{"id":338,"date":"2016-07-29T14:33:56","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T14:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=338"},"modified":"2016-07-29T14:33:56","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T14:33:56","slug":"dont-try-to-visit-everyplace-all-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=338","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Try to Visit Everyplace All at Once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are two types of locales in Wine Country.\u00a0 Some are places with a small number of wineries, often not of the very highest grade.\u00a0 Areas like Temecula Valley, Long Island\u2019s North Fork and Jerome, Arizona fall into this category.\u00a0 Then there are the sectors where the world\u2019s great wines are made, such as Bordeaux, Napa Valley, Stellenbosch, Barossa, Tuscany and the Cote d\u2019Or in Burgundy.\u00a0 These are enormous territories with hundreds of wineries and tasting rooms.\u00a0 (For example, there are more than 400 wineries in Napa Valley alone.)<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a little non-secret: you can\u2019t visit them all.\u00a0 Probably not in a lifetime and absolutely not in a day.\u00a0 So if you\u2019re visiting one of these legendary wine-making areas and you only have a day (especially if you only have a day) there are some tips that will make your visit more enjoyable.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Do some advance planning<\/strong>. Figure out where you will be starting from that day, how long it will take to get to Wine Country and when you need to be back.\u00a0 Many thanks to Google Maps; everyone can be an expert in these matters nowadays.\u00a0 You also must factor in the number of wineries you intend to visit, which is governed more by your tolerance for alcohol than in the number of hours you\u2019ll be in the area.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Choose just one section to visit<\/strong>. Or maybe two, at the most depending on the geography.\u00a0 The point is that you want to spend your time visiting wineries, not driving long distances from place to place.\u00a0 [Exception to this advice: Maybe you do want to drive around in order to take in the scenery.\u00a0 Maybe you want to see the vineyards surrounding castles in the Medoc or the gracious hills in Sonoma County or the <em>Route Touristique<\/em> in Champagne.\u00a0 That\u2019s a great idea, too, but then plan to minimize your winery visits.]<\/li>\n<li><strong>Figure out where you\u2019re going to have lunch<\/strong>. If you are going wine tasting, <em>you are going to have lunch<\/em>.\u00a0 This may be a picnic by the side of the road in a Burgundian village or a fine repast at a South African wine farm.\u00a0 But these meals don\u2019t just happen.\u00a0 You need to plan ahead if you\u2019re bringing lunch with you or know where restaurants are if you intend to dine that way. \u00a0Some of the best bets are knowing where the local delis are.\u00a0 These days, many have gone gourmet, which isn\u2019t bad at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Go to the best wineries in the section you choose<\/strong>. This is easy if you\u2019re familiar with the area, but what do you do if the wineries are all just names to you?\u00a0 There are several answers.\u00a0 Again the Web is your friend; look up \u201cbest wineries in ______\u201d and you\u2019ll have an excellent chance of tasting something worthwhile, at least to someone\u2019s taste.\u00a0 Or just ask people.\u00a0 We have often pulled into the first winery we see, tasted their wines and then asked the people there where else we should go.\u00a0 These folks in wineries are usually very generous with advice and have often led us to some of the greatest wine tasting experiences of our lives.\u00a0 (See Valpolicella Follies, for example.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do your wine tasting in a town, not at the vineyards<\/strong>. As a general rule, tasting rooms in towns are inferior to what you\u2019ll be able to try at the places where the wine is actually made.\u00a0 But that is not universally true.\u00a0 For example, you can have a very pleasant experience walking down Grand Avenue in Los Olivos, stopping at a few (just a few) of the 25 tasting rooms in town.\u00a0 You can do the same thing at the <em>degustaziones<\/em> in Montalcino.\u00a0 If you happen to be staying in those places, you don\u2019t have to worry about getting behind the wheel of a car, so your day is optimized.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Don\u2019t worry about what you didn\u2019t get a chance to see.<\/strong> It is far better, to our minds, to get the most out of a small sample then just to skim a larger selection.\u00a0 We realize that not everyone feels this way, but consider the fact that having visited one corner of Wine Country, life has a way of giving you another chance one day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two types of locales in Wine Country.\u00a0 Some are places with a small number of wineries, often not of the very highest grade.\u00a0 Areas like Temecula Valley, Long Island\u2019s North Fork and Jerome, Arizona fall into this category.\u00a0 Then there are the sectors where the world\u2019s great wines are made, such as Bordeaux, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=338\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Don\u2019t Try to Visit Everyplace All at Once<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338"}],"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=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}