2006/07/25
This weekend I had the pleasure of going wine-tasting in Northern California. Under the guidance of one of my supervising attorneys, a group from work drove out to Sonoma County, about an hour and a half North of San Francisco. We had initially planned to hit Napa Valley instead, where we expected to spend about $60 on tastings. Instead we went to Sonoma, where we spent $10. Total.
The land was very pretty up there, and the wine was wonderful. When one tastes several wines from a single vineyard, it's much easier to distinguish the characteristics of each. Whereas I normally am stuck with the lowest end bottle produced by a bottler, at a tasting room I get served that one next to many of the higher end wines.
For instance, the first winery we went to was Seghesio, a producer from whom I've had several bottles of Zinfandel, and I really liked them. I could expect to pay around $15-20 in a store for one of these bottles. The same bottle, purchased directly from their tasting room, was $10. Quite a deal.
But that's not all. We also tasted their "Old Vine" Zinfandel. And for the first time, I could really tell the difference between an Old Vine wine and a normal wine. We later learned that vines' production maxes out around 10-15 years into its lifespan. Old vines have often been around for close to one hundred years, meaning the same land is being tapped by many fewer grapes. That means the flavors are more intense, more concentrated. The land has been distilled into a wine whose unique characteristics are much more pronounced.
There were similar epiphanies all day long. At most tasting rooms we also tried various Reserve wines, and even the same wine from different years. Some wineries offered a port as well, each of which was absolutely wonderful. All told, we visited six wineries, and stopped for lunch in Healdsburg, a small yuppie town in the heart of wine country.
A selection of photos follows. The full set of photos are posted at barzelay.net.
Posted by Barzelay on 2006/07/25 @ 4:47 | Comments (4) | Drinks
Comments
I'll have to keep an eye out for Seghesio at my regular liquor store. Any wines they do particularly well, besides Zinfandel?
I've always been curious to know how one may distinguish a "good" bargain wine from a "bad" bargain wine. Did they furnish any such information? Short of being able to taste the wine you're about to buy, how would you know?
Posted by: Natasha D'Souza at July 25, 2006 1:13 PM
im definitely not a wine connoisseur (in fact i just had to look that word up) and really have no idea how to pick wine. I think this mainly stems from the fact that I am completely put off by the idea of drinking alcohol while I eat. Whether it's beer or wine, it makes me lose my appetite. Thus Ive never had a reason to really care about wine beyond its alcohol content. I would, however, like to know more about the history of wine in general (apperantly I do care about the history of food and drinks) as well as the relative info to how is made, differences between regions, etc.
Perhaps Ken Burns should make a slightly pretentious, fully heartwarming 15 episode documentary called Wine. I can already hear the 40s jazz music playing as the camera pans across a zoomed-in, sepia-toned picture of wine bottles as morgan freeman narrates.
Posted by: Adam Rugg at July 27, 2006 4:02 AM
Natasha, no way of knowing without tasting, except, of course, to look it up in some magazine or something. I love Seghesio Zins, but then Sonoma is known for Zinfandel. The rest are fine as well, but the Zinfandels are really spectacular.
Adam, at least you won't have to worry about picking wines at dinner as long as you don't want to drink them during the meal anyway. But picking a wine is like jamming in music. You can do either of two main things: play along, or provide counterpoint. You can choose a wine with similar color and flavors to what you're going to eat, or you can choose a wine that uniquely highlights particular flavors in a food.
Posted by: Barzelay at July 27, 2006 4:39 AM
I wish one could avail of palate assessment/refinement classes. I would love the opportunity to exercise my palate and improve its flavour detection potential simply because the next time I'm at Best Cellars and tasting a wine, I won't nod like a window wobbler when the salesperson tells me: "Notice the dry, fruity flavours and the hint of such-and-such?" Right buddy, I have no clue...
Posted by: Natasha D'Souza at July 27, 2006 11:49 AM