Share Your Wine Country Trip

[Piobaire]

Hunts, ME does a great tasting. You sit down in a nice, big, glass filled private room, they have 5-9 wines ready for you to taste. You'll really enjoy it. If you only have room for a few bottles, get one of her Sauv. Blancs if you can.

 

[kwilkinson]

A little birdy told me that ME's chard was ready, but they didn't release it on the mailing list (obviously). So if Hunts gets to go and taste her chard, which is what made her famous as a winemaker, before any of us on the mailing list do, that'd be pretty badass.

 

[PandArts]

So, it’s Saturday we got up early to partake in the free breakfast fare at our hotel before heading off to Sonoma for our visit to Martinelli Winery. I had my route all mapped out and so off we went. After our first encounter with Mayacamas mountain roads last year it was decided that we’d head down and around and then up the 12, however my gps had other ideas and continued to force me over to the 101 via 116. Now, this was our first time venturing into Sonoma beyond Sonoma Square, so in the end I let my gps be the guide. But soon enough the large red barn of Martinelli revealed itself from behind the trees and we knew we had arrived.

We were scheduled for, what they called a VIP tour, at 11:00am and we eventually arrived at just about 20 past! We were warmly greeted and taken to the tour already in progress. The day was beautiful, warm and sunny with some morning clouds still hanging around, but no rain in sight! The tour started at the foot of the Giuseppe and Luisa vineyard. We were then taken over towards the crush pad where they talked about their process of harvesting, processing, and making of the wines, interlaced with wonderful family stories.

We tasted a lot of fantastic wines, 8 or 9 in total if a recall but our favorites were the 2009 “Vigneto di Evo” Zinfandel, which was a big bold and juicy zin, with tones of black fruit flavours and just the right amount of sweet tobacco spice. The tannins are really quite smooth and help to round this juice out. It’s a great entry level bottle (only $30 and 627 cases produced) for those who love a darn good Martinelli zin!

We enjoyed ours back at the hotel!

Our other favorite was the 2008 “Zio Tony Ranch” Pinot Noir. This pinot brings both power and grace to the table. The nose is warm and welcoming with notes of baking spice mingling with aromas of red cherries and plum. The palate is treated to a full-bodied array of ripe raspberry and black cherries. Once this one opens up the tannins really integrate into the whole structure and are smooth and silky. The finish reveals the hints of vanilla-oak from a year of sitting in 75% new French Oak barrels with it’s gross lees and lasts forever! We saved our bottle for Easter Diner and had it with a traditionally prepared Spiral cut ham that was marinated overnight with pineapple and 7up and then slow roasted with a brown sugar glaze. The pairing, in my opinion, was divine!

All of the wines were fantastic but then again with Helen Turley and Bryan Kvamme behind the winemaking you really can’t go wrong! If you’re ever out that way you really need to pay them a visit!

 

[globetrotter]

I needed to do a team meeting, and somebody suggested that I do it in the Canadian wine country in Ontario. did a tour, beautiful landscape, but every wine we tried sucked. so I told the guy who suggested it and he said "I didn't tell you to try the wine's, I said that the area was great". asshole.


I did a few trips down the rhine during the season when they have wine festivals, in the fall. that is very cool - many villages have festivals with booths set up serving local wine, and you can walk around the area and see the vineyards and the wineries

 

[PandArts]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

I did a few trips down the rhine during the season when they have wine festivals, in the fall. that is very cool - many villages have festivals with booths set up serving local wine, and you can walk around the area and see the vineyards and the wineries

That sounds like it would be a wonderful time! Post some pics if you have any; I'd love to see them.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by PandArts

That sounds like it would be a wonderful time! Post some pics if you have any; I'd love to see them.

it was wonderful - unfortunately, pretty much before I had kids I never took any pictures. in my 20's I went to a lot of beer and wine festivals in europe, and they were a real blast. I would highly recommend them to anybody.

 

[Gus]

Where we stayed on our last trip in Yountville

The fountain at Schramsberg. If you like champagne (sparkling wines) be sure and pay them a visit. But you need a reservation since the county only allows a maximum of 90 visitors on any day. They have nice, old caves carved into the hills.

 

[PandArts]

Looks really nice PSG! Cheers!

 

[Huntsman]

Originally Posted by PandArts

If you are going to stay in sonoma by all means hit Fog Crest! If you want contact info PM me! They give a great tour plus they are on the way to Merry Edwards and many other really nice rrv vineyards.
Cool -- we are not staying out there (prob staying in SF, though I might change my mind for one night), but it would be nice to hit two, and they are SO CLOSE to ME. I really need to get a handle on the day-to-day schedule so I can make various reservations, but I'm smack in the middle of finals until 5/9. Ugh.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

Hunts, ME does a great tasting. You sit down in a nice, big, glass filled private room, they have 5-9 wines ready for you to taste. You'll really enjoy it. If you only have room for a few bottles, get one of her Sauv. Blancs if you can.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

A little birdy told me that ME's chard was ready, but they didn't release it on the mailing list (obviously). So if Hunts gets to go and taste her chard, which is what made her famous as a winemaker, before any of us on the mailing list do, that'd be pretty badass.
Awesome. Heck, Southwest has a god baggage policy -- I COULD just bring a Zero-Halliburton case and have room for 6-8 bottles, which would be pretty sweet. It would be nice if a few were that Chard! Hopefully I can make a substantive contribution to this thread in about a month and change! ~ H