Wine Country

Friday was my winery tour day. The small bus picked me up at the hostel and seven other guests from nearby hotels, including two Scots! They were both living in the USA but they sounded like they had just arrived even though that wasn’t the case. The other five were Americans from Boston and Texas and the small group were friendly and easy to talk to. We started our tour in Sonoma and our first stop the Viansa winery which has beautiful grounds but I was underwhelmed once inside the winery. The tour had not been cheap and I questioned the value of it during the first tasting. At the bar I was pointed to a wine list much like you would find in any restaurant as opposed to the detailed descriptions I received at the vineyards in Virginia. The staff behind the bar were very pleasant and helpful to the American tasters but mush less so with myself. I felt that since I was unable to purchase repeated cases I was just a nuisance which, considering there was a while shop behind me with merchandise and that I was part of a tour was rather short sighted. I was slightly more impressed with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar tasting they were also running, the staff there were more helpful and my sunnier mood of earlier quickly returned. I did contemplate purchasing some unusual oils but decided to wait and see what the other places had on offer. I will admit that the desert wine was one of the few I’ve tasted which I felt I could drink more of but the whites were too sweet and the reds had too much of a tannin aftertaste for my liking. The next winery was called Cline located across the road from our first stop. At Cline we had a private session where the basics of of wine tasting were explained to us and we were given 4 wines to taste initially then asked if there were any other on their menu that we particularly wanted to try. As each wine was poured we learned a little about it and our guide was helpful and friendly, nicely refreshing after my first experience. I was even able to take a photograph of my highland cow with my favourite wine from the tasting. Again I found the reds had that tannin aftertaste but they were a definite improvement on the first tasting and I was pleasantly intrigued by their red Zinfandel wines. However it was the Viognier that really appealed to me; if I ever moved to the states I would be sure to look it out and I will keep a lookout for it on any future travels. The Cline grounds were beautiful and this winery had the added attraction of housing models of each of the twenty one missions built along El Camino Real (The Royal Road) which starts in San Diego and ends in Sonoma where the town square now stands. Our morning tastings over we were taken to the home of the twenty first mission for lunch and a wander around the town square that it is now part of. It may be small but Sonoma has an interesting variety of shops so it was easy to fill in the time there after lunch before we headed to Napa Valley.

In Napa we only had one stop to make but what a stop. We were given a brief tour of the Domain Chandon winery and our guide explained how they make sparkling wines. The guide was pleasant and entertaining and after the tour he took us to a private area for some tasting. Well I say tasting but in reality we were given more than the usual tastes worth, the advantage of being in a small group I assume. I learnt amongst other things that champagne and sparkling wines are made using the same three varieties of grapes (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier) and that in California only wines that at contain more than 70% of a grape are allowed to use the name of that grape on the bottle. Unfortunately we didn’t get to try their sparkling red wine during our tasting and I felt a little too tipsy to purchase a taste at their public tasting area. We were able to taste their Brut Classic, Blanc De Niors, Pinot Nior Brut and Extra-Dry Riche and surprised myself by enjoying the sweeter taste of the extra-dry riche having always preferred the brut classics in the past.

And so ended my day of tasting (but not drinking) wine. On the way from San Francisco our bus driver had kept us entertained with some facts along the way but on the way home he was less of a guide and more chatty asking us all various questions including a fair few about various types of whiskey. I think he was vaguely amused with my idea of opening a Scottish whiskey shop in the middle of wine country.

Back at the hostel I decided to try the internet and found one of my new friends from the Thanksgiving meal already there. Our timing was superb as not long after I arrived so did a hostel employee with cheese and wine. I have just about sobered up but a wee glass of red soon had me happy again! We got chatting with another traveller who turned out to be my newest roommate and the three of us, along with my Canadian friend from Alcatraz, ended up going for pizza before trying out the Gold Dust lounge on the street parallel to our hostel. The music was pretty good and the melon ball cocktail very tasty but after a long day of wine drinking it was another fairly early night for me. Still, it was a good end to a fun and informative day; I have even more wines to add to my ever growing ‘preferred’ list.