Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Big Ass Blondes..with Butterflies

Day 6, Part 2: July 28, 2011

Anytime I use "Butterflies" in a posting, I get all sorts of hits. And I find that odd. Who needs to research butterflies so voraciously? (Oh, and that's my shameless confession that this post has nothing to do with butterflies--but there is a big ass blonde. It's back to the wine! Now there's a word that should be Googled constantly...)

Alrighty then, before I was so handsomely distracted by Vernon Wells and the Angels, I was reminiscing about Day 6 of wineapalooza. We had just left Steele Vineyards...

and headed to Hopland. Not one of your better known wine regions, but it sure was pretty. And we once again were able to meet with some very nice people and sample some very nice wines. (And yes, after the 15 Steel wines we were still able to stand upright. Mostly.)

At Graziano Winery we tasted another 12 wines. (Counting? That makes 34 on this day alone...124 total...). Favorites were:

2010 St. Gregory Pinot Blanc and  the 2007  Monte Volpe Barbera


It's like we drank every one of these...
See? he's still standing upright!


Then we moved on to McNab Rigdge and their large and pretty tasting room in town. They have dog labels on their wine....so, you know I'm gonna love it. Fav was Tine's White--a Gewurztraminer.

Our last stop was at Milano Family Winery where owner Deanna Starr (not to be confused with Judy Starr of Starr Vineyards...no relation; just two women winemakers and great wine from both of them!). They went one better than dogs on their labels...they had 'em in the tasting room. (That's her dogs in the top photo, looking fierce.)  We enjoyed the Carignane, the Petit Verdot and, since it was our last stop and evening time...a tawny port.  But, um, they did have a wine that I took a special liking to, for no apparent reason, none at all....
We served this at a party recently and it was very popular!


In the interest of fairness, I should tell you there is also a "Big Ass Red." Clever marketing, but the wine is good too.
After all that...we headed down to Healdsburg for the night. Rumor has it there's some wine around that region.

(Total wines tasted at this point:  136)

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