Tasting Out of the Barrel ~ Wine Tasting

It's the beginning of March, it's 70+ degrees, the first weekend of Barrel Tasting in the Dry Creek Valley, which means great wines, good food and phenomenal people watching.

What more can one ask for?!

Not much.

Our journey along the Wine Road began at Dutton Estate, where my friend, Debbie works....

We sampled some delicious wines right out of the barrel.....which will only get better with age. 
We collected our samples directly from Terry, the wine maker.

Dutton wines were paired with very moist pulled pork and corn bread....so good.

There were 130 wineries participating in Barrel Tasting weekend this year.  We managed to visit four of them.  A. Rafanelli, in Healdsburg, was our second stop. 

Rafanelli wines are not sold retail, only restaurants and on special wine event weekends....Barrel Tasting weekend is my opportunity to stock up on a few bottles.

There's is always a line to enter the tasting room at Rafenelli, but the people pleasers that they are, always have someone pouring down the line while you're waiting.......

Hello Big Bold Zin......

After our 15 minute wait to enter the tasting room, we were not disappointed.....we tasted, bought and tasted a little more.

 All the wineries have beautiful scenery with everything beginning to bloom which = great photos, but not so great for allergies.....but I didn't complain.....at least not til later...

We were on a mission.  We knew what wineries we wanted to hit, a list of top priorities.  Third stop, Bella Vineyards and Wine Caves.....

Bella has beautiful grounds that include a picnic area with shaded tables under majestic trees, a country shabby chic tasting room, and cool, dark wine caves...........

a fabulous pairing of bacon and grits with their wines.  

Bacon, I was in heaven.

We spent at least an hour at Bella, I don't think any of us wanted to leave. 

But we did.....finally.

On to Armida, our last stop of the day. 

For me, Armida is more about visual stimulation.  They have two tasting rooms; one where the Chardonnay is poured...."Heaven" and the second where all the reds are poured... "Hell".

"Hell" was the happening place.....for some.

Already looking forward to the next event.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment. I love to hear from you! Have a fantastic day!

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Sonoma Marin Fair Appreciation Dinner

Last night we were running late to attend the Sonoma-Marin Fair Appreciation Dinner at the fairgrounds.  We had our bi-monthly vet appointment for the dairy cows scheduled, which needs to happen when milking is just about finished at the end of the day.  But that's the life of a dairyman {and family}, we never make it in time for appetizer hour and barely make in time for dinner many times.  But we made it, with food left to spare.

The Fair Appreciation Dinner is put on by the board members {one of the many Boards Dominic sits on} to thank the many volunteers that work leading up to and during the Sonoma-Marin Fair. There were around 250 people in attendance.

Here, Jeff James, President of Sonoma-Marin Fair and local winery owner - James Family Cellars, calls up and hands out a recognition award to the committee that organized Farmers Day at the fair.

CEO of Sonoma Marin Fair, Pat, thanks the crowd.
















Oh and the dinner that was served to all 250 people in attendance was yummy BBQ chicken, macaroni salad , green salad, and the beans must have been really good because they were all gone by the time we got there.

A local 4H club was gaining some community service points by helping at the event.  They cleaned up tables, served ice cream sandwiches for dessert and helped to take down decorations at the end of the event.

Bryce and Paige were eager to help as well.  Here, they were helping Daddy hand out some recognition pins.

Paige immediately befriended all the 4H girls and asked to tag along with them offering to help with anything she could.

They gave away a good amount of raffle prizes after dinner.  Both Paige and Bryce wanted to help with that as well.

While they were busy working, I was checking the score of the Giants game on my new Droid.....love this thing!  But poor Giants....they did not fare well.  Hopefully they'll work it out for Saturday's game.

We came away from the evening with a bottle of some award winning wine.

Maybe we'll drink it tonight, at home on this rainy night, in front of a roaring fire.

Happy Friday!  Cheers!
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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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