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Northern California
Our Story and Mission- Ever since we were old enough to drink wine, we have been frequenting winery tasting rooms throughout California. Our trips in the late 70’s involved stops at 6-8 wineries (or maybe more) in a day. My first date with my wife was a day of wine tasting in Sonoma 31 years ago. So we are experienced with this stuff. I think there are several ingredients to a satisfying Tasting Room experience. The wine has to be good for starters and generally the known wineries all put out pretty decent wine. But there are other key factors in making the experience memorable. Sometimes a classy tasting room works for us, but sometimes standing around a barrel outside does the trick. At other times it is just good service that pleases us. Certainly one of the keys is the person serving the wine. So there are a whole bunch of things that make visiting a Tasting Room a positive experience. The point of this blog is to talk about and recommend Winery Tasting Rooms where we have had good experiences.The blog was conceived after spending a weekend with my sisters who normally do not frequent wineries and running into a couple of disappointing stops.

Friday, June 15, 2012

TAPAS - Grand Wine Tasting
San Francisco, CA

TAPAS is an acronym for Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society and they held their annual Grand Tasting event last weekend at Fort Mason in San Francisco.  Although we have gone to many of the other annual tastings at Ft. Mason (ZAP, Family Wine Makers, Pinot Days, Rhone Rangers) this was our first time at this event.  Represented were 40-45 wineries that all produce one or more of the Spanish and Portuguese varietal wines.  Tempranillo was certainly the most common wine being poured but there was also Garnacha, Albarino, Verdejo, Graciano, Mouvedre, Touriga , Souzao and Torrontes  (in no particular order here).  Being pretty new to these wines we tended to stick to the Albarino’s (the most common white wine) and the Tempranillo.  For those of you that have not drunk a lot of Tempranillo I think you will find a lot of variety of flavors depending on where it is grown but the short description of the wine is- medium to full bodied red wine, low acid and characteristics of plum, cherry and strawberry.  We found most of it to be rather tasty.

Although we are seasoned tasters, we are not spitters (unless the wine is un-drinkable) so although this was a small event at 45 wineries we did not make it to most of them.  At these events sometimes it is good to have a strategy (some of which I cannot mention) and sometimes just wandering around works for you.  We quickly surveyed the room and I can say we were probably unfamiliar with 2/3rds of the wineries pouring.  The first three we stopped at were familiar ones that we know make good wine.  Our first stop was Viader, who we know makes excellent Cabernet, and our second stop was Truchard.  Both were pouring a single Tempranillo and both were good.  Our next stop was Kenneth Volk Vineyards who have really jumped into the Spanish/Portuguese varietals.  Volk, who was pouring had four whites and four reds.  For those of you unfamiliar with Kenneth Volk, his first winery was Wild Horse, which he founded and sold off, and he how operates the winery bearing his name based in Santa Maria along the central coast.  We learned a little bit about the white varietals here but decided that the balance of the day was going to be for mostly red wine tasting.  Later in the day I noticed the longest lines at Kenneth Volk indicating their good reputation.

Other wineries we enjoyed were Irwin Family (Nevada County grapes), Terchovich (Yolo County grapes) and Match Book from the Crew Wine Company.  Match Book is one of the new wine brands from the founders of R/H. Phillips/Toasted Head.  Virtually all wine growing regions were represented at the event including a winery from Oregon as well as Arizona and Texas. 
If you are interested in tasting a bunch of wines without having to drive these kinds of events can really be a lot of fun.  We took public transportation to SF and a cab to the event and spent the night in the City.  The area is also great for walking around after the event for cooling down or possibly sobering up a bit.  One direction takes you to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and the other to Ghirardelli Square/Fisherman’s Wharf.  You might want to put this on your schedule for next year.  Chances are you will be able to taste some wines you have not had before from some wineries you have also never seen or heard of before.
Vitals-
TAPAS
Ft. Mason, San Francisco
Every Year- Early June

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