Tag Archives: El Dorado County

Another Concert on the Green; Another Rosé

A great thing that’s happened in the last few years, in the small towns of the Bay Area, is adding casual concerts to weeknight farmers’ markets. In our area, our town of Windsor does this, as does Healdsburg, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa and probably others that I don’t know about and haven’t had time to explore yet.

Summer concert on the Windsor Green

Summer concert on the Windsor Green

For us, the Windsor Green is about a 5 minute drive. It takes more time to find a parking space for the Thursday evening market/concert than to drive there. Most recently, we went and heard a swing band, which had the audience dancing in the square. Swing dancing is not in my skill set, or Lori’s, but we enjoyed listening, and watching the dancers. We also enjoyed the food available from the market, plus there was paella available from Castañeda’s Market, a local market owned by our new neighbors. (To be clear, we’re the new ones in the neighborhood; they’ve been there for a number of years.) If you want paella catered for your event, you should check out their Paella Guy website.

Windwalker 2012 Grenache Rosé

Windwalker 2012 Grenache Rosé

We also enjoyed the bottle of Windwalker Vineyard 2012 Grenache Rosé, from El Dorado County in the Sierra Foothills. We visited Windwalker a few years back. Loved the winery grounds; just beautiful setting in the foothills and excellent event facilities. We thought most of their wines were good but not great; however we really liked the rosé. So we purchased a few bottles. A good rosé, one where the grapes are picked specifically for the rosé and not just made from juice bled off the red wine, can last a few years in the bottle and be excellent for a Spring/Summer picnic (or a Summer concert!). (If you’re interested, I’ve written about rosés before in this space, just go use the search function on the right side of the page.)

This was just such a wine. Grenache is most often used for rosé’s in France, as it has just enough flavor and body to make a good light wine, plus if picked right has the acid to go with foods. This wine reminded me of a lunch Lori and I had at a sidewalk café in Nice, France, somewhere around 2001, which featured a nice bottle of rosé. A great memory from that trip, but also a great new memory made of music, food and wine close to home.

L’Chaim,

Larry

Barbera and Barbeque

It seems no coincidence that Barbera and barbeque sound alike, as they go together even better on the table than on the page.

Perry Creek 2011 "Altitude 2401" Barbera

Perry Creek 2011 “Altitude 2401” Barbera

On July 5th, we invited a friend over for the Women’s World Cup final (Go USA!) and barbeque. Ribs and corn and homemade cole slaw, with the ribs done in our plum barbeque sauce. To go with this, we opened a bottle of Perry Creek Winery 2011 Barbera “Altitude 2401”, El Dorado County. I am not the biggest fan of Barberas in general, however, this wine was very good with the meal.

Flying the flag on the Fourth

Flying the flag on the Fourth

This is the type of grape that grows pretty well in the Sierra Foothills, a red grape with big, bold flavors. Many of the wineries get too caught up in the big flavors, and make a wine that has just one note – the big fruit. This wine from Perry Creek was much better than that, and really enjoyable with the meal.

Perry Creek Winery in Fair Play

Perry Creek Winery in Fair Play

We visited Perry Creek last summer, as part of a day of wine tasting in the Sierra Foothills (Fair Play area in El Dorado County), while visiting Lori’s mom. (I’ve already said in my previous post that winery visits are not the only reason I visit my mother-in-law.) Perry Creek does a great job with Zinfandel, especially with their “Zinman” brand, and that was why we were there. We definitely bought some Zinman, but the fun in visiting a winery, any winery, is finding that surprise wine. On this occasion it turned out to be the Barbera. To our delight, it was just as good a year later at home as in the tasting room.

L’Chaim,

Larry