Wine tasting

We need wine for Thanksgiving… I have written about this before… so today T and I went wine tasting…

Wine tasting is a very common local tourist activity… we are close to wineries… lots of wineries… we enjoy wine… we visit wine country… regularly… we have wine grapes in our backyard… but for the last 15 years or so we haven’t gone wine tasting… probably for the same reasons that New Yorkers don’t visit the Statue of Liberty…

Off to the north… to the Russian River area… near Healdsburg… Its about 100 miles away… The official goal was a Pinot Noir to partner with the turkey… Some years ago (15 years + some years ago) we really enjoyed a Pinot made by Bear Boat… at the time it was made by either J Winery (who mostly make Champagne) or their neighbor Rodney Strong… Now it’s made in Hopland, another 100 miles north… I haven’t found it at our local wine shops, so we decided to drive north and find an alternative…

First stop Rodney Strong… Good Pinot, but not “The” Pinot, but we really liked their “Symmetry”, a Meritage red… we bought that for Thanksgiving plus a Cab, and a really good Zin for home consumption, and a Port … we are taking that on the South American Cruise… We were looking for a oaky chardonnay, but didn’t find it. We asked for and got suggestions for other wineries…

Then off to Healdsburg and lunch in a tapas place… great lunch… Tina had a glass of David Bruce Chardonnay that gave us a fall back if we didn’t find anything else… (fall back doesn’t do the wine justice… it just wasn’t yet THE wine…) we walked about a bit around the square bought Emma (our dog) a Christmas scarf, and found the Kendal Jackson tasting room… They have a really nice soft Pinot… a great red wine for people who might otherwise drink white wine…It makes the dinner list. We buy a bottle… plus a Cabernet Franc for us…

Then off up along Dry Creek Valley… It is fall, the grapes have been harvested, the leaves are turning colors, the trees are changing colors… this isn’t Vermont, but it is fall in a beautiful place….

The folks at Rodney Strong had recommended several wineries… first Papapietro-Perry… they make Pinots and Zinfandels… They are up on a hill with 4 other small wineries and an olive works… We only visited Papapietro Perry… we tasted 2 Zins and 2 Pinots… we bought a Pinot…this one for us… They have a winery dog, complete with a tag on his collar saying “please don’t feed me”… They started making wine in their garage… we are now making wine in our garage… do I see a future for us… Tina doesn’t think so…

Finally we cross over to the west side of the valley to visit Preston… a winery with 13 cats in place of the typical dogs… Its more than just a winery… they have a garden and vegetable for sale… anything you want for $2.00 a lb… olives, and wine, all organic… from a solar powered building… We bought a pinot for home consumption here…

We headed home… stopped for ice cream in San Rafael, across the bridge… San Francisco at dusk… it was really pretty, clear skies and a brightly lit skyline, a ferry passing Alcatraz… we drove south along the Embarcadero…

At home we unload the wine, set the bottles aside for the trip to Virginia… then as I put the other bottles away I find that I have 3 bottles of 2004 Trefethen Chardonnay stashed away… perfect for the Chardonnay for the dinner… so now we only need a champagne… That shouldn’t take a tasting trip…

On other things…

T and I are trying to loose weight… lots of weight… we plan to loose a kindergartner each… We are doing this together… mostly watching calories, (goal, 1,200 to 1,500 a day) and shrinking portions… it’s working… we are both down more than 25 lbs… each, 50 lbs combined… even with eating out a couple of times a week… So today on the travel channel (sometimes a better food channel than Food TV) they visit a place that deep fries Twinkies… and announce a deep fried Twinkie has no less than 785 calories… I think I will pass…

On the travel front, my son is planning a trip for us… Spring 2011… yes, 18 months out… He figures his ship will be returning from an overseas deployment… and on the return from an overseas deployment the Navy usually offers sailors (and even officers) a chance to invite family and friends to join the ship’s company for a “Tiger Cruise”. I joined the crew of the DDG 86, the Shoup just over a year ago as they sailed from Hawaii to Everett Washington… We, the HT and DC group, with dad’s and one grandpa had a great time… the kids want to do it again, including inviting at least one sailor who has since left the Navy and his dad… I’m in…

And finally, the “New Years Cross Country drive” is taking shape… We picked up the car Saturday… I realized that our route will take us through Amarillo Texas, home of the Cadillac Ranch (http://www.libertysoftware.be/cml/cadillacranch/crmain.htm) , a 1970’s art installation by “Ant Farm” consisting of 10 post war Cadillacs buried nose down, tail fins up, as history of design, and a statement of the future of automobiles… It makes an appearance in Pixar’s CARS. It is iconic… They published a book about the project in 1976…. As a recent high school graduate I bought a copy… the project ignited my imagination… I still have the book. Now I will make the pilgrimage to the site… They suggest we take spray cans and contribute… will it be flames, or maybe a decoupage… Maybe pages from the book… I am not sure… but it needs to be something….