Saturday, December 29, 2012

‘Twas Three Days Before Christmas

And up in Sonoma,

‘Twas a feast full of color,
Mouthfeel and aroma.

Hey, so what’s new, huh?

Well, this time our little jaunt up to Sonoma Valley last Saturday began with one of Kathy’s screaming Internet deals from livingsocial: an 80-minute massage for each of us, preceded by a refreshing glass of bubbly, at the Sonoma Holistic Center, located a mere chakra’s throw from the downtown Plaza square in the actual historic city of Sonoma.

It was wonderful! So much so that my blood pressure stayed out of the red zone when having to make a left turn onto the main drag afterward.

And since we were at the south end of the Valley anyway, it didn’t take a whole lot of arm-twisting to get Kath and me to motor a few clicks north to Kenwood and our new hang, Naked Wines. As posted before, we’ve amassed a considerable, if quickly eroding, “store credit” with Naked, having scored three $500 NaWi vouchers at substantial discounts during Sonoma County PBS station KRCB’s recent on-air wine auction.

It’s always a great time up at the NaWi wine works; tasting room diva Ashley, director of winemaking Robin, and founder-slash-honcho Rowan are convivial and generous hosts up at the ranch. Last Saturday, December 22, K and I tasted a few new releases from some of our fave winemakers in the NaWi stable, including more than one Pinot Noir, which broadens their already extensive varietal portfolio.

Our plan was to not make it a full day on the wine road, but since we were next already heading south to go back home to Oakley, Kath suggested that, since we’ve had a two-for-one Internet coupon for Imagery Estate gathering moss in our voucher file, let’s live a little before hitting the return leg in earnest.

Ow, Ow: my arm.

We’d visited Imagery, a sprawling site neighboring the Arrowood winery, a sibling winery to Benziger, some time back, but we must have hit the joint on an event day. That time, the place was packed to its well-appointed rafters; there was no chance of nosing, let alone bellying, up to the tasting bar. And if I remember correctly, I think I even got into it with a couple of walking dudes who refused to move from the middle of the road as we were trying to leave the parking lot. Good times.

But this time, the Saturday before Christmas, could not have been better, and all thanks to the woman behind the stick, our pourer Karen. She gave us her full attention, and we must have talked grape with her for an hour, all the while being treated to off-the-menu selections and bottle pours from under the table. Kathy looked around and noticed that almost every other host/hostess at the bar was sticking strictly to whatever was printed on the tasting card; Karen hooked us up, boy-eeeeeee.

Check out Kath’s snap of Imagery’s hearth at the end of the tasting room: Karen’s hospitality had us glowing like that proverbial Yule log.

And the extra presents under the Imagery tree concerned our purchase of a gorgeous (gustatorily and visually: as befits the name “Imagery,” every selection sports original artwork on the label) bottle of 2008 Lagrein crafted by winemaker Joe Benziger. Lagrein is a Northern Italian varietal grape, rarely seen in these parts, and sourced from French Camp Vineyards in California’s Paso Robles region (Jacuzzi, too, does a Lagrein, also sourced from Paso).

It seems that Karen forgot to charge us the “one” in “two-for-one.” And she figured that we were wine club members entitled to a significant discount. Or maybe she was just slyly spreading a little extra holiday cheer to a couple of wine lovers heading home.

Ho, ho, hope it’s the latter: our own little Miracle on Highway 12.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Of Bivalves and Bubbly

Oyster jones, y’all.

Fortunately, Kathy had an appointment in das city, and we agreed to meet après for snappy hour © at Waterbar, on the San Fran waterfront by the Ferry Building.

Four dozen oysters at $1 each, but no Muscadet on the list? I’m shocked, Rick, shocked!

But with dollar oysters available from 1130h to 1800h, a crisp Sauvignon more than did the do. It took a while to snag a table; this is no secret happy hour.

Last Saturday evening was the Holiday Open House for Hess wine club members, up the winding Mt. Veeder road at the lower end of the Napa Valley.

Kath and I decided to make an afternoon of it, with an overnight stay due to the twilight start of the event.

Now, I have a file for each of our regular regional wine haunts: a Livermore folder; a Lodi folder; upper Sonoma (Healdsburg, Dry Creek, Russian River) and lower Sonoma (Carneros, Santa Rosa, Kenwood, Glen Ellen) each, among other regions, has its own — if we visit a delineated wine area, it has an informal plastic-sleeved dossier consisting of maps and tasting coupons for that region.

We brought our Napa Valley infopak, the proverbial heart on/in said plastic sleeve. Plus, with 2012 (and maybe more; I’m typing this on 12/12/12 after all: Holla, Mayans in das house!), coming to an end, K and I thought that this might be a great opportunity to avail ourselves of our Lot 18 card, which obviated so many Napa tasting fees until the end of this year.

Nothing lasts forever, despite what DeBeers would have you believe, and we figured that, aside from a wine club connection with Hess, this could be a nicely civilized “Shalom” to the Napa “Twenty-Dollar-Tasting-Fee-Not-Refundable-With-Purchase” Valley.

Highway 29, the Valley’s main drag is a winery’s Pushmi-Pullyu: bachelorette parties, tiaras: It’s all good, as long as we don’t have to share the bar with the Cosmo sippy cup.

Hit Clif Family up in St. Helena, one of our Lot 18 entreaties. Kath and I had the great fortune to meet both founders, Gary and Kit, as we sipped the Clif Family juice. We met them both, and then, as my bro at Cambridge might say, they were on their bike.

We’ve really dug being Hess club members. For one thing, as Kathy says, it’s like having a membership to an art museum, with the bonus of a complimentary open wine bar downstairs.

We also dig that Hess Collection winemaker Randle Johnson has embarked on his “Artezin” label side project spotlighting varietal grapes, not, as the nomenclature might suggest, just Zinfandel, some of which are sourced from vineyard sites, such as Evangelho, in our Oakley ‘hood.

Apparently I get paid by the comma.