{"id":2266,"date":"2022-12-30T20:17:30","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T20:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2022-12-30T20:17:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T20:17:30","slug":"snapshots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2266","title":{"rendered":"Snapshots"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are inveterate wine tasters and have made wine tasting trips many times.\u00a0 Others we know are mildly interested in wine tasting and have made only one voyage to Wine Country.\u00a0 Almost all of them remember that experience warmly but not enough so to do it again, or at least not yet.<\/p>\n

To be honest, the various trips blend together in our memories.\u00a0 What made one trip so different that it stands out in our minds?\u00a0 Not much, actually.\u00a0 But there are certain mental pictures that do regularly pop up.\u00a0 They\u2019re snapshots, really, not enough for a whole article but we\u2019d like to share anyway.<\/p>\n

There was the first trip wine tasting we took together to Napa Valley and Sonoma County.\u00a0 We were young(er), very much in love and a mellow early summer sun was shining down on us as we drove our rented convertible down Dry Creek Road.\u00a0 If there were a label on this picture, it would say, \u201cHappiness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chateau Palmer.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Decanter China.<\/em><\/p>\n

One time we showed up at a top Bordeaux vineyard, Ch\u00e2teau Palmer, without a necessary appointment.\u00a0 Worse yet, it was during the lunchtime break and the winery wasn\u2019t even open.\u00a0 However, just as we were leaving, a group of French and American restauranteurs showed up for a private tour with the wine maker.\u00a0 We just tagged along and finally arrived in the salon, where Monsieur announced, \u201cC’est teatime\u201d meaning he was opening bottles, which we got to share.<\/p>\n

On another Bordeaux trip, we were there for the vendange<\/em>, the harvest.\u00a0 We were at Cheval Blanc, one of St. Emilion\u2019s finest, where we saw the pickers hard at work in the vineyard and went to take a photo or two.\u00a0 The workers stopped picking, looked at us with some evident hostility, and started hissing among themselves in a language we didn\u2019t understand, maybe Arabic, maybe Roma.\u00a0 That was a photograph never taken.<\/p>\n

We were in Paso Robles for a few days where we knew few of the wineries, so almost every place we went was a discovery.\u00a0 On our last afternoon there, we visited one winery after the other whose products we just didn\u2019t care for.\u00a0 After the last, we thought sadly that we had overtaxed our taste buds and just weren\u2019t able to tell good from bad anymore.\u00a0 But we hadn\u2019t been to one of our favorites yet and decided that Turley would be our final stop for the day.\u00a0 Let us simply say there was nothing wrong with our tongues.<\/p>\n

We had just arrived in Sonoma Valley and had visited our first tasting room.\u00a0 We were on our way to Arrowood, but overshot the entrance to the winery, and so had to turn around on a rather narrow stretch of the Sonoma Highway.\u00a0 This required a few back-and-forths to accomplish and unfortunately, we blocked the progress of a police car.\u00a0 The cop was unnecessarily peeved and pulled us over for a sobriety test.\u00a0 Of course, passing was not a problem. \u00a0The officer was mightily annoyed that he couldn\u2019t drag us in for DWI.\u00a0 But it was a good lesson to be aware of alcohol, driving and the police when wine tasting.<\/p>\n

There was that time we were in the Rh\u00f4ne Valley in Provence and drove to Ch\u00e2teauneuf-du-Pape.\u00a0 We went to Domaine Beaurenard. We had been there years ago and had a private tour with the owner, who happened to be there at the time of our visit.\u00a0 We had the great pleasure to have a tasting with Monsieur Paul Coulon, the owner of Ch\u00e2teau Beaurenard.\u00a0 Since then, each time we open a bottle of his wine, we call it *the wine of Monsieur Coulon*.<\/p>\n

Each of these snapshots brings a smile to think about them.\u00a0 There are surely many more to be remembered that we might share with our readers later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are inveterate wine tasters and have made wine tasting trips many times.\u00a0 Others we know are mildly interested in wine tasting and have made only one voyage to Wine Country.\u00a0 Almost all of them remember that experience warmly but not enough so to do it again, or at least not yet. To be honest, … Continue reading Snapshots<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2268,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions\/2268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}