lgsjr – Page 10 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Groth Vineyards and Winery

There’s a certain mystique about visiting Groth (www.grothwines.com). When we tell knowledgeable friends that we’ve been there, we often get that look, as though we had joined them as members of a secret society of wine insiders. It’s hard to call Groth a cult wine but many of those who love their wines treat it that way.

So let’s deal with the wines first, before discussing the tasting experience there. They make Cabernet Sauvignon. Oh yes, they grow other Bordeaux blending grapes and they do have some white wines. But believe us (and the Groth people themselves) Groth is all about Cab. We don’t review wines at Power Tasting, but suffice it to say that their Cabernet Sauvignons are rather good and have won awards over the 40+ years they have been growing grapes and making wines.

The entrance to the Groth winery.

You don’t just drop in for a tasting at Groth. Their policy is strictly “by appointment only”. So, as you drive along the shady Oakville Cross Road and see Groth’s remarkable building, you will want to visit. To do so, however, you would have needed to make a reservation well in advance.

The building seems from afar like a pink stucco Spanish hacienda. It is set well off the road behind acres of vines, so that when you actually do approach you might find it surprising to see how large it is. That’s because it’s an industrial property where people crush grapes, age wine and then bottle and sell it. But it is also the home of the Groth family, so a visit to the winery is also a house call.

Inside the Groth winery.

That spirit is carried forward by the guide assigned to your visit who shows you round and serves you some wine. The hacienda feeling is enhanced by the furnishings, made of gleaming wood and seemingly antique. The daughter of the winery’s founder, now in charge of their operations, had once intended to be a professional artist and you can see several of her paintings on the walls.

Not surprisingly, the guides talk reverently about the Groths, particularly the founder, Dennis. We’ve also heard that tone applied to winery owners who inherited their wealth or bet early on Microsoft. When you walk around the winery, you might see old photos of Mr. Groth with fellows such as Mr. Mondavi, Mr. Winiarski and Mr. Heitz, you realize that he was one of Napa Valley’s pioneers. True, the Groth family came to the valley “only” in 1982. They intended to make fine Bordeaux style wines and they did it. It’s no mean feat to look back on your career and say that you accomplished your goal.

All that history means nothing to the visitor if the essentials aren’t there. But fine architecture, a warm greeting and good wine should always go together in Wine Country. Sadly, that’s not always the case in Napa Valley and elsewhere. Visitors should treasure the combination when they encounter it, as we have done at Groth.

Local Shops

The whole idea of a vacation is to get away from your everyday life for a while. If you’re from a city or suburbs, then Wine Country is a pretty big change, and if you live amidst the vineyards, it’s not really a vacation to go wine tasting. Still, there are times, even when you want to get away from it all, that a certain amount of reality intrudes. It makes sense to gain a little familiarity with the shops in the region you’re visiting for just those occasions.

Photo courtesy of Burdge and Associates.

If you’re tasting in Napa Valley or Sonoma County, this isn’t a big deal. There are towns and main shopping routes where you can find everything you need; it’s not the Sahara Desert after all. Of course there are shops in the town of Napa, Yountville and Healdsburg but many of them, if not most, are for tourist items, not necessities. But Trancas Street in Napa and Route 101 in Santa Rosa are long stretches of shopping malls and big box stores.

So if you need Band-Aids, orange juice or some batteries, there are plenty of shops where you can make these purchases. (A hint for wine tasters on a romantic getaway: There’s plenty of California sparkling wine to be found everywhere, but if you want some real Champagne, you can find it at one of those huge drug stores or in many grocery stores. It’s not so easy in nearby wine shops, which tend to feature the local products.)

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In Europe, it’s not quite as easy to find the basic necessities. However, almost every village except the tiniest has a pharmacy, usually indicated by a green neon sign in the shape of a cross. In the larger towns (and cities, of course) one of these pharmacies will be open all night. For many of the other items you might need, look for a tabac in France or a tabacchi in Italy. As might be expected, these little shops sell tobacco products. But it’s also where you’ll find post cards, stamps, bus tickets, maps, an espresso to start the day and a grappa to end it.

It is also wise to prepare for emergencies. You’re not going to go travelling in Wine Country armed with information about nearby hospitals or a doctor or dentist who will see you posthaste. So make sure you know someone who does know or at least the emergency phone number. Of course, it’s 9-1-1 in the United States but it’s 1-1-2 in France, 1-1-8 in Italy, and 0-0-0 in Australia.

It’s a good idea to have the number of your host (the hotel front desk or the friends you’re staying with) for some oddball needs. For example, we once had a flat tire while we were tasting in Oakville. Nobody at the winery we were at knew where we could get a new tire quickly, but the hotel concierge was able to help.

It’s always helpful to know where to get a wine stain out of a sports jacket or to find a deli for a picnic or the late night munchies. Or a pizzeria, some therapeutic Häagen-Dazs, a bathing suit or an essential whatchamacallit. So be prepared.

Mountain Wine Tasting

In an overly broad, but nonetheless true, pronouncement we can say that all wine comes from one of two places: hillsides and valleys. Some, but not many, of these hillsides are actually mountains, but most are just large hills that the locals call Mt. This and Mt. That. For example, there’s the famous Burgundies from Montrachet, which is Mount Rachet to anglophones and, quite frankly, is nothing more than a bump on the plain.

But sometimes, you may want to try some wines from mountain wineries. If you’re going wine tasting in Napa/Noma, Valpolicella or the Languedoc or the Northern Rhone you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy wines from both upper and lower altitudes.

The Chappellet vineyards in winter.

Visiting wineries in the valleys is a relatively simple affair. Get on the region’s main drag and drive along; you’ll find vineyards and wineries on either side of the road. Wine tasting in mountainous regions is a bit trickier. There is no main drag. Wineries are harder to find and are usually further apart. And the driving is considerably more difficult.

So if you plan to taste in the mountains, it’s a good idea to consider a few tips:

Know where you’re going. Of course, this is good advice throughout life, but it has double resonance in mountain wine tasting. For one thing, we have found that GPS systems get a little lost up high where the “streets” are often little more than barely paved roads. Also, there are often few signs to let you know that you’re actually headed in the right direction.
Plan your time. It takes time to drive up a mountain. And once you get where you’re going, it takes time to get back. Then, once you get to a winery up in the hills, you may find it’s the only one in the area, so your trip is for just one tasting. Now, that’s not all bad. We’ll take the drive anytime if the destination is Chappellet or Quintarelli, even if it takes all or most of the afternoon. We’re not sure, though that we’d make such a drive for a winery we’ve never heard of.
Recognize the exceptions to the previous tip. There are mountains with a selection of wineries. Napa Valley’s Spring Mountain, for example, offers a pretty broad selection of wineries at which you may taste. Some of them, like Cain, Pride and Smith-Madrone are well worth a visit. The same may be said of France’s Côte Rôtie, where there is, in fact, a small but drivable main road, the D386, along which you’ll find many excellent wineries and even some places to eat.
Speaking of which, bring your lunch. Noting the exception in the previous tip, there are unlikely to be many restaurants, cafés or even snack bars up in the mountains. Unlike in the valleys, there is no pass-through traffic and not that many people live there. So it’s not an economic proposition to open an eatery there. You may have to drive a while for something to eat. We were in the hills above Valpolicella and asked a winemaker where we might have lunch. He pointed across the valley to a spot on the horizon atop the next ridge. Down one mountain, ten miles in the valley and up another on we had a great meal.

Snapshots

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

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

There was the first trip wine tasting we took together to Napa Valley and Sonoma County. 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. If there were a label on this picture, it would say, “Happiness”.

Chateau Palmer. Photo courtesy of Decanter China.

One time we showed up at a top Bordeaux vineyard, Château Palmer, without a necessary appointment. Worse yet, it was during the lunchtime break and the winery wasn’t even open. However, just as we were leaving, a group of French and American restauranteurs showed up for a private tour with the wine maker. We just tagged along and finally arrived in the salon, where Monsieur announced, “C’est teatime” meaning he was opening bottles, which we got to share.

On another Bordeaux trip, we were there for the vendange, the harvest. We were at Cheval Blanc, one of St. Emilion’s finest, where we saw the pickers hard at work in the vineyard and went to take a photo or two. The workers stopped picking, looked at us with some evident hostility, and started hissing among themselves in a language we didn’t understand, maybe Arabic, maybe Roma. That was a photograph never taken.

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. On our last afternoon there, we visited one winery after the other whose products we just didn’t care for. After the last, we thought sadly that we had overtaxed our taste buds and just weren’t able to tell good from bad anymore. But we hadn’t been to one of our favorites yet and decided that Turley would be our final stop for the day. Let us simply say there was nothing wrong with our tongues.

We had just arrived in Sonoma Valley and had visited our first tasting room. 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. This required a few back-and-forths to accomplish and unfortunately, we blocked the progress of a police car. The cop was unnecessarily peeved and pulled us over for a sobriety test. Of course, passing was not a problem. The officer was mightily annoyed that he couldn’t drag us in for DWI. But it was a good lesson to be aware of alcohol, driving and the police when wine tasting.

There was that time we were in the Rhône Valley in Provence and drove to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 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. We had the great pleasure to have a tasting with Monsieur Paul Coulon, the owner of Château Beaurenard. Since then, each time we open a bottle of his wine, we call it *the wine of Monsieur Coulon*.

Each of these snapshots brings a smile to think about them. There are surely many more to be remembered that we might share with our readers later.

Old Town San Diego

The Temecula Valley is a “forgotten” corner of California’s Wine Country. Much that is written about it (including in a previous issue of Power Tasting) starts with, “If you happen to be in San Diego…”. This time, we’ll take it the other way: If you happen to be wine tasting in Temecula, San Diego isn’t far away. And if you happen to be in San Diego, Old Town is a definite place to visit.

Let us be honest and begin by saying that Old Town is a bit touristy. Maybe more than a bit. If the shops and the souvenirs were the only attraction, we would neither go there nor recommend it. But there is a great deal more, starting with history.

This is where California was born. In 1769, Father Junipero Serra established a mission next to a fort called the Presidio in exactly the spot where Old Town is today. Other missions followed up and down what is now California. It is said that he wasn’t very kind to the people who were already there, so there is no reason to celebrate his life, but there is a thrill to stand in the very place he created a lasting achievement.

Casa de Estudillo. Photo courtesy of IS Architecture.

Old Town is a celebration of the Mexican heritage in San Diego and California more generally. The site is split between a commercial area with shops and restaurants and the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. The latter is in effect an outdoor museum with many of the older buildings restored and retained. There are a number of historic homes, including the Casa de Estudillo, which was built in 1829 and is made of adobe, one of the oldest such mansions in California. Others of these restored homes are the Casa de Machado y Silvas from the 1840’s: the Casa de Machado y Stewart, a soldier’s home from 1835 and the Little Adobe Chapel, which was destroyed and then rebuilt in the 1930’s, with many of the interior contents restored. There are also museums, trolley car rides, a working blacksmith shop and the oldest brick structure in San Diego, the Whaley House, built in 1865 and, so they say, haunted today.

But enough of all this culture. Let’s have some fun!

Casa de Reyes restaurant. Photo courtesy of the City of San Diego.

There are lots of restaurants in and around Old Town. Most of them serve Mexican food, California style. We’re not quite sure what Cal-Mex is, but it’s different than the Tex-Mex we taste in the rest of the US. The ownership and names change frequently over the years, but we have gravitated to what is now called the Casa de Reyes. There’s a large outdoor courtyard, which San Diegan weather enables most of year. The bar features a large selection of tequilas and you can quaff margheritas the size of bird baths (in somewhat cloudy memory, at least). Mariachis entertain regularly and there is a nice, non-rowdy party atmosphere at all times. It’s the kind of place where families get together.

Daytimes are the time to visit the cultural attractions, but we recommend you dine in Old Town in the evening. You’ll feel like you dropped onto the set of Romancing the Stone.

Conn Creek Winery

In Napa Valley, there are some wineries that are very famous for the quality of the wine they make and sometimes for the wine they used to make. Conn Creek may not be the most famous name in the valley, but we would say that it is definitely a winery worth visiting, for newbies and experienced tasters as well.

Conn Creek Winery. Photo courtesy of Yountville.com.

There are a number of reasons for saying this. Conn Creek was established in 1973, prior to the famous Judgment of Paris tasting that established northern California as a winemaking area worthy of international repute. These pioneering wineries, which include the more famous ones such as Stag’s Leap, Mondavi and Chateau Montelena, are worth knowing if only because of the accumulated expertise that only the decades can bring.

It is also one of the earliest environmentally sustainable wineries. They proudly assert that Conn Creek is certified as a “Napa Green” winery. Their website boasts that the original facility was built with 12-inch walls stuffed with 20,000 corks. (We’re not certain what those corks have to do with sustainability, but it’s an interesting factoid.)

Of course, the primary reason to visit is to taste their wines. Here Conn Creek’s philosophy of winemaking in Napa Valley comes into play. For openers, the house specialty is Cabernet Sauvignon, as is true of many wineries in the region. Conn Creek does grow some of their grapes on their own 2½ acres, which is not a lot. The rest of their production comes from sourced grapes from everywhere in the valley. And we do mean everywhere. In their tasting room you can compare and contrast Cabernet Sauvignons from Diamond Mountain, Stags Leap, Chiles Valley, St. Helena, Calistoga, Spring Mountain, Rutherford, Oakville, Atlas Peak, Howell Mountain and Mt. Veeder. What a tour!

What Conn Creek is proudest of is their premier wine, Anthology. This is a made from grapes from all over Napa Valley. Almost every year, it’s a blend, differing each year in the composition. For the most part, they make a Bordeaux blend, plus or minus one or two of the “official” grapes. In 2017 and 2018, they made Anthology from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, but even that was a blend of AVAs. Conn Creek tells us that they have returned to blends, but with fewer varietals.

Part of the display of the single vineyard versions of Cabernet Sauvignon

In the tasting room, there is a display explaining the way that Conn Creek approaches winemaking, with soil samples and explanations of the characteristics of the grapes from each vineyard they source from. Moreover, Conn Creek offers a very interesting course in an area adjoining the tasting room. They call it “The Barrel Blending Experience” (with a little registered trademark sign). After explaining and sampling the different single vineyard wines, the participants are given the chance to create their own blends. For one thing, it creates appreciation of what real winemakers do to get the perfect blend into a bottle. For another, everyone gets to take home his or her own version of Anthology.

For many years, we drove past Conn Creek as we were going somewhere else along the Silverado Trail or up in the mountains. Now we often make a point to stop and see what they have been making, and how their wines have evolved over time.

Evaluating Years

Wine snobs are (in)famous for their adulation of certain vintages. “Ahh, the ’82 Bordeaux” one might croon, while another swoons over 1997 California Cabs. We plead guilty to some of that, because we often try to buy certain favorite wines in years that are reputed to be top-tier or a millésime, as the French say.

However, we have found that many people we know don’t really care about the year a wine was made. There is a certain logic to that way of thinking, especially for those who primarily drink wines from California. The relative equanimity of the climate there, especially compared with wines from areas with more variable weather, such as Burgundy, means that there is less variability in the quality of Californian wines, year over year.

Photo courtesy of Vine Pair.

That is not to say that there aren’t better and worse years in Napa Valley or Sonoma County, for example. 2011 was a stinker, while the following three years were among the best. For the most part, the distinction is only evident in the pricier premium wines. If all you want is something to go with a burger and fries in the backyard, buy a good label and don’t worry about which year it was made.

But if you are on a wine tasting trip, it may be interesting to try to evaluate vintages. Here are a few tips if you want to try.

Develop a sensory memory. Yeah, sure, nothing to it. Some of the greatest experts have trouble with this, so don’t feel too bad if you can’t remember the aroma and taste of the wine you sipped an hour ago, much less days or weeks. Still, if you know in advance that you will be visiting a winery that you particularly like, open a bottle of that wine and really concentrate on the smell, mouth feel and taste. Maybe even write down your sensations and then really try to remember when you are tasting other vintages. Good luck.
Taste a vertical. A vertical is a selection of the same wine from different years, often successive years. This is really the best way to evaluate the differences between years, but is somewhat difficult (or at least expensive) to accomplish. Many of the better wineries have older bottles, called library wines, available for tasting for a fee. Lining up a few glasses with the same wine from different years exposes much about the terroir and the winemaker’s art, and helps tasters to develop their knowledge of wine.
Make your own vertical. You don’t have travel to a winery to have access to a vertical. If you belong to a wine club, you will probably receive the same wine from each year’s harvest. If you put down some of those wines, they’ll be available to open two or three from different years and compare them. It’s a good idea to do this with some friends, since you don’t want to finish two or three bottles yourself and you don’t want to lose some of your most treasured wines.

All of this is for academic or at least snobbish reasons. The point of wine tasting is not to parade your expertise but rather to enjoy what’s in the glass in front of you or if you don’t, to know why. You can look up the consensus opinions on the quality of a certain vintage in a certain locale and adjust your buying – and sipping – accordingly.

Parking, Picnics and Restrooms

In our travels, we have often experienced the excitement of discovering a new winery or a new wine that we had never heard of. In general, we enjoy the beauty of the architecture of many wineries and the sight of endless vineyards never fails to thrill us. Sadly, these wonders can be undermined when a winery doesn’t take care of some basic amenities.

The first of these is parking facilities. If we are visiting in the autumn and winter months, we don’t care as much if the only parking spots available are in the bright sun. But if we’re in Wine Country in July or August, we really appreciate a spot that’s shaded from the sun by a wall or some trees.

For one thing, we are likely to have some bottles we have previously bought sitting in the car. We don’t want them to be cooked. Here are a few tips. Pick up a simple Styrofoam cooler at a drug store or grocery. If you happen to have a mini fridge in your hotel room, buy a few ice packs and put them in the cooler. You can also buy a Styrofoam shipping box from the first winery you visit and put your new bottles in it. Keep it inside the car, not the trunk. Add bottles as you buy them. At the end of the day when you get back to your hotel, bring the bottles with you, leaving the Styrofoam box in the trunk for the next day. (Of course, if you’re tasting near your home, just use the cooler you take on picnics or camping.)

If you don’t have a cooler, put any bottles you buy on the floor in front of the rear seats or under the front ones. This isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s better than leaving your newly bought wine in the full sunshine. This is good practice even in the cooler months, when wine can still heat up in a closed car in the sun.

We love picnics and often dine al fresco back home. A picnic lunch near the vines, with a newly bought bottle of a cool and refreshing Sauvignon Blanc is one of the best ways to maximize the pleasure of a day in Wine Country. But some proprietors don’t like the mess and the critters that show up to share a meal with their visitors. In some jurisdictions, the local elders limit or deny licenses for picnic grounds.

Picnicking at Frank Family Vineyards.

For example, only those wineries that predated Napa County’s restrictions are allowed to have facilities for picnics. Perhaps the best known is V. Satui, in St. Helena, which has a fine delicatessen as well as wines that they produce. Others with picnic grounds that we have enjoyed in Napa Valley are Rutherford Hill and Frank Family.

The wineries in Sonoma County are not so restricted. We particularly recommend Dry Creek, Preston and Chateau St. Jean. In Europe, picnicking isn’t frequently encountered at the châteaux and domaines. But nobody cares if you bring a blanket and make yourself at home by the side of a vineyard or in a churchyard.

Finally, we expect any public location, especially one that serves liquids as a business, to have clean, well-lit restrooms. We don’t insist on showplaces right out of Architectural Digest, but there’s no excuse for not keeping them clean and tidy. Nothing can spoil a tasting visit like a dirty john. We won’t name names, but they know who they are.

Wine Club Deliveries

You’re in a winery and you just adore the wines you’ve been tasting. In fact, you’re quite voluble about it, telling your friends and total strangers just how good these wines are. At this point, the friendly waitperson who has been serving you suggests you join their wine club. Your powers of sales resistance are at an all-time, alcohol-induced low. So you sign up.

We like to think we have stiffer spines than that, but we also know we’ve joined around twenty clubs over the course of time and are currently members of six of them. (It’s a good idea to join for a while and then resign when you have enough from that producer in your collection.) We very much enjoy receiving great wine, even if we have to put some of them down for a few years.

Photo courtesy of The Spruce Eats.

What we don’t like very much is the process we have to go through to get those wines.

For one thing, there are too many deliveries. For example, one of the clubs we belong to delivers six times a year. At the other extreme, another club only wants you to buy a certain number of bottle each year, which we take advantage of each spring.

And then there are the shipping costs. In many instances, the fee for sending you the wines is nearly equivalent to an additional bottle. One thing we appreciate in some clubs is the occasional special deal for reduced rate shipping.

Prior to each shipment, the winery sends you an announcement of the next wines they’ve chosen for their members. We have found that in virtually every selection, there is at least one wine that we don’t particularly want. Most clubs allow you to customize your order or to switch out some wines, but most expect you to buy the same number of bottles, or to spend the same amount of money.

This wouldn’t be so bad if wineries had first rate information systems to serve their members. Sadly, that is not often the case. We have had experience with web sites that are inaccessible, that don’t show all the wines available, that will allow you to add to an order but not subtract, or that simply don’t work. At this point there is no alternative but calling the winery, which especially in these pandemic times means that you leave a message for someone working at home, who may or may not get back to you in a timely manner.

We have also experienced mess-ups on the winery’s side that resulted in our getting the wines we ordered and the wines that were on the original membership shipment list. If the winery is nice, they’ll tell you to keep the wines you hadn’t asked for because it was their error. In other cases, we have had to return the unwanted wines, which is a general pain.

Now, don’t let us deter you from joining one or more clubs you’re genuinely interested in. But no matter how large or famous the winery may be, they’re still small businesses, with the systems and processes that are the weaknesses of all such enterprises. Enjoy your wine, because you probably won’t be too crazy about the process of getting it.

Resorts

It isn’t necessary for us to mention it, but we will anyway: We love Wine Country. The sectors we spend the most time in are in the United States, but we have also gone wine tasting in Europe, Africa and Australia (sadly, not yet in South America). We find the scenery to be beautiful, the food delicious, the people friendly and, of course, there’s the wine.

Meadowood Resort in St. Helena. Photo courtesy of Five Star Alliance.

We have seen a worrisome trend in recent years, beginning in Napa Valley but spreading elsewhere as well. What was once an area dedicated to a very particular kind of agriculture, with a few nice hotels, is being transformed into upscale resorts with wine tasting as a sideline. Now, we have nothing against attractive hotels and try to stay in them as often as we can when travelling. And there’s nothing wrong with golf, tennis, spas and top-flight dining rooms. But when they start crowding out reasonably priced hotels and inns, so that Wine Country becomes the preserve of only those who can afford to stay there, then we have a problem.

Perhaps an even greater issue, as we see it, is that the vibe of Wine Country becomes different. Perhaps 75 years ago, the reason to visit Napa Valley or Sonoma County was to be in the country, buy fresh fruit and maybe do some horseback riding. But for at least forty of the intervening years, roaming through vineyards and tasting wine that have been the attractions there. Even in some of the sleepier parts of Europe or Australia, wine tasting as a weekend or vacation activity has taken off.

Hotel de Pavie in Saint-Emilion. Photo courtesy of All Wine Tours.

By changing the emphasis from wine tasting to spa living or golf, the tasting rooms will attract a different clientele. Instead of couples taking in three or four wineries in a day, there will be visitors who only schedule one tasting a day, scheduled around their tee times or massage appointments. Diners may have glasses of wine at suppertime, instead of a bottle and they may not be as particular about what’s in that bottle. In fact, they may be more inclined to dine at the resort than in the local restaurants. We have already experienced a bit of this in Napa Valley and are fearful it will creep in elsewhere.

Wine tasting has not been an inexpensive avocation ever since wineries discovered that charging for small pours of fine wine was a more profitable proposition than giving it away. But tasting was a pleasure that could be enjoyed by casual tourists as well as connoisseurs with deep pockets. Altering the focus to those who can afford Wine Country resorts will change the way that wineries approach their market.

There is nothing that can be done about this trend. Those who want to open resorts will do so, and those more interested in golf or workouts are free to indulge those pastimes. But those of us who are wine tasting devotees can go about doing what we have been doing. We can, and will, visit, sip, dine, sip some more and maybe stay for dinner. Let’s hope the wineries continue to cater to us.