Our travel day. We had nothing planned since it was the weekend, so we took the long way round toward Sonoma, and stopped at Artesa. From an design perspective, this may be the most interesting winery in Napa. For those of you who haven't been there, it's built like a bunker, and it's not easy to see even as you drive up the road toward it. Ah, but when you get there... there are fountains at the bottom, water running in troughs down the stairway to the entrance, and a reflecting pool with fountains at the top. There are several outlook area for photo ops, and the view of Domaine Carneros is awesome! Inside, there is a bunch of modern art on the walls, more fountains, an exhibit of 500 year old Spanish (Artesa is still owned by Codorniu) winemaking/sparkling winemaking equipment, and, oh yes, a tasting room.
We sampled the basic wines, and liked the Carneros chard and the RRV pinot best. Bought 2 of each.
On our way to Landmark (where we stayed for a week), we made the mistake of trying to drive through the Sonoma Plaza. There was an event going on, so we had to detour to get back on track.
Since we were too early to check into our cottage, we drove around Sonoma Valley to reacquaint ourselves with the landscape. We stopped at the new Mayo winery in Glen Ellen, and found out that there was a special 'Zin' event, cosponsored by 8 local wineries. The deal (for a mere $5) was to buy a special tasting glass, and try all the zins that these wineries had to offer. The Mayo zins were nothing to write home about, so we tried a few others. We stopped at both VJB and Loxton. Neither of these places had a wine that I would consider worth purchasing. After that, we stopped at Arrowood to try to schedule a tour for later in the week, but the 'tour guy' was unavailable.
We finally got into our cottage, then set off to Healdsburg. We went up Dry Creek Road to Nalle Vineyards. They make pinot and zin, but the pinot was sold out, and the zin was so-so.
By that time, we were ready to go to Wilson for their Wine Club pig roast. What a feast!! Not one, not two, but three spit-roasted pigs were turning when we arrived. All the Wilson wines were available for consumption, including the newly released 02 Sawyer Vineyard zin. I'll be purchasing a few of these when the wine club fall shipment is announced. We met Ken and Diane Wilson, and the rest of the tasting room staff. They were great hosts, and in addition to the food and drink, they hired a band to entertain, and there was dancing on the patio. We ate and drank our fill, and retreated back to the Kenwwod area for our first night in the Landmark cottage.
I won't be reporting on Sunday (day 2) as it was spent with my wife's cousin and her husband. We did a bunch of non wine-related stuff, as they are not too much into wine at this time. Monday will be a different story.
