Doing Our Part to Support Agriculture=Wine Tasting

Wine tasting and supporting agriculture go hand and hand don't they?!  Of course they do...works for me.  A couple of friends and I took a day to go wine tasting.  I had never visited Hanna Winery and am so glad my friend, Debbie introduced me to it because I am definitely going back.  Hanna has two wineries; one in Russian River Valley {where we were at} and the other in Alexander Valley.

Not only is Hanna absolutely 100% accommodating to their customers, they also have delicious wines!  We tasted everything on their list and bought some of their Pinot Noir to have ourselves a little picnic at their outdoor picnic table.  It was a beautiful day after the fog cleared in the afternoon so we were able to enjoy the nice warm weather while eating and wine sampling. 

Their Bismark wines were really good and went so well paired with the dark chocolate they served us.

Hanna Winery is only about 15 minutes from Debbie's house so we didn't travel far.  I love the little wineries, they really seem to excel in customer service.  Most of the time they wave the tasting fee, where as the larger wineries tend not to do this {probably because they're not allowed to} but this is such a bonus with the smaller wineries.

We brought with us quite the spread for a picnic.  Deb and Wendy had never tasted Portuguese cheese before and since I grew up on the stuff, it's one of my favorite cheeses.  It's a hard cheese with a bold, slightly salty and nutty flavor that goes extremely well with crusty bread.  I could eat this every day for lunch.....so good!

We also had a variety of other cheeses, fruit and some salami as well.

We devoured the loaf of whole grain crusty bread.....such a treat!

Debbie and Wendy

Thank you Hanna, we'll be back very soon.

Our next and final stop was Balletto Winery...just six minutes away.

Here's some of their grapes...Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on the back of the plate.  Beautiful colors.

At around 4:30 we headed back to Deb's house where our friend, Jody was waiting.  More wine sampling on the back patio ensued. 

It's amazing how wine tasting really gets the creative juices flowing.  Wendy works for GoPro which is a company that makes sports action, digital, wearable cameras that you would find on race cars, surf boards and helmets and such.  You can strap them on your body, car, set one at a stationary place to record, they work under water....you get the idea.  Well we came up with the idea of maybe strapping one to one of our dairy cows......an afternoon in the life of a dairy cow.  How ingenious, right?!  Well, maybe if I end up with a GoPro camera and I can figure out a way to strap one onto a cow without it being rubbed off we'll do it.

After our patio conversation, we thought dinner might be in order. 

We made a fresh from the garden green salad with carrots, cucumbers, tomato, radish and green onion.

Debbie made a chicken breast entree that was SO good.  It was stuffed with spinach, feta, dried apricots and I think pine nuts too.  Served with sauteed zucchini, rice pilaf, pasta salad and some yummy cheese bread.

Gosh, it felt like we were on vacation at a wine country inn.  After dinner we headed into Deb's living room to have dessert and enjoy the view out her window which overlooks the adjacent property's wine grapes and apple orchard.

While eating chocolate cake.

Jody, Wendy and little pup, Mason.

Mason SO wanted a piece of chocolate cake.

After dessert and to finish off our day, a game of Liar's Dice began.

With some intense competition.....but all in the name of fun and good times!

Happy Sunday!

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