How often does a winery sponsor a photography class? I don’t recall any winery offering this type of class or experience. Benovia Winery located in the Russian River Valley AVA just might be the only winery ever to venture into this territory. The class was a great treat for the 32 wine and photo buffs who participated in one of two daylong sessions this past Saturday and Sunday. The attendees were instructed by Con Keyes, a long-time and now retired photographer with the L.A. Times. In addition, Bob Mosby, Benovia’s General Manager, and Tucker Catlin, vineyard developer, were present to lead us around the winery and give us insights into winery operations. The winery even went as far as bringing in some vineyard staff to work the vines, drop late-developing fruit and do some shoot thinning. They were instructed to work slowly so we could capture the “moment” with our digital cameras. Read the rest of this entry »

The Vintage Wine Tasters met this past Wednesday for their bi-monthly meeting to taste and judge six Malbec wines priced around the $20 range or below. Our host was Vintage club member Jerry who did an extraordinary job researching and selecting six different Malbec wines. Jerry threw us a bit of a curve ball by including one California Malbec and one from Cahors, France, among four Argentine wines. As per usual, the wines were bagged and scored using a unique 25-point scoring system. Read the rest of this entry »

We spent a few days last week exploring the wineries around the Placerville area. These wineries are located in El Dorado County near Highway 50 on the way to South Lake Tahoe. We have long enjoyed visiting the wineries in the Fair Play region of El Dorado County but have had little chance to explore the wineries closer to Placerville. On our trip, we visited ten wineries and found three that we think are not to be missed. We highly recommend a visit to Holly’s Hill Vineyards, Sierra Vista Vineyards, and Miraflores Winery.

One thing we love about visiting small wineries is that you often find the owner and/or winemaker working the tasting room. This was exactly the case at Holly’s Hill and Sierra Vista. The entrance ways to these two wineries are next door to each other, so it’s very easy to visit both on the same excursion.

A view of Holly's Hill

This is fig season so why not try making a fig pizza in your oven or on the BBQ grill. I got this recipe for fig pizza thanks to Chef Matt Paille, who created this pizza during his stint at the Manzinata Restaurant in Healdsburg. It really is a fabulous and delicious pizza even though I am still trying to perfect the exact taste of that pizza I had in September of 2009 at the restaurant. Chef Matt sent me the recipe but unfortunately it did not include his recipe for the pistachio pesto that is the base of this pizza. Maybe some of you out there can suggest your favorite recipe for pistachio pesto. I did a search on the Web and found several recipes for the pesto, and from them I concocted my own version included below. Read the rest of this entry »

When we were in college we used to drink Red Mountain wine, a very bad tasting but cheap gallon of wine you could buy at Walgreen’s for $1. It was bulk wine from the Central Valley in California made by Gallo and now a long discontinued label. Last week in the Yakima Valley we tasted several wines that had on the label the designation “Red Mountain.” We could not help but chuckle a bit as we thought about those long-ago Red Mountain college days in contrast to the wines we now tasted from the Red Mountain AVA vineyards of the Yakima Valley. These wines are lush and complex and some of the best wines we have ever tasted. The man most responsible for the development of the prized-Red Mountain AVA is Jim Holmes, who began growing grapes here in 1975. We were lucky enough to do a vineyard walk and listen to how he manages and grows the grapes of his Ciel du Cheval Vineyards.

Jim Holmes at his Ciel du Cheval Vineyards

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One of the best learning experiences we had at the Wine Blogger’s conference in Washington this past weekend was on food and wine pairing. First we attended a seminar by chef Jeffrey Saad which was then followed by a “hands-on” activity in which we walked around to ten different stations, each set up with a food paired with a matching wine. While I can’t duplicate the latter activity for you, I can give you some great and easy tips I learned from chef Jeffrey on pairing food and wine. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the Pre-Conference session of the Wine Bloggers’ Conference. It is a tough and challenging day of tasting fabulous wine and gourmet fare. Here we are at the DuBrul Vineyards, what many think are among the very best vineyards in the state of Washington. The vines are grown on hillside terrain that overlooks the Yakima Valley. The vineyard owners, Hugh and Kathy Shiels, planted these vines in 1992. The Shiels have their own label, Cote Bonneville, and after careful selection of grapes for their own label sell the rest of the vines by rows to several wineries. Fortunately for us, we were able to sample some of the Cote Bonneville wines at lunch and they are amazingly delicious. We would never be able to afford these wines at $120 for a beautiful red blend and $50 for a delicious Chardonnay.

We join a vineyard walk led by DuBrul’s vineyard manager Larry Dolan. As we walk Larry points out that to our right is a Syrah row of vines and to our left is a row of Riesling vines. It is rather remarkable that six varietals of vines grow here and equally produce wonderful wines all within the same climate and soil conditions. As we walk across the rows we can see down below that a crew of women are working to thin the vines. We move closer as Larry explains that some of the women have been at DuBrul for 15 years. They are well trained and need no directions from Larry. They work quickly in 90-degree heat and with precision cut the shoots that don’t belong to these prized grape vines. We hope these woman are paid well; what they do is nothing short of extraordinary.

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We are in the state of Washington until Monday for the 3rd annual Wine Bloggers’ Conference. We have tasted Washington wines before but never to the extent that we will be tasting over the next few days. Over 50 wineries are set to pour and entertain 300 wine bloggers. I’m anxious to find out about Washington wines and the geology and climate of the region. I want to learn all about the Yakima Valley and where that is in relationship to the Columbia Valley. And what about the Walla Walla wine region? What makes the Red Mountain such a highly-prized AVA? What issues do these winemakers have compared to elsewhere? It is dry and hot for sure. On Wednesday, a pre-pre conference day for us, we visited three wineries in the Tri-Cities area near the Pasco airport. The first two wineries we visited had the Alsace Varietals of Riesling, Gerwurtztraminer, and Pinot Gris. I asked our host where these grapes were grown in relation to the red varietals. “Oh,” she said, “in the same area.” I doubt if that is the case but we plan to find out over the next few days. One thing I do know right off is that the days are much longer here than in California and thus affect the growing season. This morning I was awakened shortly after 5 am with a warm sun piercing through my window. Last evening we had a beautiful sunset overlooking the Columbia River at about 8:45. That is a lot more sunshine than we get in California.
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Each time we visit this area of the Sierra Foothills there are new wine adventures to be discovered. This time we found a couple of new wineries and revisited some of our old favorites. We always make our home base the town of Sutter Creek and stay at the Hanford House Inn. Even though the town lacks a really good gourmet restaurant, there are several places to dine within walking distance that offer good meals. Most of the wineries are about a 15-minute drive away on the beautiful backroads of the Shenandoah Valley. Almost all the wineries in this area are small family-owned wineries, and rarely do any charge a fee for tasting wine. Napa Valley, take note!

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We were jammed into the Jacuzzi Winery tasting room on a mid-week day fighting our way to the squeeze among a busload of tourists at the tasting bar. The big tour companies out of San Francisco love this winery. It is an easy drive from San Francisco, and they know tourists from far off places will have a fun time at this spacious facility tasting wine, sampling olive oils, and browsing the merchandise in their store. But it is just not the bus tours that like this place, it is the passersby who spot the winery from the Carneros Highway. Once drivers see the beautiful Italian-style villa they want to find out what is inside. Read the rest of this entry »