Days of Wine And Rosemary

Mac and I were lucky enough to expe­ri­ence a lit­tle wine tast­ing in Sonoma, California towards the end of October. For the first time, we took time off dur­ing our busiest sea­son and left the stu­dio in the capa­ble hands of our staff for a few days.

Anthony Pino, chef extra­or­di­naire and owner of 3 fab­u­lous restau­rants in Hoboken — invited us to join him as a sur­prise for his wife, Liz who was cel­e­brat­ing a very spe­cial birthday. Both Mac and I have not seen the area and were thrilled to be going with food­ies who were reg­u­lar vis­i­tors and know their wine.

As we drove into the area, the scent of crushed grapes and rose­mary hit me. Our first stop was Viansa Winery. With a bot­tle of Sangoviese, bread, cheese, figs and meats and an amaz­ing view from the ter­race, this was a great intro­duc­tion to the area. Staying in the beau­ti­ful Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma, we enjoyed spa treat­ments and deli­cious meals by the fire from the pri­vate restau­rant on site.

Anthony’s Manager at Bin 14 was kind enough to set up some pri­vate wine tast­ings for us and we thor­oughly enjoyed the spe­cial treat­ment which came from accom­pa­ny­ing a chef. The tim­ing was per­fect, to add to the breath­tak­ing scenery, it was har­vest­ing sea­son and we took in the sights on both Napa and Sonoma. On the first day, the hotel dri­ver hav­ing dis­cov­ered his client had can­celed, offered us a tour of some of his favorite vineyards…how could we refuse!?

Our first stop was Crocker and Starr , a charm­ing bou­tique vine­yard, proud of its organ­i­cally farmed red and white wine. Pam Starr, the enthu­si­as­tic co-​owner, stopped by for a few min­utes with only one thing on her mind… would it rain in the next 48 hours? She was kind enough to spend a few min­utes with us before rac­ing back to the crush­ing of her pre­cious grapes. We were then whisked off for lunch at a lux­u­ri­ous hotel called Auberge Du Soleil which is built into hill­side with fan­tas­tic views. Del Dotto, known as Del Blotto by the locals, was the next stop of the day. A much larger oper­a­tion –also organ­i­cally farmed– this vine­yard has an impres­sive tast­ing house, and a cave where we were invited to taste the wine direct from the bar­rel. I have to say it was deli­cious and we left with our wal­lets a lit­tle lighter.

Our last stop of the day was Forth Vineyards a smaller pri­vately owned vine­yard in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley, and is prob­a­bly our most mem­o­rable visit. The charm­ing owner, Jann Forth, actu­ally took time from crush­ing grapes to show us around, explain how the wine was made and serve the tasty wine from the land sur­round­ing us. It really was a plea­sure to taste each wine as she pointed to the hill that it came from. We watched the grapes being hand­picked as her hus­band and son crushed and trans­ferred them into huge vats. Arriving back at the hotel, we man­aged to eat and fall into bed.

The next day took us to a pri­vate tast­ing in the Oakville region of Napa at Franciscan Vineyards. Another marathon tast­ing ensued — deli­cious reds fol­lowed by a fan­tas­tic lunch of bread and local cheeses on a pic­nic table out­side Oakville Grocery sur­rounded by the vineyards.

At this point we needed a break and returned to our hotel before head­ing out that evening to cel­e­brate Liz’s birth­day with a meal at Dry Creek Kitchen, a Charlie Parker restaurant.

Short but sweet, I think we got a taste of what the area has to offer and can­not wait to return!