Category: Experiences

Let’s say you’re going out with some friends for a few drinks.  Wine lover that you are, you tell your friends that you’d like to go somewhere where they have some nice wines by the glass, rather than to one of the cocktail bars that seem to be springing up everywhere.  So where should you go?

Photo courtesy of Time Out New York.

For the most part, neighborhood bars have two kinds of wine: red and white.  These wines come in large bottles or jugs and are often the cheapest of the cheap, although the bartender will still charge a premium price.  Fortunately, there are some bars – even some old-time Irish saloons like the ones we have around our home – that are adding a few interesting wines by the glass.  This may be because they have come to realize that there is customer demand for better wines or because they can get an even higher premium price for them.

If you want a broad selection of wines to try, a wine bar is the place for you.  For you, yes, but maybe some of your friends would prefer a beer or a glass of whiskey.  They would be left out at a spot that only serves wine. 

But let’s assume that they’re okay with a wine bar as the destination for the evening, or one of them.  Instead of having too few choices at your local tavern, you can find yourself with too many at a wine bar.  There are many that offer flights of several small pours of a variety of wines, usually stylistically similar.  That turns a drinking evening into a wine tasting one.  If four people, say, choose four different flights and you don’t mind sharing glasses, you will have quite the wine tasting experience.

Some restaurants have a good selection of wines by the glass.  If it’s a restaurant with an extensive wine list, there should be quite a few to choose among.  “Should be” is the operative term.  Restaurants make their money selling bottles of wine to accompany meals.  It’s rare that the wines you’d really like to have just a glass of is available.   All too often, the wines that can be bought a glass at a time are limited in number and are taken from the bottom of the restaurant’s list.

There are some exceptions to this pattern.  The bars at steak houses, for example, often feature big red wines that go well with the food they serve.  They often sell good-quality Cabernet Sauvignons or Merlots by the glass.  If you’re in the mood for some delicate Chablis, you’ll probably be out of luck.  Of course, the reverse is true at a seafood restaurant. The point is that you can experience an interesting selection of wines at a variety of locations…if you know what they serve.  This is where the internet comes into play.  Take a look at the wines they offer before you go out for the evening and you’re less likely to be dis

There are many sparkling wines made around the various corners of Wine Country.  Unquestionably the best and the best known is Champagne, which must be made in a particular section of northern France.  There are some nice bubbly wines made in Napa Valley.  The Germans and Austrians make Sekt.  Italians produce Prosecco.  And in Spain, not far from Barcelona, they grow grapes and make Cava from them.  Among the best known Cavas in the United State was – and is – Freixinet.

Back in the day, far off in the past, we didn’t know about any of that.  If it had bubbles, it was champagne.  In fact, despite the fact that the French owned the name, there were (and still are, in a few instances) American sparkling wines that were called champagne, right there on the label.  There was even something that had bubbles called Cold Duck; even then we knew that this stuff was awful.

Photo courtesy of Grupo Freixinet.

But we also knew that we couldn’t afford real Champagne.  A bottle of Moet & Chandon might have cost $10, but that was a lot of money when we were just starting out on adult life.  That was when we discovered Freixinet.  In the beginning, it came in a frosted bottle.  The bottle alone and a difficult-to-pronounce name made it seem so chic and, well, European.  Later Freixinet offered their Cordon Negro in a black bottle, which added elegance to its appeal.

The fact that it cost about two dollars made it accessible even for our pocketbooks in those days.  And so we opened it whenever there was something to celebrate:  The end of the semester.  Our team winning a championship.  Friday.  We had no idea how to open a bottle, what kind of glasses to pour it in or how to sip it.  We just knew that it had bubbles and that we liked it.

Not that long ago, we had the opportunity to try it once again.  By that point, we had been drinking real Champagne for many years and the Freixinet was a disappointment.  Did we really drink that stuff?  

Yes we did and it introduced us to sparkling wine, in itself and as a part of being grown-up.  There was mystery and romance in a bottle of Freixinet, a sense that someday we could be sophisticated if we tried, if only we knew how.  The idea of Freixinet was in many ways more important than what was in the bottle (or on the floor because we thought the right way to enjoy it was to spray some when we opened a bottle).

These days we only drink French Champagne and occasionally a top-end California sparkling wine.  We know a great deal more about wine and wine tasting than we did in our youth, which we guess makes us more sophisticated.  But do we really enjoy it any more than we did when we were drinking Freixinet back then?  We’re not sure; alas, we can’t remember. 

Once we hosted a blind tasting of Champagnes.  Just for fun we included a bottle of Freixinet.  One of our guests actually chose the Freixinet as her favorite.  De gustibus non disputandem est as the Romans used to say (there’s no arguing with taste), nor with good memories.

In our first forays into wine tasting, way back when, finding our way was simple if not easy.  We would fly to San Francisco, rent a car and drive up to the Route 29 exit from I-80.  Then it was a good 45 minutes until we reached the winemaking area of Napa Valley, which was the only part of Wine Country in the United States we’d ever heard of.  We would continue up Route 29 until we saw a sign indicating a winery.  We would go in, have a sip, take a glass and proceed to the next one.  There weren’t that many wineries then, so it was easy to just keep going north until it was time to go to our hotel.

As more wineries opened and as we spread out to other American winemaking areas, we learned that the best plan was to stop at the first winery we encountered, regardless of our interest in that one, and pick up a tourist magazine.  There would be (and still are) lots of ads for wine and wineries to visit, plus restaurants and hotels.  That was all helpful in its way, but most important was the centerfold that contained a map showing where all the wineries were.  At first, we’d pick a few wineries we wanted to visit and would drive from one to the other, without regard to the amount of time we’d be behind the wheel instead of in front of the bar.

There were a few problems with that approach.  Wineries that paid for big advertisements in the magazine were highlighted on the map and smaller ones that couldn’t afford to advertise were omitted.  If we knew of one of those and wanted to taste their wines, we’d have to call and get driving instructions, which we had to write down on whatever scrap of paper we had.  That approach might have worked, but cell phones were new and coverage was spotty in rural areas.

Then came MapQuest.  Before our trip, we would use that app to plot out the routes from one winery to another.  This process was a bit difficult, because if we didn’t know where the wineries were, we would have to figure out in which order to plan the drive, which often necessitated repeated searches.  And all these maps and instructions had to be printed out and taken with us.  We well remember thick manilla folders of maps that the navigator had to fumble through once we arrived.

When GPS applications such as Google Maps replaced MapQuest as our go-to app, it solved a lot of problems, but it created a few others.  Sometimes it simply got the instructions wrong.  We well remember driving miles too far because Google sent us way off the route.  Also, in some cases we remember from a trip to France, if there was a route that was two meters shorter than another, the GPS systems would take us along tiny paths, through farms and vineyards rather than on the main road that would have gotten us where we were going far faster.

Isn’t technology wonderful?  We still think it’s fun to just wander a bit and find whatever we happen to find.  Still, getting the tourist magazine still helps. This way we can figure out the location of all the wineries at one glance.

Not surprisingly, climate is one of the major factors in terroir, the totality of the environment in which wine grapes are grown.  A vineyard may have the best soil, the perfect exposure to the sun and excellent drainage, but if the growing season is too hot, too cold, too dry or too rainy, the resulting wines will suffer.  In our travels, we have wilted with the heat and humidity, shuddered in cold fog, frozen in ice storms and, of course, luxuriated in balmy sunshine.  Sometimes all in the same day!

One of the beauties of wine tasting trips is that Wine Country, with a little judicious planning, you can be sure to have great weather.  Some years ago, Power Tasting published a series on wine tasting in Napa/Noma, one month at a time.  And indeed, there are reasons to visit there all year long.  The same may be said of most of the better winemaking regions of the world, including Burgundy, Bordeaux and even Long Island’s North Fork. 

Napa Valley in February.  Photo courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Many times we have travelled to California in December and found ourselves in temperate days and cool nights, basically sweater weather.  But there was one December when it was colder in Napa Valley than it was in New York.  The parking lot at our hotel was a sheet of ice.  We were used to doffing our heavy coats in Wine Country, but not that time.

Wine grapes grow especially well if they are in an area with overnight and morning fogs that burn off and are replaced by sunny, hot afternoons.  In many parts of northern California, the shift from fog to sun is not gradual; it takes about fifteen minutes to go from grey to blue, usually around 10:30 in the morning.  So if we set off earlier than that, we bundle up with long sleeves and coats, only to find ourselves overdressed by the time we reach our second winery.

It’s not just California where the weather can be so changeable.  The south of France is famed for the mistral, the chilly wind that blows across the Mediterranean from Africa during the winter and early spring.  No one told us that it can sometimes occur as early as September.  So when we went there to experience the harvest, we were totally unprepared.  The weather did hasten the vendange though.

There is the other extreme as well.  There have been many trips when we have sweltered.  There have been occasions that we retreated from the vineyards to dive into the pool at our hotel.  The managers of European wineries are more sensible than us Americans.  They close for lunch from around 1:00 until 3:00, then stay open until 6:00 or so.  They go to lunch, so we visitors have to as well.  Very civilized.

So before heading to Wine Country for a wine tasting trip, we try to remember to consult the weatherman.  And then, if we expect heat, we also pack a sweater.  And there are short-sleeve shirts in our luggage in winter. A packable light down jacket is often a great idea in any season.  There’s just no telling.

An article a few years ago in Forbes magazine, entitled “Napa Valley Wine’s Average Price Now Over $100 Per Bottle” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlsson/2023/08/31/napa-valley-wines-average-price-now-over-100-per-bottle/) was expanded on by a tour group.  The new one is entitled “Is Napa Valley pricing itself out of the market for wine tourism and for wine?” (https://www.bkwinetours.com/travelog/napa-valley-pricing-itself-out/).

Photo courtesy of Blue Dollar.

The latter article crystalized in our minds a serious problem. We have been making wine tasting trips for all our adult lives.  We understand that the days when wineries gave free tastings and even gave you a glass are long over.  And really, there never was a good reason why they should give away their products, but now it seems to us that the pendulum has swung way too far the other way.  Today, “the average tasting room tasting fee in Napa Valley is $128 for a “reserve tasting” and $81 for a “standard tasting”.  And if you should choose to buy a bottle, the average price is $108.

We suggested that the pendulum has swung too far, but that’s probably incorrect.  Pendulums swing both ways and we don’t see prices falling anytime soon.  If a couple visiting Napa Valley wants to try, say, three wineries in a day and choose the standard tasting that comes to a cost of $500 or more.  There are too many people for whom this is an unbearable vacation expense.

Why would the wineries in Napa Valley choose to restrict their market this way?   For one thing, the figures quoted are distorted by the many top-end producers in that region who would prefer to limit their visitors to potential buyers who can afford to buy wines that may exceed $200 per bottle.  They are not even eliminating a younger crowd, not with Silicon Valley so close by.  Software zillionaires may be young but they are well paid.  They may not appreciate “fancy” wines, but they do know how to spend their money on luxury goods.

Of course, there are many places in California to go wine tasting, so perhaps the rest of us can leave Napa Valley to the rich.  But Sonoma County wineries’ average tasting fees are $72 for a reserve tasting and a standard one at a comparatively affordable $38.  Other California areas, particularly Santa Barbara and Paso Robles are catching up.  Some European destinations, such as Bordeaux and Champagne aren’t much less expensive.

Of course, it is still possible to search for less pricy wineries to visit and to vacation in less well-known areas of Wine Country.  Wine is made in all 50 states, but not all the others can match California’s variety, quantity and especially quality.  Perhaps a recession will bring prices down, but that’s a rather steep price to pay for more affordable wine tasting trips.  Or maybe as the costs become too much for too many, the wineries may try some alternatives, such as seasonal pricing, encouraging visitors to come in the deep of winter or summer weekdays.  We won’t count on it, but we will probably visit Napa Vally much less frequently.

As we celebrate ten years of Power Tasting, we can’t help but look back at all the wineries we’ve been to all around Wine Country.  Most of our experiences have been very positive, but there have been a few clunkers along the way.  We’ve been across the United States and up into Canada.  We’ve tasted wine in half a dozen European countries and have reported on our prior experiences around the globe.  We thought it might be a good idea for this anniversary to share with our readers the way we go about reporting on wine tasting.

Photo courtesy of Mintel Store.

First of all, we are very deliberate about choosing where to go wine tasting.  We realize that most Americans who enjoy wine tasting are more likely to visit California than anywhere else, and we travel there at least once a year.  Yes, we visit Napa Valley and Sonoma County, more than a few times over ten years.  But we’ve also been everywhere in the state from Temecula in the south to Lake County in the north and many places in-between.  We have been as interested in tasting wine at some of the most famous vineyards, but have equally enjoyed discovering great wine in places we never expected to find it.  And we’ve loved sharing these places with our readers.  And we try to taste wherever we go in Europe as well.

We perform structured interviews at each winery.  If possible, we talk with the tasting room manager, but if that person is not available, we talk with the people who serve us.  It’s a plus if we get to meet the winery owner or the winemaker.  We document everything we can that might possibly be of interest to our readers, although we know that a lot will never be in print. 

Subjects range from rather important matters about the tasting experience to trivia.  Of course, we record the wines served and the ones we particularly would recommend.  We also try to capture impressions of the architecture, the view and the interiors.  We evaluate the knowledge and educational ability of the servers and their general attitude towards their customers.  We even take a look at the merchandise they sell, the artwork, the parking facilities and whether they allow picnicking.

We rarely tell the wineries in advance of our visits that we are from Power Tasting and will be reporting on our tasting experience there.  On the other hand, we always introduce ourselves to tasting room personnel as being from the e-magazine when we arrive.  As much as possible, we want to be treated like all other wine tasters, while at the same time we don’t like to spring a surprise on the servers.

As much as possible, we try to gather information that we think other wine tasters might be interested in.  For example, we always ask about wine clubs in American wineries and if they are accommodating to their members requests for changes and special orders.  If so it shows how they care about their customers.  

We have gone to the Champagne region for wine tasting in the past.  The drive from either of the Paris airports seemed a lot easier on the map than behind the wheel.  Once you’re there, the countryside is wonderful and the two major cities, Épernay and Reims are fascinating.  And, of course, there’s all that sparkling Champagne to try.  But let’s say you don’t have the time for several days of wine tasting or you have other things you want to do in Paris.  Luckily, there are ways to enjoy a day trip from Paris to Champagne.

Don’t even think of driving.  It’s a minimum of 2 and a half hours trip, much of which is spent navigating the streets of Paris as you leave town.  And don’t forget, you have to drive home after a day of imbibing. 

Pol Roger on the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay.

A better idea is to take a train.  There are several each day from Paris to Reims that get you there in only 45 minutes.  It takes longer to go to Épernay, an hour and twenty minutes on the fastest trains.  All these trains leave from the Gare de l’Est, which is about twenty minutes by taxi from Montparnasse and longer from the Right Bank.  (A friendly tip: the croissants at the coffee shop at the Gare de l’Est are delicious and are served warm.)

Yes, it takes longer to go to Épernay, but it is an easy walk to the Avenue de Champagne with one Champagne house after the other, many of which can be visited without a reservation.  If you want to tour the cellars at the bigger names, such as Moët and Chandon or Perrier-Jouet, you will need to book in advance.

The Chagall windows in the Cathedral of Reims.

On the other hand, Reims offers other attractions besides wine tasting and has many more spots for a quality lunch while you’re there.  The cathedral at Reims is an architectural wonder and the windows painted by Marc Chagall shouldn’t be missed.  There are a few Maisons in walking distance of the train station and Mumm is in the center of town.  You’ll need a taxi or an Uber to get to most of the better known Champagne houses.  Three of them are in close proximity to each other: Taittinger, Veuve Clicquot and Pommery.  You can walk easily from one to the other.  But you’d better get your reservations closely aligned, with at least an hour and half at each.  Lunch is an issue as well in that part of town.  There are places to eat, but they’re all rather elegant and pricy.

Unfortunately, the last return trips back to Paris don’t allow a lot of time for a nice dinner, with the last trains leaving at 7:30-ish.  However, you do have the chance to keep on with Champagne tasting.  La Banque in Épernay and Le Parvis in Reims offer you the chance to compare Champagnes side-by-side and still make your train.  Be careful, though.  If you’ve been tasting all day, either restrain yourself at the Maisons or take it easy at the Champagne bars.  If nothing else, you don’t want to miss your train!

There are many ways to become acquainted with the wines of any particular nation that contains a section of Wine Country.  Some countries are so large that it is meaningless to talk in any specific way about, say, American wine or French wine or Italian wine.  These nations produce so much wine and distribute it so widely that we are more likely to sip specific regions such as Napa or Bordeaux or Tuscany, with many subdivisions within them.

Then there are countries that are so small that almost all their wine production is consumed at home.  For example, Power Tasting recently featured wine tasting in Croatia, a country that clearly fits that model.  It isn’t that they make bad wines; in fact there are many excellent ones.  It’s just that their grapes and their wineries are too poorly known to justify international distribution.

There is a small group of countries in the middle, with a long history of winemaking and the quantity and quality to send their wines overseas.  Some have gained renown in recent years, including Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Others have just begun to garner some attention.  Austrian wines are among these. 

There are many Central European countries that make wine.  Sadly, many of these fell under Soviet domination after World War II and found their native vines torn out and their winemaking facilities converted to Russian tastes.   Austria adopted neutrality then and were spared.  Still, Austria is only 32,000 square miles, with much consisting of mountains, and its population is only 9 million.  Still, their wines are catching on in the US.

Photo courtesy of Vivino US.

In our experience, Austrian wines were essentially unknown in the United States until a craze for Grüner Veltliner began around the turn of the millennium.  And why not?  Here was a white wine that wasn’t quite like anything else most people had tasted.  Maybe just as important, it was everything California Chardonnay wasn’t.  It was light, refreshing, unoaked, not very expensive and went well with almost everything except a rare steak.  We Americans couldn’t quite pronounce it, but we liked it.  (It’s more like greener velt-leaner than grooner felt-liner, as many of us said it.)

With that initial experience, many Americans, ourselves included, sought opportunities to try other Austrian wines, particularly the reds.  We are fortunate that there is an excellent Austrian restaurant, Wallse, in our neighborhood, with an extensive wine list.  [There is more in this issue about wine tasting in restaurants.]  Our first try was Zweigelt, which some people describe as a lighter red but we’ve always found quite dense.  The wine is named for a Dr. Felix Zweigelt, who created the grape by cross-breeding two other varietals.

Those two varietals were Blaufränkisch and Sankt Laurent.  The former grape translates to French Blue, but it doesn’t seem to have any French derivation.  It makes rich, tannic wines, often vinified in a style evocative of Northern Rhônes.  It quickly became our favorite Austrian wine, perhaps because it complements wiener schnitzel so well.  We recently got around to trying Sankt Laurent and find it very much like Pinot Noir.  We’ve read that DNA studies confirm that parentage.

It’s fun to discover a whole new world of taste sensations, and having a source of so many fine examples of Austrian wine just up the street makes it even more enjoyable for us.

We are not original in noting that there’s a first time for everything.  In past issues, we’ve recounted our first times wine tasting in Napa Valley and other sectors of Wine Country.  Since those early days in our wine tasting career, we’ve been to many other winemaking regions and there is a commonality among visits to all of them.

Vines in Australia’s Barossa Valley.  Photo courtesy of Cluster Crush.

There is always an emotional thrill knowing that we’re about to embark on an adventure.  We know our way around Long Island’s North Fork, for instance.  We know what the wines are like and where the grapes are grown.  So when we set off for France, Italy, Australia or South Africa – or certain areas in the US as well – we know that we’re going to be seeing sights we haven’t seen and taste wines that we may never have heard of.

That can be a little scary, too.  How do we get to and around these parts of Wine Country, some of which are not as well mapped as, say, Sonoma County?  Which are the wineries not to miss (and which should be skipped)?  Are we going to get lost?  These fears can be overcome with some research and a guide.  But no matter how much can be gleaned on-line, the internet doesn’t know our tastes.  And if we’re going to be sipping wines made from unheard-of grapes like Corvina, Pinotage or Fer Servadou we have no idea what we’re going to get.  As for guides, we’re always worried that they’re in the pay of certain wineries, not necessarily the best ones.

In a way, every wine tasting trip is a first one.  Even if we’ve been to the wineries in a region multiple times, we haven’t tasted that year’s wines nor do they always have the same wines on the menu. 

The only sensible way to approach each visit is with an open mind and taste buds.  We’ve had the experience of being disappointed at a winery that we had previously enjoyed, but we’ve also been delighted to find that a label we hadn’t cared for in our local wine shop also makes some fabulous wines that they keep for their tasting room.

That sense of discovery is the rationale for wine tasting.  After all, we don’t have to spend the money on transportation and hotels.  We could take a virtual tour down the aisles of a store, buying and trying as our fancy strikes us.  Heck, we do that anyway.  But we don’t get to see the vines, appreciate the architecture, smell the country air and, most important, meet the people behind the bottles.

So when we set out for a trip, especially one overseas, we know we’re going to encounter people, places and foods that we haven’t experienced before.  As first-timers, we expect to learn a great deal.  The people of those places are generally friendly and eager to spotlight not only their own wines but those of the region. 

Once in Valpolicella we were offered a tasting by a winemaker who spoke no English.  Our Italian was very limited.  But the signore was able to say AMARONE and RIPASSO at the top of his lungs, so we got the point.  It’s little stories like that that make first-time adventures in Wine Country worthwhile.

The sight of internationally famous vineyards in the course of wine tasting travels can evoke some contradictory responses.  The most obvious is the sense of understanding that that’s where some really great wine comes from.  But the other is that, “Oh well, it looks like every other vineyard, so what’s the big deal?”  To us, it’s not so much about seeing the famous vines; it comes when we open a bottle from one of those vineyards and can picture the exact location.

Some of these vineyards are right next to the building – let’s call it a château – where the wine is made.  Bordeaux law, for example, requires the vines and the winery to be in close contact.  In many other parts of the world, the vineyards are free-standing.  We have been fortunate enough to have seen many of these unique properties.

Sanford & Benedict vineyard.  Photo courtesy of Sanford Winery.

Since this issue is focused on Santa Rita Hills, there are two vineyards that have enormous reputations.  Sanford & Benedict is the flagship vineyard of the Sanford Winery and we suppose they keep the best grapes for themselves.  But there are many other labels that boast wines from that vineyard, including Fess Parker, Au Bon Climat and even Gary Farrell from way up north in Sonoma County. 

The other renowned Santa Rita Hills vineyard is Fiddlestix, which is virtually across the road from Sanford & Benedict.  There is no Fiddlestix winery, but the grapes are widely sold.  We’re most familiar with Etude’s wine from there.  And speaking of Etude, their Heirloom vineyards are pretty special, too.

To Kalon Vineyard, with the Robert Mondavi winery at the rear.  Photo courtesy of the winery.

The most famous Napa Valley vineyard is undoubtedly To Kalon.  Although there is a To Kalon Vineyard Company, the vast majority of this vineyard’s production is owned by Constellation Brands, which in turn owns Robert Mondavi.  Mondavi’s To Kalon Reserve helped establish Napa Valley as capable of making world-class wines.

The most famous European vineyards are in Burgundy.  Due to the history and laws of this region, almost all vineyards are split among numerous growers, with individuals sometimes limited to a single row in a single vineyard.  So, for example, the Clos de Vougeot in Burgundy (of which we have written before), is shared by many wineries including Jadot, Faiveley, Drouhin and many other smaller producers.  They can all claim to have a Clos Vougeot wine, which by itself is a mark of quality.

Two other Burgundy vineyards stand out.  Power Tasting has written about Corton-Charlemagne before.  Supposedly, Charlemagne owned it back when.  Today, it’s the only vineyard in the Côte d’Or that produces both red and white grand cru wines.  And we can’t forget the Puligny-Montrachet vineyards.  One right next to the other, there’s Montrachet itself, and Chevalier-Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet, plus several others.  Connoisseurs differ as to which is the greatest.  We’re not connoisseurs but we have walked in those vineyards.