They have done a nice job at Chateau St. Jean of making it very picturesque.
It was interesting wandering around their demonstration vineyard. Got a chance to see some of the different varieties of grapes/vines and trellises. Fortunately, they had the different items labelled or I wouldn't have been able to know what each variety was.
The wines here were very nice. The nice thing about doing wine tasting at the vineyard is that they offer tastings of their wines that aren't available through wine stores or grocery stores. They are usually somewhat limited bottlings. We stopped at St. Jean because I had some of their Merlot the night before and really enjoyed it. The guy pouring the wines informed me that while it was good, it was one of the regular wines you can get anywhere. He was interesting as he used to live in the Denver area where he was a graphic artist. He recoginzed the name of my former employer, McDATA, as he did art work for them. Small world.At Chateau St. Jean, I really liked their Pinot Blanc Robert Young Vineyard 2006. All the grapes are grown by the Robert Young Vineyard but processed and bottled by Chateau St. Jean. Their Syrah Benoist Vineyard 2004 was also very nice. The rest were good but these were the best in my opinion.
After Chateau St. Jean, we headed down route 12 to Kunde winery. I had never heard of them but they have been around since the early 1900's. Some very nice wines. I will be looking for their wine in stores.
The caves that have been created at Kunde are pretty amazing when you realize they are totally man made. When asked how much it cost to dig them out, the woman giving the tour mentioned $3 million dollars and then something about someone winning or losing a bet but there was no detail on that little tidbit.
As Diane mentioned in her blog, there are over 1/2 mile of tunnels and about 6000 barrels of wine in the caves.
I found it interesting to see how they label the wine barrels. the cooper that makes the barrels burns their identifying information into the wood or in the case of the barrel below added a brass plate. The vineyard addes a label with the variety of wine and date filled so they can keep track of what they have. I imagine they also probably have an inventory of which wines are in which tunnels. At least I hope so, it would be a tedious job if you had to search every tunnel to find a particular vintage or barrel.
At Kunde vineyard, I liked their 2003 Merlot Clone and the 2003 Robusto. The Merlot Clone was made with clones of the Merlot grape. I need to do some more research on this clone thing. They told me that UC Davis has identified about 900 different clones of Merlot and they are supposed to specifiy on the label if it is a clone. The Robusto is a late harvest zinfindel. Very nice.
Diane mentioned in her blog about the wine clubs, they are tempting as they are the only way to get some of the limited offerings from each of the wineries. I haven't checked out their websites yet but expect I will be ordering some wines from several of the wineries we visited.
After visiting the two wineries in the south of Sonoma, we headed north to the Alexander Valley to try some of the wines from up there. I really wanted to try the wines at Silver Oaks as it is the favorite of one of our friends. Unfortunately, they were closed on Sunday so didn't have the opportunity. I guess I will just have to impose on Steve and Marie for a private tasting sometime when we are out in San Jose again.
So, instead of Silver Oak, we headed back south toward Healdsburg to Clos du Bois. I like their Merlot so thought that would be fun. It was. Clos du Bois is not into fancy. They have a very plain facility. They are focused on wine, the way it should be.
At Clos du Bois, I really liked their Petit Syrah. They also had a Bordeaux style but I don't remember the name of it, but it was great.After Clos du Bois, we headed to the Simi tasting room. All Simi really has at this location is their tasting room and a few other buildings. Being right in Healdsburg, they don't have vineyards at this location. The wine was good but as Diane mentioned the woman there was really pushing their wine club. The good thing about their club is that they are owned by a larger company and the club offers wines from multiple vineyards. However, it is a monthly mailing of wine and that gets a little pricey for us retired folks.
At Simi, the zinfindel was quite good.
I decided that we need to try another tasting so I dragged Diane back south of Santa Rosa to visit the St. Francis winery. I am glad we did. The winery is very pleasant and they had a Chardonnay that was really good. It is from their Behler vineyard. Diane even enjoyed it and she is not a big wine drinker, in fact, she rarely drinks it. We bought a bottle to have in the room. We enjoyed it over dinner with some cheese, bread and fruit.
By heading back south, we were able to go back to the Barbecue restaurant we found at the Jack London Village that is safe for Diane. We shared a serving of Nachos. Very large and different with pulled pork as one of their toppings.
All in all, Sunday was a great day for wine tasting. At least I enjoyed it. Since Diane is not into wine like I am, she was left to poke around the wine tasting rooms and look at all the stuff they sell. She did find some things worth buying but I think it may have not been her favorite day of this trip.
And for those of you who are wondering, I behaved and only took one or two sips of each wine to taste it and then poured out the rest. What a waste but I was driving and had to behave. I think I may have only had the equivalent of a single glass of wine all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment