My aunt was in Sonoma a few weeks ago for a class, so we met up with her for the afternoon. We went for lunch in Sebastapol, then headed out for some wine tasting.
We just randomly picked a vineyard, and drove out through wine country, down a deserted, twisty gravel road. I figured it was either going to be completely gorgeous, or we’d be murdered by brigands.
Luckily there wasn’t a brigand in sight, and I am still alive to post this.
They specialized in sparkling wines, which are my favourite, but they also had a chardonnay flight and a red wine flight, so we got all three so we could try all of them. Our taste pourer was lots of fun and she kept “losing count” so we actually got tons of samples and were quite drunk by the end.
She also mentioned that she gets to bring home any unfinished bottles at the end of the day. We went wine tasting in Livermore last summer, and the pourer there was a retired man who loved wine so much that he volunteered his time, and was paid in cases of wine. I think he was really on to something, and that is definitely a life goal for my later years.
After our tasting we headed into Santa Rosa to check out the Russian River Brewing Company, a very popular spot that brews its own beer, to do some beer tasting (the boy is a good sport, but wine isn’t really his thing) but unfortunately the line was stretched around the block to get a table.
We were just about to head home, when we spotted an adorable little mexican restaurant just down the street, so we stopped in for some tequila tasting and tapas instead.
It was a lovely day, I’m always so excited when anyone from home comes to visit, because it doesn’t happen very often, and there are so many neat places in the Bay to see, but it’s way more fun when you’re showing someone around for the first time.
