Wine tasting

Wednesday night, we formed our plan of action regarding the wineries we wanted to visit.  My challenge was that I know nothing about wine.  Zip. Nada.  I know what tastes good to me, but when you start getting into what different wines smell like, I'm out.  Drew on the other hand, is all about it.  He'll drink a glass of wine and be all, Yes I smell the black currant and a hint of oak with a side of bacon, and I'm like, Smells like grapes.  Oh, oh wait!  And alcohol.


So you can imagine my frustration when he was like Which wineries do you want to see?  He has an amazing talent for asking me questions there's no way I can answer.  As if I have any frame of reference whatsoever when it comes to picking among the 300+ wineries in Sonoma!  Thank GAWD for Abby!  She's one of my readers who kindly emailed me with suggestions - and I didn't even ask!  Between her and Centsational Girl's wine country section, I had names but I didn't know if they were good, where they were or anything.  That frustration led to an argument, I won't lie.  But come on!  I don't know shit about wine!  How am I supposed to pick stuff?  After we both calmed down, we picked some from my list, some from his and formed a plan.


Thursday morning, I woke up unhappy - I couldn't help it.  According to my phone I was to have ovulated that day and I was sad about that.  At breakfast I said as much to Drew and he got annoyed, like I was blaming him or something.  For the record, I know that our relationship needs to be a priority and that trying to conceive should take a backseat for now.  Unfortunately, that knowledge doesn't take away the sting of reality.


So it was in this sunshine-y place that we headed for the first winery.  Remember, sitting in the hotel sulking solves nothing.  We might as well do what we came to do!


First on the list was the Silver Oak winery.  We bickered so much on the ride up that by the time we arrived, Drew wanted to turn the car around and go back.  As if that would fix anything because wherever you go, there you are.  So inside we went.

First shot of the scenery.  

It's been a long time since I've seen mountains

My attempt at being photograph-y and artistic - the lavender was beautiful

and smelled so good!  You can't be mad when you smell lavender, it's a rule.

I'd never been to a winery before and besides being sad and annoyed, I was insanely intimidated.  There was no way I'd be able to talk wine with these people and I quickly learned that the people at the tasting rooms know their stuff!  The girl that was helping us was born and raised in Sonoma and her family owned a vineyard and I found out later that they were very well-known in the wine community (if you care about that sort of thing it was Nicole Bacigalupi, who has the coolest name in the history of ever:  Batchy-ga-loopy.  Love it!)  So I clammed up, making mmm-hmmm noises as I sipped my wine.

The thing about wine tasting is that getting drunk is not the objective.  They don't pour a lot to begin with, but you also usually taste a minimum of six wines at each spot.  Even if you sip, you will end up tipsy by your third winery.  To that end, they provide spit buckets for you to swirl the wine in your mouth, tasting it, and then you spit it out when you're done.  However, I had a small problem.

To me, spitting is disgusting.  I mean, nails-on-a-chalkboard, instantly-want-to-vomit disgusting.  Of all the gross bodily things you can do (picking your nose, farting, etc.) spitting is at the top of my list.  I HATE spitting.  There was no way on God's green Earth I was going to spit, regardless of how accepted it is.  So I sipped until it was gone.  I wasn't yet comfortable enough to pour out the remainder after my first taste.  I thought that they would think I was dumb and knew nothing about wine, which was true but I didn't need it thrown in my face.

I liked Silver Oak and their wines but I couldn't smell the difference between them aside from the obvious.  Shiraz and Zinfandels are easy because they smell very spicy, sometimes like someone dashed a pepper shaker in them.  Bad chardonnays smell like wood.  But besides that?  I'm clueless, and I found myself smiling and nodding like I didn't speak English.  I only opened up when Nicole started talking about her dog.  At last I could relate!

Once we left there, we headed to Bella Vineyards at Nicole's recommendation.  She'd circled a bunch of places for us to go, telling us which ones were worth the trip.

More attempts at being artistic

Bella is known for doing their tastings in a cave.  

It was so cool and the tasting guide was so nice!

Real live wine barrels!  

For a little extra you could have your tasting at the little table for two.

We were content to stand at the bar.

By the time we'd finished at Bella, I'd had the equivalent of three glasses of wine on a mostly-empty stomach.  It was warm and sunny and that was not good for my ability to stay awake.  Unless I'm at the club dancing, drinking makes me sleepy.  I was dragging ass at the next winery, which of course had nowhere to sit.

Across from the tasting room - I have tons of pictures like this.

Robert Young was a good winery, except that their tasting room was teeny, no bigger than my kitchen.  This meant that I was somewhat forced to interact with the tasting guy, although once he determined that Drew was the more knowledgeable of the two of us, he quickly turned his attention to him.  I was so intimidated and sleepy I didn't even care.

After Robert Young came Unti Vineyards.  This tasting room was nothing more than a warehouse with some built-out cubes/offices and a counter for tasting!  But when I tell you they had the yummiest wine!  The guy (I don't know their title.  Sommelier?  Salesperson?  Whatev) was so personable and I opened up to him a little about how uncomfortable I was.  He totally put me at ease and took the time to talk to me as well as Drew which made me feel so good.  We bought a lot of wine from them - that's probably their tactic.  Very smart Unti, very smart!

By that time I was tapped out and I was hungry.  Drew wanted to do more vineyards but I just couldn't.  I knew he was disappointed - because he told me so - but they were all starting to taste the same and I had no desire to get drunk because I would just end up sleeping in the car and that's just boring.  So, with a big ol pouty face, he drove to downtown Sonoma as we'd heard about a restaurant there that we wanted to try.

** - I'm going to break this up because I don't want to hold y'all hostage!  Thanks for staying with me!