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debg and her Ripper-car, we had a lovely day in Healdsburg, up in Sonoma (even if we never did make it out to the surrounding wineries). we walked around downtown, hitting small tasting rooms and checking out wineries that don't have distribution. Yes, I blew my budget shipping bottles home. But if you know you're going to blow the budget, is it really blowing it? And for zin-girl, this was primo wine-buying territory. At Sunce Winery, I bought their Meritage Reserve Sonoma County ($48), the 2005 Cab Franc Dry Creek ($28) and the Les Trois Amis Russian River ($65) because it made me go weak at the knees. www.suncewinery.com. At Stephen & Walker Trust Winery Limited I pretty much bought everything [they're winemakers, not growers, so they have a small list -- www.trustwine.com]. The highlight was the 2004 Portentous Mendocino, a port made with petit sirah, zinfandel and syrah, and finished with brandy -- limited release of 200 cases. $65 and it will arrive in time for my birthday. Yay! Didn't hurt that their tasting room manager is a) a really nice guy, easy on the ears and eyes, and ALSO happens to run an on-line bookstore. So we got to do business, too!
We also stopped at Rosenblum Cellars where fell in like with their Kathy's Cuvee, which I used to sell but never got a chance to taste. A very nice, well-made viognier. Oh, and for those who like dessert wines, I can highly recommend the 2005 Black Muscat, Gallagher Ranch, for $18. Just bloody amazing.
(and I didn't actually go wildly overboard. I didn't buy anything that I could get elsewhere, and I walked away from some otherwise quite nice wines because they were just overpriced. See? I can too have self-control.)
Dinner was at Dry Creek Kitchen which was totally fabulous -- I had a grilled lamb chop with some amazing sauce and sage mashed potatoes that were too rich to finish, and followed it up with a cheese board [a Humboldt Fog goat's ilk, a carmody cow's milk, a st george aged cow's milk, a Camillia goat's milk camembert-style, Farmstead Buche goat's milk, an an Original Blue raw cow's milk] on black bread with fig jam and honeycomb. Yum. Deb seemed to enjoy her -- salmon, I think -- equally well, based on how the plate was practically licked clean. And then she had this OMG decadent chocolate peanut butter dessert that managed to be fudgy-dense without being too heavy. Neat trick, that.
Of course, my system as told me in no uncertain terms what it thought of all this rich food and wine being dumped into my system over a four hour period, but we've sorted it all out and are on speaking terms again. *grin*
And now, off to the reading/signing at Clayton Books this afternoon....
debg and her Ripper-car, we had a lovely day in Healdsburg, up in Sonoma (even if we never did make it out to the surrounding wineries). we walked around downtown, hitting small tasting rooms and checking out wineries that don't have distribution. Yes, I blew my budget shipping bottles home. But if you know you're going to blow the budget, is it really blowing it? And for zin-girl, this was primo wine-buying territory. At Sunce Winery, I bought their Meritage Reserve Sonoma County ($48), the 2005 Cab Franc Dry Creek ($28) and the Les Trois Amis Russian River ($65) because it made me go weak at the knees. www.suncewinery.com. At Stephen & Walker Trust Winery Limited I pretty much bought everything [they're winemakers, not growers, so they have a small list -- www.trustwine.com]. The highlight was the 2004 Portentous Mendocino, a port made with petit sirah, zinfandel and syrah, and finished with brandy -- limited release of 200 cases. $65 and it will arrive in time for my birthday. Yay! Didn't hurt that their tasting room manager is a) a really nice guy, easy on the ears and eyes, and ALSO happens to run an on-line bookstore. So we got to do business, too!We also stopped at Rosenblum Cellars where fell in like with their Kathy's Cuvee, which I used to sell but never got a chance to taste. A very nice, well-made viognier. Oh, and for those who like dessert wines, I can highly recommend the 2005 Black Muscat, Gallagher Ranch, for $18. Just bloody amazing.
(and I didn't actually go wildly overboard. I didn't buy anything that I could get elsewhere, and I walked away from some otherwise quite nice wines because they were just overpriced. See? I can too have self-control.)
Dinner was at Dry Creek Kitchen which was totally fabulous -- I had a grilled lamb chop with some amazing sauce and sage mashed potatoes that were too rich to finish, and followed it up with a cheese board [a Humboldt Fog goat's ilk, a carmody cow's milk, a st george aged cow's milk, a Camillia goat's milk camembert-style, Farmstead Buche goat's milk, an an Original Blue raw cow's milk] on black bread with fig jam and honeycomb. Yum. Deb seemed to enjoy her -- salmon, I think -- equally well, based on how the plate was practically licked clean. And then she had this OMG decadent chocolate peanut butter dessert that managed to be fudgy-dense without being too heavy. Neat trick, that.
Of course, my system as told me in no uncertain terms what it thought of all this rich food and wine being dumped into my system over a four hour period, but we've sorted it all out and are on speaking terms again. *grin*
And now, off to the reading/signing at Clayton Books this afternoon....
