Ok, so obviously a saner haul today... although, truth be told, this is only half of it. We had another half-dozen shipped from Cline Cellars to Jenn's office in Jersey. That makes 12 bottles for Wednesday, 40 for the trip so far.
Yesterday we headed to Sonoma, which is like Napa's kid sister - smaller, more relaxed, less crowded. Napa is DisneyWorld for wine, but Sonoma's what you actually picture when you think of wine country: brown and green mountains on the horizon, grapevines stretching out as far as you can see, roads winding through the hills. We started in Carneros, a region where many of the area wineries grow their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes in the rocky soil. We hit Viansa, a winery and market which had been recommended by the server at a Lehigh Valley winery [shudder] we stopped into a few months back. The wines weren't spectacular (we tried their 2005 Reserve Chard, 2005 'Cento per Cento' Chard, 2004 'Athena' Dolcetto, 2003 Piccolo Sangiovese, 2004 'Lorenzo' Merlot, 2004 Prindelo, 2003 Reserve Cabernet, and 2003 Samuele Cab Franc), but their views were.
So, well worth the trip.
After that we hit Cline Cellars, a 100% solar-powered winery built on the site of an historic hot spring (complete with graffiti from 1877) known for their Zinfandels. I already mentioned having six bottles shipped, so obviously we liked their stuff. We tasted their 2006 Ancient Vines Carignane (and bought 1 bottle), 2005 Ancient Vines Mourvedre, 2005 Cool Climate Syrah (2 bottles), 2005 Zin, 2006 Ancient Vines Zin, 2004 Bridgehead Zin, 2005 Big Break Zin, 2005 Live Oak Zin (2 bottles), 2005 Small Berry Mourvedre (1 bottle) and 2004 Los Carneros Syrah. Our server then slipped us a little 2004 Late Harvest Mourvedre, a dessert wine that actually wasn't cloyingly sweet.
After Cline, we headed up into the lower Russian River Valley, making several stops along the way. First was DeLoach Vineyards, a fairly common label with some even more common-tasting wines. We had their 2005 Van Der Kamp Pinot Noir, 2005 Maboroshi Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2005 Green Valley Pinot Noir, 2005 Forgotten Vines Zin, and 2003 Gambogi Ranch Zin. The less said about those, the better.
We then stopped next door at Sunce, a tiny tasting room where we tried a 2005 Pinot Noir, 2005 Sangiovese, 2005 Zinfandel (1 bottle), 2005 Syrah, 2005 Cab Franc, and 2004 Meritage Reserve.
Next was Martinelli, whose tasting room was in a barn and was half full of Cracker Barrel-type goodies. They offered their 2005 Russian River Valley Chard, 2005 Bella Vigna Chard, 2005 Bella Vigna Pinot Noir, and 2005 Giuseppe and Luisa Zin, which was quite good but didn't quite compare with some of the other Zins we'd tried.
And then (you can just crank through these places in the Russian River - which isn't necessarily a good thing [foreshadowing]) we hit Porter Creek, a very friendly winery with a great dog named Sky. He'd been saved from the pound only a week before, but already met visitors at their car, escorted them to the tasting room, and then escorted them back to their cars at the end. They had some nice wines too - they tasted a Chard, a Pinot Noir, a Syrah, a Carignane, and a Zin - we bought the nutty, almost crunchy Chard which I liked a lot, and the velvety Zin.
Next up, Rochioli, a small vineyard with a big reputation who offered only two wines, a 2006 Estate Sauvignon Blanc and a 2005 Pinot Noir Special Cuvee. Both were subtle, maybe too much so.
The server at Porter Creek had recommended De La Montanya, so we stopped there next. On the opposite end of the spectrum from Rochioli, DLM offered ten tastes. At our eighth winery. You can kinda see where that might end up.
A quick note: the owner of De La Montanya has managed to carve out quite the Bacchanalian life for himself. His wine labels have a pin-up theme, with one series featuring replica paintings of '40s-style pin-up girls; put another series features wine club members posing pin-up style. So the guy not only lives in a gorgeous valley, making good wine, but he cherry-picks his customers to pose in various states of undress for him. Live the dream, buddy.
Anyway, take a deep breath and here's the roster at DLM: 2005 Fume Blanc, 2005 Summer White (a breezy blend of Vignier, Sauvignon Blanc and Gewurtztraminer that has surprising depth of flavor; we bought a bottle), 2005 Chardonnay, 2005 PinUp Rose, 2005 DLM Pinot Noir, 2004 Flying Rooster Red (a blend of Pinot Noir, Cab Franc, Cab Sauv, and Pinot Meunier), 2004 DLM Syrah, 2005 Felta Creek Zin, 2005 DLM Primitivo (we bought a bottle of this one, too, though I'm not quite sure how I could even taste it at this point), and the 2004 PinUp Cabaret (a blend of Cab Sauv, Zin & Syrah). She then poured a little taste of their chocolaty dessert wine. As I may have mentioned before, I'm not much for dessert wines.
So I'm not quite sure how I got out of there on my own volition by that point. But we'd been drinking from 10-3:30 without much food (we got sick of big, diner-style breakfasts and have resorted to the continental at the hotel for the last couple days), so we went driving through the valley looking for a deli. After a few wrong turns and stops we found one, and grabbed a couple of sandwiches and non-alcoholic beverages.
That served to reorient my system pretty well, so we got back on the road and headed into the town of Healdsburg, where we wandered and sobered and eventually got a dinner at a brewery (for the burgers, not the brews - I stuck with soda). Then we just struck out for home and an early night of TV and nothing.
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