My, aren’t Kathy and I quite the jet-setters now?

Another local Country Club sponsored a wine tasting event last Saturday, and it was a real trip.

Brentwood’s Shadow Lakes Golf Club has a new Event Center, and, despite its “big box” vibe, turned out to be the best venue for the gig. Boutique wineries ringed the walls, finger-food met in the center, and family-style seating became the norm.

Unlike the event last weekend at the Discovery Bay Country Club, which featured sales reps pouring selections from their often-huge winery portfolios, the Shadow Lakes clambake served to showcase individual, small-production wineries at each table around the room. Often, the owner or a member of the family was the one pouring.

Kathy and I adopted our strategy of staking out a seat at one of the round tables, then spelling each other off for food and/or the next pour. It wasn’t long before we were joined at our table by a rollicking party of residents from a nearby 55-and-older residential community. They were an uninhibited bunch, and it didn’t take more than a minute before Kath and I were swapping stories, wine preferences and lots of laughs with our newfound drinking buddies (See photo above; from left: Ed, Carole, Brooke's head and tennis shoe(!), Noreen, Jan, Don and some cheesy blogger). We ended up having a blast; (we closed the place down), and Noreen even sent recipes via e-mail the next day.

And even though there were probably fewer than a dozen wineries participating, some producers brought what seemed like their entire repertoire. You couldn’t possibly sample everything on offer, unless you wanted to end up like the guy in the Oakley Press last week: arrested for DUI on, I kid you not, Chianti Way.

Individual bottles were available for pre-sale, for pick-up at a later date; Kath and I ordered a few different bottles from some of the participants, one of which was our old pal Rock Wall, the new venture from Kent and Shauna Rosenblum. Several months ago, when we were just starting this blog, this father/daughter winemaking team was one of my first interviews. At Shadow Lakes, Rock Wall Wine Co. was pouring their 2008 Zinfandel from Jesse’s Vineyard, a plot of land located a few blocks from our house here in Oakley and managed by Dwight Meadows, one of my latest interviews (everything does seems to come full circle around here). Turns out that Kathy had bought a bottle of this wine several months ago, so we dipped into the stash and pulled the cork a few days after the Shadow Lakes event. The Rock Wall ’08 Jesse’s Zin is just a baby, but at 16.3% alcohol, it’s a baby getting ready to start teething. In the glass, it’s got a young purple color with notes of blue on the rim. The nose is currently subdued, with hints of stone and dark fruits, while on the tongue, smoky earth and blueberry flavors waft up. There’s good acidity here, with some real heft on the “back nine.” The long finish reveals even more flavor. It’s a wine to hang on to for a while, to let it all come together as this baby matures.