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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, July 12, 2013

Pinot Days 2013


Pinot Days- 2013
San Francisco, CA


We volunteered again at Pinot Days again held at Fort Mason in San Francisco.  We always like volunteering at this event as it is a little more loosely run for volunteers than some of the other events.  Our assignment was to show up at 8:30 and work until 12:30 (although I was told in advance we would be done by 11:30) and float around for assignments.  Most of the actual hard work had been done on the day prior (Saturday) to the event.  I kept busy moving in wine that had been previously shipped by wineries to their tables, helping unpack wine glasses, moving in some wine that arrived Saturday morning with the winery representatives, and organizing wrist bands.  And we were done by 11:30 or so and ready for the Trade Tasting which began at Noon.  We’ll do this again next year.

 Although some of these events have seen declining winery participation in the past few years I think this year’s Pinot Days was pretty close to last year.  I did notice after reading last year’s review that there were definitely some that dropped out but there were also some new ones.  The event was held on June 30th, and if you remember that was snack in the middle of a heat wave but is was a nice mild breezy day in San Francisco.  We always arrive early in order to secure free parking and we found breakfast at the Marina Safeway. 



Prior to the tasting we studied the booklet that lists the participants and noted some wineries that we thought we might like to stop at but really once we got in the room, we had no formal plans or order to taste from.  We do have some favorites we are loyal to and these are not necessarily thought of as ‘must stop’ stops for most of the participants.  Our first stop was to visit Milla Handley of Handley Cellars.  Handley was one of the first wineries in the Anderson Valley and we have been wine club members for over 20 years.   Handley is the one wine club we have pledged to never drop.  Handley wines are great values and the property is beautiful.  We have been to some really nice events at Handley over the years (including the Winemaker Dinner where Maureen, my wife, got lost in the campground after the event and did not find the tent for hours).  As some of the original wine club members we also have access to rent the Handley Farmhouse which is just steps from the tasting room.  Milla is one of the sweetest women in wine that you could ever meet and she was pouring four different Pinots at the event.  I remember her telling us a year or two ago about how nervous she was about putting out a Pinot priced at $50 from her home vineyard perched way above the Valley (above Esterlina if you know the area).  Today $50 and above is pretty common for Anderson Valley Pinots.  Every one of the Pinot’s Milla poured were excellent. 
Milla Handley


Our next official stop, although there was probably a random stop or two in-between, was at MacMurray.  I know I have mentioned this before but MacMurray Pinot is our (mostly Maureen’s) standard that we judge most Pinots against.  Kind of like craft beer where all beers are judged off of Sierra Nevada (although I think for IPA Lagunitas is now the standard).  MacMurray Pinot, whatever it is, just presents consistently those classic (Russian River) Pinot flavors and this holds true even when you are drinking the Sonoma Coast MacMurray instead of the Russian River designated Pinot.  MacMurray has been owned by Gallo for four or so years now.  Kate, Fred MacMurray’s daughter is still an ambassador for the brand but she was not at the event this year.  Instead the table was manned by a Gallo representative (and Chico graduate) that has marketing responsibilities throughout the Gallo portfolio.  We really enjoyed talking to her.  She had two recently hired and good looking Gallo junior representatives with her (one male and one female) learning the ropes.  She told us what Gallo is doing to spruce up some of their wineries including Louis Martini in St. Helena and she was most enthusiastic about the redo of the tasting room at Edna Valley Vineyards in San Luis Obispo. 

Fred MacMurray
 
We tasted both the Sonoma and Russian River Pinots and they were excellent.  We still were not able to garner an invite to the MacMurray Ranch on Westside Road near Healdsburg.  For those of you that have driven by it, it really is beautiful and for those of you who may be Fred MacMurray movie fans, the story of how Fred and his family would spend their summers out of Hollywood and at the ranch are really fascinating.  The Ranch really is open only once a year as it hosts the Taste of Sonoma in the late summer.  We have not gone before because I think it is about a $200 event.


Honestly we were not great tasters at this event.  Our friend Walt would have approved of our lightweight status this day.  I do not know why it was but both of us knew pretty quickly that we were not going to be able to spend hours tasting wine this day.  We knew that we were going to be making Strawberry Daiquiris in the backyard later in the day but for some reason we did not have a lot of tasting spunk.

 
I think we visited less that 20% of the wineries employing different techniques. We tried some new wineries, and then when Maureen rested a bit I tried a couple of wineries with good looking pourers but in general, although we really enjoyed ourselves, we did not do a good job of exploring and tasting. 
 

Some of our highlights and reasons we visited a particular winery- Beauregard Vineyards from Santa Cruz, because their farming history in Santa Cruz dates back for decades.  Blair Estate of Salinas as one of our daughter is named Blair.  Davis Bynum, now owned by Rodney Strong because we had really enjoyed Rodney Strong wines (including the Davis Bynum) at a recent tasting and because, this was one of the good looking pourers.  Expression from Napa came recommended.  Goldeneye Winery of Anderson Valley, because we are fans- I really liked the bargain priced Decoy label here.  JCB (Boisset) because we have visited Raymond a sister winery and we know that the Boisset brands are quality throughout.  Miner Family because I really like their Gary’s and Rosella Vineyard designated Pinots.  Morgan of Carmel Valley because their wines are very reasonably priced for the quality.  Thomas George of Westside Road , Healdsburg as each time we have tasted these wines we have been impressed.  Lastly we stopped at Walt the Hall Winery owned Pinot and Chardonnay maker.  Walt makes many many Pinots and we tasted one from Sonoma and one from the Anderson Valley.


And we did make one more stop- We had noticed earlier that Kosta Browne was a no show.  We had tasted their wines before and we know they have a cult like reputation.  They did show but apparently they showed up late on purpose.  They were pouring three wines.  They drew by far the longest line, although only five minutes or so, and I waited in the line once.  I’m not even sure which wine I had. I was just caught up in the frenzy and was happy to get something.  Maureen did wait twice more and she probably does remember what she drank but I ventured out for some easier pickings.  It is cool to have one of these wineries show at these events.  Certainly they have gained quite a following. 

 
So despite our lack of toughness this day I’d say it was a very good day and we look forward to this event next year.

 

Vitals:
Pinot Days
Ft. Mason, San Francisco
Every Year- Mid/Late June
www.pinotdays.com
 

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