So I skirt the edges...
- Amador/el Dorado Wines
When we left Tahoe, we decided to swing through Amador and El Dorado counties to try some of the wines of the Sierra foothills. This is a wine region that is off the beaten path, to say the least. Route 16, a winding back-country road, seems to be the...
Cooking
Sonoma Day Trip #2
Melissa had to meet with a client in Sonoma, and she knew I'd come along if she suggested we go wine tasting afterwards. After her meeting and our lunch at Sonoma Saveurs (always enjoyable, though they recently lost their head chef) we set out for the various wineries on our list. I love small wineries because the producers are often more passionate about their product, but for various reasons we ended up at three of Sonoma's biggest wineries. We felt like such tourists. It's funny how we shy away from big producers, assuming they'll be mediocre. Talk about unfair preconceptions. But economics imposes its cruel logic; if you're going to make 40,000 cases of wine, you've got to make sure that they appeal to a large swath of people, so you create a lowest common denominator wine. Our first stop was Sebastiani. Three years ago I knew nothing about wine and drank it only occasionally, but even I'm aware of Sebastiani's reputation. Most people know them for inexpensive and uninteresting wines. In 2001 they changed direction. They sold the Turner Road brand that accounted for 98% of their production, and now they're all about quality. Wine maker Mark Lyon is over the moon, since he's now getting to do what he's always wanted (one wonders why he's worked there for twenty years if he wasn't thrilled about it). The winery (which was mobbed and unpleasant on a Saturday) wasn't pouring their top-tier wine, the single-vineyard Cherryblock Cabernet Sauvignon. Instead, they were pouring their second-tier wines. Even these were quite respectable, and I liked their 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. It's worth noting that I don't normally like California wines from that grape. I neglected to take detailed notes, but I'll keep an eye out for that 2002. Our next stop was Ravenswood, a lodge-esque building on a hillside at the edge of town. A friend of ours works in the tasting room on Saturdays, and he invited us to stop by. The main counter was swamped, but he set us up at the side counter where they pour their single-vineyard wines and the like. Ravenswood produces various levels of wine (most but not all are Zinfandels). Grapes from all over the state go into the vintner's blend, the bottle you're most likely to see at the grocery store. One notch up are their county blends, which you can find at upscale supermarkets. These wines come from grapes in a particular region. Finally they produce some vineyard designate wines where the grapes are all from one site. You'll only find these at actual wine shops. A common rule of thumb about buying wines is that the more specific the source of the grapes, the more interesting the wine. You're more likely to get a sense of a vineyard's uniqueness in these bottles, though that assumes that the vintner doesn't muck with the wine too much and obscure the vineyard's character. We tasted seven different bottles. I won't bore you with all the notes. Some were standard but unremarkable Zinfandels, and a couple were intriguing. We bought the 2001 Cooke Zinfandel from Sonoma Valley. The vineyard's high altitude and unfriendly volcanic soil produce unusual Zinfandel grapes. My tasting notes mention "strawberry, apple, pine, cream, candy, balloon, soap" as well as "smooth" and "keeps offering more". Zinfandels are usually dark cherries and berries, not strawberry balloons. Next we went to Gundlach Bundschu, a winery that sits on a sprawling vineyard just past the sparse residences at the town's edge. Yet another mobbed tasting room probably explained the staff's apathy. The first wine they poured was the 2002 Sangiacamo Ranch Chardonnay. One whiff and Melissa and I practically gagged. This wine managed to encapsulate everything that's wrong with California Chardonnay. I don't know why wineries bother with expensive grapes for these wines; they're just going to obliterate them in the winery. If you want to save yourself some money but get the same experience, slather some slightly rancid butter on a wet oak dowel and suck on that. Next was the Rhinefarm Gewurztraminer, which had a delicate but promising nose of standard Gewurz smells. But the wine was all hat and no cattle and lacked any taste to live up to the smell's promise. Most of the wine we tried here was uninteresting, but I sort of liked the Rhinefarm Zinfandel. At any rate, Melissa and I won't be buying any of their wines. We finished our little day trip with dinner at the girl & the fig, one of Sonoma's best regarded restaurants. We enjoyed our meal quite a bit, though I sadly didn't take notes on what we had. It was nice to actually drink some wine after a day of spitting.
- Wine On Fridays: Sequoia Grove Winery - A Taste Of Cabernet
A few years ago I wrote a story about Chardonnay and consumers perception of it. It's a wine that while very popular, is also held in disdain by many consumers. Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is another such wine. Not that there is just one Napa...
- Wtn: 1995 "pagani Vineyard", Ridge, Alicante
The average time between buying a bottle of wine and drinking it is surprisingly low. My friend Mark recently suggested forty-eight minutes, but I don't know if that was in jest or if he read it somewhere. Everyone agrees that, whatever the actual...
- How I Score Wine
Most of you know my opinions about wine scores. I don't believe you can rank a subjective experience in a way that's useful for someone else. I'd rather just write a tasting note that describes the wine and lets you judge for yourself. I've...
- Wtn: 2002 Puligny-montrachet, Chateau De Puligny-montrachet
I have avoided learning much about Burgundy so far. I love the wines from this region, but I worry that its convoluted swirl of soil types and tiny producers will trigger my obsessive personality, to the detriment of my pocketbook. So I skirt the edges...
- Amador/el Dorado Wines
When we left Tahoe, we decided to swing through Amador and El Dorado counties to try some of the wines of the Sierra foothills. This is a wine region that is off the beaten path, to say the least. Route 16, a winding back-country road, seems to be the...