Monthly Archives: August 2017

Pride Mountain Vineyards: Tasting and Picnic

Lulu chilling in the Pride Mountain tasting room.

Lulu’s weekend of wineries concluded with a visit to Pride Mountain Vineyards. Pride sits on the ridge between Sonoma and Napa counties; actually the county line runs through the vineyards and winery. This makes for some painful logistics, having to keep track of which county which grapes come from, and having to do paperwork if grapes and/or juice is transferred from one county to the other. Also, while it’s a winding road up the mountain to Pride (which is at about 2100 feet elevation), if you haven’t been completely turned around, it seems that the counties are on the wrong sides of the line, with Napa on the west and Sonoma on the east. It’s just that the county line is not even close to straight, so it is backwards up there. (I wonder what the history of that line-drawing is, and if it’s documented anywhere.)

Pride Mountain Vineyard tasting room.

We did an initial tasting in their tasting room. Most of the grapes are grown right there, the exception being the Chardonnay, grown in the Carneros region. Lori and I both thought their Viognier was excellent: not too flowery a nose, good acid and fruit, nice body. One of the best that we’ve had. Left there with a bottle of that. They also make a dessert Viognier by just fortifying the Viognier juice. This makes a dessert wine that is not too high in alcohol (less than 14%), not too sweet, not too syrupy. We also left with a bottle of that, and we don’t ever (well hardly ever) get dessert wines. Not that we don’t like dessert wines, just that we don’t usually drink them, so we don’t buy them. We also tried the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, which were excellent. And there was a 2001 Merlot open! This one had aged quite nicely; yes we brought home some of the current release Merlot.

Winemaker Sally Johnson-Blum gave us a tour of their cellars.

We then took a tour of their caves with the winemaker, Sally Johnson-Blum. They have about 20,000 square feet of cave space for barrels. As we went through, we stopped at some of the interesting barrels for tastes: Cabernet Franc from two different vineyard blocks, Merlot from different vineyard blocks, Cabernet Sauvignon field blend, and a couple more. A lot of fun tasting with the winemaker and getting her perspective on the different vineyards and varietals, what she likes about each, what she thinks about when she’s blending either the straight varietals or the Bordeaux style blend.

View from the Pride Mountain Vineyard picnic area.

Last, we had a picnic. They’ve got a few picnic tables essentially at the top of their vineyards. Tremendous view, and we had an excellent lunch of quiche, lox, salami, cheeses and fruit, together with one of those Merlots. Beautiful.

No veraison yet (July 30th) in the Pride Mountain vineyards.

By the way, grapes grow differently in different microclimates, different AVAs. Of course we knew this, but here was direct evidence. The previous day we were in the Dry Creek Valley and veraison had started; the grapes had started turning red. Not so at Pride. Sally mentioned that their harvest typically runs a couple of weeks later than that for wineries on the valley floors.

L’Chaim,

Larry

Dutton-Goldfield: Lulu’s First Winery

Lulu taking a break from wine tasting at Dutton-Goldfield

We got a puppy last week. Not just any puppy, but “Lulu”, at that time an 8-week old Labrador-Golden Retriever mix, and we got her from the Canine Companions for Independence (CCI). CCI works to provide service dogs to those in need, for whatever reasons. They function by having volunteers (suckers like us) do the basic rearing and training of the dogs, which takes 18-20 months, at which point the dogs are returned to the CCI for final training for their end-owner. So we’ve got probably around 20 months with Lulu, then we hand her back to the CCI. The training is actually pretty demanding, much more so than what we’ve done in the past for our pets.

Dutton-Goldfield Winery tasting room entrance

One of the key parts of training is fully socializing the dog by taking them everywhere with you. So on Lulu’s first weekend, we were off wine tasting. Dutton-Goldfield Winery was Lulu’s first tasting room. We sat in the patio, next to the fountain, which seemed pretty comfortable for Lulu. Actually, after one plus weeks with her, she rarely seems uncomfortable in public.

Lulu napping with her toy

Tasting at Dutton-Goldfield is a great experience, first because of the great staff, and second because of the great wines. Dan Goldfield is an acknowledged expert winemaker for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and those wines did not disappoint. What is not so well known is that Dutton-Goldfield makes a great Zinfandel. The Dutton Ranch Morelli Lane Vineyard, a cold climate Zinfandel vineyard in the Russian River Valley, has consistently turned out grapes that Dan has made into outstanding Zins.

Sitting outside in the patio, relaxing with the puppy, drinking excellent wines: what a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours.

L’Chaim,

Larry