John had read about the up and coming wineries located in the Anderson Valley region of California's wine country. The wineries we chose to visit were located north of Booneville on the same twisty, narrow road we drove up here on, Hwy 128. It took us about an hour to drive the 40 miles to the first winery on our list.
Almost all the wines we tasted were estate wines or a blend of grapes from vineyards located in Anderson Valley. Our first stop was Roederer Vineyards. They specialize in bubbly wine and was a real treat for me so I insisted that we buy a bottle. Next was Handley Winery. We bought a bottle of their Pinot Noir and when John checked it out, it has a rating of 91. We knew it was pretty good but had no idea it was rated that highly.
We did a tasting at Navarro Wines, which came highly recommended by Wine Spectator. We bought a half bottle to have with our lunch on their lawn. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not too many people are visiting the wineries today, most likely because of the music festival. Therefore, we had two empty benches where we grabbed a quick nap.
The fourth winery was Toulouse but we didn't find any there that we liked although the people really knew their wine and had some good suggestions for food parings. More than four wine tastings in one day is really pushing the limit. At this point we couldn't decide if we liked a wine or not as our taste buds were becoming overwhelmed (or was it the alcohol affecting our brains?) but we pushed on to our last stop, Breggo Winery. We liked their wines, we think, but we really enjoyed visiting with the other customers and the young lady serving the wine.
We returned back to the RV via a short cut more directly over the coastal mountains but it took about the same time since the road was so narrow and curvy. In the little town of Manchester we saw these sculptured trees.
No comments:
Post a Comment