My Own Personal Barrel Tasting
There are lots of "Barrel Tasting" events here in Wine Country. These are fun events on a number of levels. You get to taste wines still maturing in barrel, sip from bottled wines, take advantage of discounts, eat good food, enjoy music and entertainment at the wineries and generally just party.
This weekend is the barrel tasting for wineries in my neighborhood: "SAVOR SONOMA VALLEY: A BARREL TASTING AND CULINARY EXPERIENCE."
The name of the event is a bit grandiose, I’ll admit. (an "Experience!!!"…cleaning up after my dog that lays one next to the pool is an "experience too.). But the fun thing about this event is that it really is "local". It’s a bit of a community event as it tends to bring out neighbors who get in their cars and drive from winery to winery. After about the 6th winery you are seeing the same people you saw at winery #2 and #4. You are talking about the local school, asking about neighbors, and eventually, at about winery #8 you find yourself on the lawn of a winery with a bottle of wine, a plate of something grilled and about 6 other people comparing notes and thinking life is pretty good.
If you decide to come to this event, know that it’s not ALL of Sonoma Valley’s wineries that participate. Actually it’s only those wineries that live in the northern part of Sonoma Valley around the towns of Glen Ellen and Kenwood and are part of the "Heart of Sonoma Valley" organization.
These wineries and co-op tasting rooms include:
Audelssa Wine Estates/Navillus Birney Winery & Vineyards
B.R. Cohn Winery
Benziger Family Winery
Blackstone Winery
Chateau St. Jean
Eric Ross Winery
Imagery Estate Winery
Kenwood Vineyards
Kunde Estate Winery & Vineyards
Landmark Vineyards
Ledson Winery & Vineyards
Loxton Cellars
Mayo Family Winery
SL Cellars
St. Francis Winery & Vineyards
VJB Vineyards & Cellars
Valley of the Moon
Wellington Vineyards
The Wine Room
You can find tickets and get more information about the SAVOR SONOMA VALLEY BARREL TASTING HERE.
Yeah, it really is a “Valley of the Moon” event, to be sure. I’ve been doing it since ’99 and, in general, I love it.
The downside of course is that it’s getting really popular, to the point that they now specifically limit the size of vehicles that visit each winery (isn’t it something like “buses of less than 24 people”?).
In recent years, we’ve started at B.R. Cohn, replete with Doobie Brothers references (and a halfway decent gourmet store) and end up inevitably sitting around the table in the garden at Kaz, everyone wondering “what the poor people are doing”.
This year, I’m jazzed about Moon Mountain joining the fray, also I’m going to visit some of the wineries I usually give a pass to (such as SL Cellars and Blackstone).
As you might guess, I’m really looking forward to the weekend.
–R