Nine o’clock in the morning seems a bit early to start tasting wine, but when World of Pinot Noir offered a vertical tasting of two Grand Crus from Domaine Louis Latour, I was there bright and early.
For wine lovers, is there any better breakfast than vertical flights from of Burgundy? For our vertical flights, we enjoyed the 2014, 2012, 2010, 2005, 2002 and 1999 vintages from both Château Corton-Grancey Grand Cru Domaine Latour and from Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru Les Quatre Journaux.
This story originally appeared in California Winery Advisor.
Urban Wine Tasting
Napa, Sonoma, Santa Ynez Valley, what these places have in common is that they are wine regions. What they also have in common is that they are in close proximity to cities – Napa and Sonoma to San Francisco and Santa Ynez to Santa Barbara. While a trip to wine country is always welcome, these days you do not have to leave the city to go wine tasting. Both San Francisco and Santa Barbara offer urban wine tasting experiences, featuring the wines of the neighboring wine regions but with the convenience of being in the city.
SANTA BARBARA
Santa Barbara Wine Country is forty-five minutes north of the city of Santa Barbara. With Los Olivos, Solvang and the Lompoc Wine Ghetto, as well as all the estate wineries, there is plenty of wine tasting to be done in the area. But over the past few years, many of the wineries have been opening wine tasting rooms in downtown Santa Barbara, also known as “the American Riviera”. While there are no vineyards downtown, the proximity to the Pacific Ocean is appealing. With a unique range of tasting rooms in the city of Santa Barbara, your entire visit can be focused on wine or can be interspersed between eating, shopping and hanging at the beach.
Describing wine is not the easiest thing to do. When you are starting out, when asked to describe what you smell, you might say that you “just smell wine.”
But as you taste more, study more and hone your palate, you may start to describe sauvignon blanc as “citrusy with notes of lemon, lime and green grass” or pinot noir as “earthy with aromas of dried cherry and mushroom.”
How do we learn to describe wines like this? And once we can describe wines, how do we begin to understand how to pair wine with food? At the Paradise Ridge tasting room in Kenwood, sensory experiences with herbs or chocolates highlight the chemistry and fundamentals behind food and wine pairing.
Tasting Room Manager Annette McDonnell joined the Paradise Ridge family in 2008. McDonnell was raised in Sonoma and has worked in the culinary world at Park Avenue Catering under Sonoma County Chef Bruce Riezenman and in catering with Café Lolo. At Paradise Ridge, she has been able to combine her passion for food, wine and hospitality to create a unique way to educate people about wine and food pairing.