Sonoma County Sunday Part Deux

So... like I was saying... my daughter and I headed up through Dry Creek a couple of weeks ago in order to explore some of the Sonoma County wineries that I thought she should know about.

The favorite spot, for both of us, was the funky farm and wonderful Rhone-inspired organic offerings of Preston Vineyards.

It really is impossible for me to say enough about this winery/farm. Every time I go, I feel like I've come home. From the moment I turn off Dry Creek and onto Yoakim Bridge Road (which leads to both Preston and Bella) my mouth waters with anticipation and I feel my spirit begin to rise. As I make the turn down the driveway (which I almost always nearly miss)I feel like I am being transported into an alternative universe, and the fact of the matter is, that it is precisely what is happening.

What Lou Preston has created is a combination winery, working farm, and educational museum dedicated to the ideas and practices of sustainable farming. In addition to their wonderful wines (I AM a Rhone freak after all) - Sauvignon Blanc, Cinsault, Zinfandel, L. Preston, Syrah-Sirah, Petite Sirah, and Barbera - you will also find olives grown on the land and bread baked fresh by Lou right there at the winery. They even have a lending library of books on various aspects of sustainable farming and slow-food culture. The wine, olives, and bread serve as a doorway (or perhaps a looking glass)through which you are invited to step and begin to explore a way of being that is more than just food and wine, but is at its heart all about food and wine... and people.

One of the great wine highlights at Preston only happens on Sundays. Once a week the winery offers a sort of field blend of Zinfandel, Malvoise (Cinsault), and Carignane (which, fortunately for me, happen to me some of my very favorite varietals) in a big 3 liter jug (the equivalent of 4 bottles) for $30! Sunday is the only day you can taste it and the only day you can buy it, but this lovely wine - named for Lou's former neighbor Jim Guadagni - is one of those amazing finds that only come along once in a while. Unfortunately, due to all of the Winter Wineland festivities, Preston curtailed this extra special offering for the Sunday we were there. The following week, while I was busy tasting the lovely ZAP offerings in San Francisco, Jen piled a bunch of her friends into a van and headed out to the regions we had previously explored. their primary stop was of course Preston where they loaded up on this red gold.

Sonoma County Sunday

Last sunday my daughter came up from The City and we went wine tasting at some of my favorite places in Sonoma County. Despite the fact that she was raised in Sonoma County for a goodly portion of her childhood, lately she's been playing the turncoat and taking friends on the traditional straight up the valley tour of Napa and beyond. On Christmas Eve I gave her a "good talking to" and suggested that she needed to check out a few of the places in her old homestead, if for no other reason than the fact that she grew up here.

So... Sunday around 11:00 am we headed off from Petaluma to try out a few places in Dry Creek with an almost obligatory stop at the quintessentially youthful Roshambo just outside Sonoma. My goal for the trip was to show her a few of the places that I've been to recently that represent what I thought of as "her kind" of winery. To that end, we started the day up on Independence Lane at the new Coppola Rosso & Bianco winery where I recently joined as a wine club member. We were celebrating my daughter's birthday ( a week late) and so my goal at this stop was for her to taste, and for me to buy for her, a bottle of their Sofia Blanc de Blanc, a lovely sparkling wine with a light body, a perky taste, a lovely golden color (in a clear bottle with pink wrapping); s perfect birthday wine! On this trip we also picked up a bottle of the winery's R&B Sauvignon Blanc, a crisp cirtusy number with lots of spiciness, another playful birthday kind of wine, and a bottle of the Diamond label Syrah-Shiraz, a terrific "every day" sort of red with good body, nice crispness, and a truly reasonable price. There are some other amazing wines at R & B, particularly in their Director's Cut (complete with Zoetrope labels) and their Reserve selections, but I'll save my raves for thos wines for another blog. Suffice to say, Rosso & Bianco was a perfect kickoff to our Sonoma celebration Sunday.

The only problem with the whole day was that due to poor planning on my part we ran straight into the massive Winter Wineland celebration and were thrust deep into large crowds of people who we had not anticipated. Jen and I were not inclined to do the WW package because we only had four wineries we were planning to go to and we weren't looking to partake in all the extra foodstuffs (my daughter being a vegetarian there wasn't a lot for her to try anyway) that the $50 ticket allowed.This only proved a problem at one location, Wilson Winery, our first stop on Dry Creek Road. At Copolla, where we first discovered our inconvenient truth, the folks were all very friendly and accommodating, happy to see a wine club member even on a busy day like that. At Wilson it was a different story. Walking into the place we were confronted with a relatively hostile wine server who glared at us when we said we weren't "Winelanding" but that we were members. I was informed that we would have to buy a ticket for the wineland event anyway or come back another time. On the one hand, this didn't seem ALL that unreasonable (it was a busy day and Wilson has a pretty small tasting room) but I was particularly interested in having Jen try some of their really wonderful Zins as they are the reason I joined the club in the first place and because she was going to be bringing a whole collection of friends up to the winery on the following weekend and I wanted her to be able to tell them something about it. No such luck! Unlike Copolla, the folks at Wilson were NOT happy to have this wine club member and so we turned around and moved on to friendlier territory. It's unfortunate though, because I think the folks at Wilson missed out on a big opportunity to interest and entice a whole collection of youthful wine lovers this coming weekend.

Our next stops in Dry Creek were the fabulous Preston Winery - a fairly recent discovery for me and a place that I knew my vegetarian daughter would love for their organic farming and their attention to all things food and good - and the beautiful Bella, where, as wine club members, we were again welcomed with open arms and glasses despite the fact that they were inundated by Winelandians.

I'll save the details of those two stops (and our final drop down to Roshambo) for next time.

Cheers!

Zin is in the air!!!

It's January once more and just as we get the fruits and favors of the holiday season, and the hangovers from New Year's Eve out of our system, it's time to hit the trenches for THE BIGGEST WINE BLAST ANYWHERE! ZAP!

Taking place next week all over San Francisco, but focusing primarily on the flagship GIANT TASTING event at Fort Mason Center, the 17th Annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers fstival of all things Zin (and all things that go WITH Zin) is gearing up to take the town by storm.

I've been attending this amazing gathering every year since it began and I have to say that I have never once been disappointed. Some years there's a buzz in the air from the very beginning - you'll hear about some spectacular wine from (usually) a little known winery and the flood of people around the table lets you know you've found the spot. Other years its a bit more subtle, and you get to explore the familiar and the unfamiliar wines and wineries that you might not find anywhere else. In recent years, my favorite event of the series has been the Thursday night Zin and food pairing that happens at Fort Mason Center, the chaos is a little more manageable than the Saturday event and the intentional food/wine pairings between wine makers and Bay Area (with a few exceptions like last year's Texas BBQ) chefs is not to be missed.

For me... ZAP IS THE NEW YEAR!

Cheers!