lgsjr – Page 36 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

First Time in the Hunter Valley

A long time ago, Steve made a trip to the Hunter Valley in Australia where he had his first experience in wine tasting in that country. How long ago? So long that most of the world had not yet learned that Australia was producing wines of high quality. Penfold’s Grange and Henschke’s Hill of Grace were each US$25 at that time; today they’re around US$840 at one of the better wine stores in New York. Even considering inflation, these wines are no longer the bargains they were then.

The Hunter Valley is a drive up the coast from Sydney to the town of Pokolbin. As in many big cities, the stars were difficult to see at night in Sydney, but out in Wine Country, the sky was ablaze with them. You can see the Southern Cross in the darkness of a country night. Frankly, it’s a bit disappointing. It’s a nice constellation, but so is the Big Dipper (which is easier for us Northern Hemispherians to find).

Blaxland Inn, Pokolbin. Photo courtesy the restaurant.

Across from the hotel, there was a restaurant called Blaxland Barn, today known as the Blaxland Inn. Sitting down at the table, the hostess asked if he wanted a damper. Hmmm, what’s a damper? It’s an iconic Australian bread, somewhat like Irish soda bread, associated with swagmen in the Outback. And what’s a swagman? He’s an itinerant farm worker or in some cases what we would call a hobo. If you’ve ever heard Waltzing Matilda, you know all about swagmen.

When it came to ordering wine with dinner, everything on the list was simply an unknown name. So the hostess was asked to help. She hemmed and hawed a bit and then said, “Well (pronounced wail in those quarters) there is one but it’s a bit dear. Oh, but not for you.” She must have figured that anyone who could afford to travel to the Hunter Valley all the way from America could afford ten Aussie bucks for a bottle of wine. That’s what prices were like in those days. It was a Tulloch Shiraz and it was exceptional.

Tulloch winery today, not at all what it was back then. Photo courtesy of vineyard.com.

The next day the serious wine tasting began, starting with Tulloch’s. Other wineries visited included Tyrell’s and Lindeman’s. It’s hard to tell after all this time whether these were top places to go or just the ones known about at the time. But the welcome that an American wine enthusiast received was wonderful. Servers opened all sorts of bottles, pouring out verticals and horizontals all day.

There are a few lessons to be learned, even if you never visit Australia and if you will not be as surprised to find high-quality wine there. Just get used to the fact that you’re a babe in the woods regarding these wines unknown to you and let your hosts (and you nose and tongue) be your guides. This bit of advice applies whenever you visit someplace you’ve never been before, trying wines you’ve never heard of. Sure, sometimes you’ll be disappointed. But just as often, you’ll have the chance for wonderful discoveries.

Val di Suga

If you travel to Montalcino from the north, which is what you would do if you were to approach it from Siena or Florence, you will pass several wineries as you get close to the village itself. One of these is Val di Suga (www.valdisuga.it/en), which with its long row of towering cypress trees seems to draw you in for a tasting. By coincidence, the night before we visited there we had had a bottle of one of their Brunellos with dinner, so we were very interested to learn more about them.

The Val di Suga winery. Photo courtesy of Bertani Domains.

You enter the property on a long driveway lined with the aforementioned cypresses. The winery building looks, well, Tuscan. It sits among broad, expansive vineyards some of which are theirs. The tasting room is modern, airy and offers a view across the Val di Suga’s vines, all bearing Sangiovese grapes. This vineyard, called Vigna del Lago (Vineyard of the Lake) is one of three owned by Val di Suga. The other two are Vigna Spuntali, south of Montalcino, and Poggio al Granchio (Crab Hill) high above the village, also to the south.

These three vineyards are important to the taster because Val di Suga makes single vineyard varietals from each one. They also make a blend of the three. If ever there was an opportunity to experience the relative influence of terroir versus the winemaker’s hand, this is it. You can taste the same grapes from the same region, no more than 15 kilometers apart, vinified in the same way by the same winemakers. Even though they are near one another, the three vineyards have different soils and microclimates so the comparison on your nose and in your mouth are distinctive. We preferred the blend, but that’s in keeping with our overall preference for blended wines. You go; you taste; you make up your own mind.

In our early days of wine drinking, Italian wine meant Chianti in straw-wrapped bottles. (The bottle itself is still attractive and brings back good memories.) It was inexpensive, acidic and of uneven quality, to be generous. We were left with a distaste for Sangiovese that lasted for quite a while. And then we discovered Brunello! This wine is 100% Sangiovese and is one of the great achievements of the winemakers’ skill. It is amazing what great soil, careful production and winemaking pride can do. And yes, we drink better Chiantis these days as well.

We found the service staff (actually just one young woman the day we were there) to be courteous, eager to show off the comparison of their wines and able to speak English quite well. You will find no shortage of wineries to visit in and around Montalcino and will be amazed at the variety these Tuscans can create from a single grape in a single locality. When you visit, we recommend that you include Val di Suga in your itinerary.

W.I.N.O.

Here’s another in Power Tasting’s irregular series on great wine bars of the world.

Of course, you knew that W.I.N.O. (http://www.winoschool.com) stands for the Wine Institute of New Orleans. Situated just outside the famed French Quarter on Tchoupitoulas Street (that’s Chew-pa-TOO-las, in case you have to ask your way), W.I.N.O. is one of those places with a lot of bottles in nitrogen-filled dispensing machines. They refer to themselves as a self-service wine bar.

You get a plastic card, insert it into a slot and then put your glass under the spigot in front of the bottle of wine you want to taste. You can get one-, two- and four-ounce tastings at graduated prices. There are a few communal tables up front where you can sit and sip your wine, or you are free wander around with glass in hand.

Many, perhaps most of the wines on offer are little-known. There are others that are quite renowned and are priced accordingly – rather steep for little servings. We’ve found that trying wines we’ve never heard of is the most fun. They don’t cost much to sample and they’re from all over the winemaking world. If you don’t like it, you’ve only spent a few dollars on an ounce of something obscure. And if you do like it, you’ve made a wonderful discovery.

But, you may well ask, what’s so special about W.I.N.O? There are lots of similar tasting machines in cities across the US, and overseas as well.

For one thing, at W.I.N.O. you are wine tasting in New Orleans. Maybe you’re there for a convention or to listen to jazz or try the local cuisine. And drink (a local custom). Now, New Orleans has famous cocktails, like the Hurricane (ugh) or the Sazerac (not bad). It has some great local beers, specifically Abita, available at every bar. There are good wine lists at some of the better restaurants, but if you’d like to go to a wine bar and don’t want to travel far from the French Quarter, W.I.N.O. offers you a wine-friendly oasis.

Another part of the appeal of W.I.N.O. is the sheer scale of the selection available to you. Their wine dispensers house 120 beverages (a few spirits are included as well). They have reds, whites, rosés and dessert wines from the US, Europe and many other corners of Wine Country. The cost of the pours is based on the bottle price and runs from a dollar for an ounce of an obscure wine from a little-known source, to as much as $20 per ounce of Opus One. Careful: putting “just a little more” on the card adds up quickly.

If you’re looking for a quick education in the wines of a region you’re unfamiliar with, W.I.N.O. gives you the chance. In our most recent visit to W.I.N.O., we looked specifically for Languedoc wines, just to see what they would have. In fact there were five or six, but we were familiar with all of them and had some bottles of them at home. We were amazed to find out also that there were two bottles from a really off-the-beaten-path cooperative in the Enserune region that we also had tried in France.

You can get some fancy nibbles to absorb the alcohol, like cheeses, dips and olives. In New Orleans, though, if you come out a little woozy from what you’ve been drinking, no one will notice. This is the town with the motto Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler.

How to Hold Your Wine Glass

One of the great things about wine tasting is the diversity. There are so many wines, from so many countries and regions, that it’s pretty clear that no one will ever taste them all. But don’t let us deter you from trying.

There are almost as many brands and shapes of wine glasses as there are wines. The basic model is a bowl shaped somewhat like a tulip, with a stem and a foot, so you can put it down without the wine all spilling out. The better manufacturers make different glasses for reds, whites, Bordeaux, Pinot, Port, etc. Among the better-known manufacturers are Spiegelau, Schott Zwiesel, Waterford, Riedel and so many more brands. While most of the wine glasses are stemmed, Riedel has introduced some stemless ones; some bistros use tumblers. Whatever shape or color, they all can hold wine. Besides the wine glasses, there are the balloon glasses or snifters for Cognac, whisky tumblers, goblets and highballs, Champagne flutes and dessert wine glasses. Some shapes ask for holding them in the palm of the hand, such as for warming Cognac, as an example, and for whiskey when one prefers it straight than on the rocks. Besides the beauty and diversity of each of them, the shape helps concentrate the bouquet and intensifies the flavor. While it may seem like snobbism to have all those different shapes in glasses, but there are reasons, not just a snobbish thing

There was once a time when winery tasting rooms used the smallest, cheapest glassware they could find, undoubtedly to cut cost. They didn’t charge for a tasting and they gave away the glasses, which were just one step above a jelly jar and made it difficult to hold it by the stem. But as time and tastes have improved, better wineries are now offering their tastings in fine stemware.

Almost all American wineries, to say nothing of most restaurants and bars, use stemmed wine glasses. Of course, a stemmed wine glass is elegant but besides that, the stem is meant to hold the bowl away from the heat of your hand, so that it doesn’t warm the wine in your glass. Too often we see people holding their glass of wine the same way they hold a glass of water, grabbing it by the bottom of the bowl. Talking about elegance: this isn’t it. This is something that gives us shivers when we see people, unfortunately, grabbing their wine glass with the hand around the bowl, instead of holding it by the stem. All they are doing is detracting from the wine tasting experience. Especially in winery tasting rooms, where the pours are necessarily small, the relative impact on the wine can be significant.

Holding your wine glass by the stem will also make it easier to swirl the wine in order to aerate it. So get the most out of your wine when you sip it by holding the glass the way it was meant to be held.

Enjoy your wine. Cheers!

Visiting the Town of Sonoma

Sonoma County is a big place. It is most famous for the American cartoonist Charles Schultz, the Petaluma Puppy Farm and flooding in the spring. Oh, yes, and wine. Lots of wine, some very good, and the people there have been making it for a long time too. The oldest known commercial winemaking vineyard in California was founded in Sonoma in 1861. It was – and is – the Buena Vista Winery, where you can still taste their current wines at their winery just outside downtown Sonoma.

There are three major towns in Sonoma County, the others being Healdsburg and Santa Rosa. They also have restaurants, shops, tasting rooms and hotels. Sonoma town has its own reasons to visit.

The Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma. Photo courtesy of Sonomavalley.com.

The most important reason, perhaps, is that this is where it all began. As mentioned above, this is where winemaking started in California. It was a Spanish mission town, the last one as a matter of fact. The Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma is still standing and available for visiting. It was in Sonoma that Guadalupe Vallejo, a young lieutenant in the Mexican Army, laid out a street system with a plaza in the middle: today’s town of Sonoma. The Sonoma Plaza is the main reason, besides the history, that you should visit the town today.

One side of the Sonoma Plaza, with the historic Sebastiani Theatre. Photo courtesy of joyfimg.pw.

It’s a large plaza, in fact the largest town square in California. It is surrounded by shops, restaurants, tasting rooms and the Sebastiani movie theater that’s an architectural gem in itself. The plaza is full of shady trees and in the middle is the Sonoma Town Hall, also worth seeing for its architectural value.

Sonoma is the southern-most town in Sonoma County’s Wine Country. If you’re driving up from San Francisco and plan to spend only a day or so, it’s the town in the middle of the Carneros and Sonoma Valley vineyards. There are, in fact, many wineries right around Sonoma to choose from, far more than anyone could visit in a day. While you’re tasting, you’re going to want to eat and Sonoma and its central square are a natural choice. We had quite an authentic Mexican lunch there.

Moreover, there are many tasting rooms on or around the plaza. If you’d prefer to taste without a lot of driving, especially on weekends, Sonoma offers a good alternative. Some of the wines available there are quite good.

Many of the wineries in easy proximity to Sonoma have considerable longevity. Besides the aforementioned Buena Vista, nearby wineries include Sebastiani, Chateau St. Jean, Ravenswood, Gundlach-Bundschuh and Hanzell. They’ve been making wine for a long time, in some cases back to the 19^th century. Of course their wines today are more up-to-date, but you have the chance to sip history in Sonoma.

The Windsor Certified Farmers Market

We first discovered the town of Windsor when we sought out a restaurant that used to be there, called Mirepoix. It was quite good in its day, but as with many businesses, their dreams of expansion led to its closing. As far as we could tell, there was no particular reason to return to this little village without that restaurant being there.

That doesn’t apply to the wineries in the geographic area designated as Windsor. As with the rest of Sonoma County, the towns incorporate huge swaths of land surrounding a market town, such as Sebastopol, Santa Rosa or Healdsburg. The town leaders have painted the houses in pastel colors giving the downtown area an Americana charm or a Universal Studios glitz, depending on your tastes. As mentioned, there are no renowned restaurants, no hotels except some motels along the Route 101 highway. Windsor seems to be a place that you pass through on your way to somewhere else.

Photo courtesy of Sonoma County Tourism

Except if you happen to be there on a Sunday morning or a Thursday evening in growing season. Then on the Town Green in the middle of Windsor you’ll find an extensive farmers market. We had stopped one Sunday for some breakfast before wine tasting and wound up spending several enjoyable hours there instead. When you’re in California Wine Country, you always need to be aware that there are many farmers who grow crops other than grapes. And the same natural forces that foster fabulous grapes do the same for melons, squash, peppers, peaches, apples, strawberries…

This is the Windsor Certified Farmers Market. We have no idea who has certified it nor for what. It is as close to a French marché as anything we’ve seen in the United States. And much as at those marchés, there are numerous artisans with stands at the Windsor market. You’ll find cheeses, home-made pickles, beeswax candles, macramé, hanging glass amulets…all the hippy-dippy stuff you’d expect at a California market.

A Summer Night on the Green in Windsor. (Note the painted buildings in the background.) Photo courtesy of windsorfarmersmarket.com.

There’s usually a musical stage at the Sunday markets and from the end of May through Labor Day there are Summer Nights on the Green concerts during the Thursday markets. The latter are mostly rock, country and Latin which may or may not appeal to you.

We can almost hear you thinking. “I’ve got a great farmers market at home. I don’t need to go to Wine Country for this.” Now, there’s something to be said for the superiority of California fruit but we’re sure that your local farmers raise delicious produce as well. That’s not the reason to go to the Windsor Certified Farmers Market. This is your chance to rub shoulders with the local populace, many of whom are the same people who raise and harvest the grapes and make the wine that you did come to Wine Country for. In keeping with the same spirit that failed to support a fancy French restaurant, this market is intended to attract the neighbors, not the tourists.

An important reason to travel for wine tasting is that you learn about more than what comes in the bottle. You learn about the whole culture that produced that wine, very much including the people and their customs. That’s true in France, Spain, Italy and the US as well. So take a little time when you’re in Sonoma County and come to Windsor to meet the folks.

Planning Your Sonoma County Vacation

Last month’s issue of Power Tasting contained an article on planning for a trip to Napa Valley. We owe the same to the other half of Napa/Noma, Sonoma County. Many aspects of the planning are the same but there are some very distinct differences as well. For one thing, Sonoma County is a lot more relaxed than Napa Valley. For another, Sonoma’s Wine Country is quite a lot bigger than Napa Valley’s, so there’s more travelling to do if you want to see – and taste – it all.

Figure out what you want to taste. Different AVAs of Sonoma Wine Country are associated with different grapes. Russian River is renowned for its Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays (although Chardonnay is grown just about everywhere). Alexander Valley is known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Dry Creek Valley is famous for its Zinfandels. You’ll find some of everything everywhere and some other AVAs make a little of everything, but you really ought to focus your tasting on the local specialties.

Alexander Valley. Photo courtesy of The Wine Country.

Avoid a lot of driving. You will need at least a day to go wine tasting in any one region (and of course you won’t be able to taste everything in a day), so don’t plan to do a little bit in the Sonoma side of Carneros in the morning and then Dry Creek after lunch. The main route in Sonoma County is Route 101 and even at highway speeds, it’s an hour’s drive between those two ends of Sonoma’s Wine Country.

Traveling through Russian River. Photo courtesy of Ride with GPS.

But enjoy the drive. Unlike Napa Valley, which is laid out in fairly straight lines, Sonoma County’s Wine Country is full of rustic, windy roads many of which are especially beautiful. Take some time to open your eyes and look around.
Choose a hotel that’s close to where you want to taste wine. The principal towns with large hotels are Sonoma to the south, Santa Rosa in the middle and Healdsburg up north. Each has a mix of chain hotels, inns, resorts and bed-and-breakfasts. It’s probably a good idea to figure out where you want to taste, then ask Google how long it would take to get there from each town. That should make it easier to narrow your hotel search.
Think about food, too. For the most part, Sonoma County restaurants are more casual than their counterparts in Napa Valley. Healdsburg has a few rather elegant eateries (Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen and Valette) but you’ll usually find both the food and the diners to be easy-going in the rest of the county. That’s not a put-down; there are lots of places to eat with great food. Like anywhere else, reservations are a good idea on weekend evenings in warm weather, but in general you won’t need them.
Enjoy lunch, too. If you’re going to be sipping wine all day, you’d better eat. There are iconic delis (the Jimtown Store in Alexander Valley, the Dry Creek General Store, the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg). Many wineries in Sonoma County have picnic facilities, unlike those in Napa Valley. And having a bite on the town squares in Healdsburg or Sonoma, followed by a casual stroll, should be a part of your vacation plans, too.

Unti Vineyards

Unti Vineyards (www.untivineyards.com) is a small vineyard with a small tasting room located on Dry Creek Road, about half-way up. If you’re heading north, look for it on your left. It’s easy to drive by; we know because we’ve had to turn around on several occasions. It feels as though Unti has been there forever but was only founded in 1997, which means we’ve been tasting and buying there virtually from the beginning.

The Unti winery. Photo courtesy of The Press.

The winery is hardly a palace. It’s a house, with an industrial building in the back. Until only a few years ago, you’d pull into the parking lot and walk into a wood-paneled office. Someone would be on the phone and another doing some filing and they were delighted to be pulled away from these activities to pour you some wine and chat for a while. The subject of conversation was often Domaine la Soumade in Rasteau, France.

Huh?

The winery at Soumade has long shelves around the walls with bottles that the owner/ winemaker, André Roméro, had enjoyed. There among them was Unti! We felt very international, being fond of both of the vineyards and their wines.

The Unti tasting room. Photo courtesy of Tripadvisor.

A few years ago, the Unti family decided to build a proper tasting room. It still isn’t palatial and is a bit industrial with rough wood ceilings and corrugated metal, but the views out over the vines soften it a bit. It feels homey. Very often there will be an Unti to pour for you. The winery is family owned and operated and there is a sense that the vineyards, the wine and the family all grew up together, as an organic whole. And in fact, they have been farming organically since the early 2000s.

The wines they produce are a rather interesting mix. Some are Rhône varietals and others are varietals from all over Italy. Of course, they’re in Dry Creek Valley so they make a Zinfandel, too. Our favorites are the Rhônes, in particular their Syrah. Even these have an Italian character when young, with rather pronounced acidity. Quite a few years ago, we bought a bottle of Syrah, put it away and forgot about it for around five years. It had mellowed and acquired a more Rhône-like nose and taste. We’ve been aging the wines we buy there ever since.

Some of Unti’s Italianate wines are familiar, from grapes such as Montepulciano and Barbera. Others are, according to their web site, otherwise unknown in the area. These include Segromigno (from Tuscany) and Fiano (a white grape from southern Italy). We are pleased to see Unti and a handful of other California growers (Seghesio, David Coffaro and Ramazotti come to mind) are focusing on making Italian wines. If other people can be Rhône Rangers, why not Italian Stallions?

We don’t think of Unti as a destination winery, but we do consider Dry Creek Valley that way. So if you’re planning a day in Dry Creek, you ought to consider stopping at Unti. They have a “By Appointment Only” policy, but never once in twenty years have we been turned away. Still, you’d better check with them on busy weekends.

Planning Your Napa Valley Vacation

You’ve decided you’re going to go wine tasting in Napa Valley. Maybe you’ve never been or it’s been a while. We’d like to offer some tips on getting the most out of your vacation by investing some time planning before you go. Believe us, it will pay dividends.

How much time do you have? It makes a big difference if you’re going for just a few days (and if those days are a weekend) or more time, including weekdays. Don’t try to pack in too much in a short time. For one thing, you’re dealing with alcohol, so you’d better know your limits and not even get close to them.
Which part(s) of the valley do you want to visit? There are 17 appellations in Napa Valley, and while a few such as Atlas Peak and Wild Horse Valley don’t have wineries to visit, most of the rest have plenty. There are more than 400 tasting rooms in Napa Valley. You’re not going to get to them all in one vacation, so it makes sense to choose a sector (like Oakville or Calistoga) and focus on just one per day. You want to avoid driving from one end of the valley to the other, potentially in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The view from Viader winery on Howell Mountain.

Choose a hotel that’s convenient to the places you want to go. The chain hotels are clustered to the south end of the valley, in Napa Town and environs. Carneros and Yountville have many spas and resorts these days and tend to be pretty pricy. There are bed and breakfasts scattered everywhere. In general, the further north you go, the fewer hotels and inns there are to choose among. Napa Valley is a very popular tourist destination these days, so don’t rely on finding a place when you get there. Reserve in advance.
Plan out your days. When do you usually get out of bed? It’s your vacation, so don’t plan on getting up with the roosters unless that’s what you usually do. Eat breakfast! You’re going to be sipping alcohol all day, so have something in your stomach before your first wine tasting stop. Figure you’ll taste at, say, four wineries in a day. Leave time for a nice lunch; dining in Napa Valley is almost as much a part of your vacation as wine tasting. Think about what you’ll do between the closing of the wineries and dinner. Your usual vacation plan of a pre-prandial cocktail may not make sense if you’ve been sipping wine all day and will probably have some more with your evening meal.

Bistro Jeanty. Photo courtesy of Sonoma Magazine.

Make dinner reservations. It is hard to get a table at some Napa Valley restaurants. Some are just impossible (e.g., French Laundry). Others are very popular and fill up their reservations well in advance (e.g. Bottega). There are quite a few that are local favorites, like Bouchon, Mustards Grill or Bistro Jeanty where it’s difficult to get in on weekends without a reservation. So it’s a good idea to reserve before you travel; you can always cancel if you change yourmind. And if you don’t mind waiting, the Bounty Hunter and Ciccio don’t even take reservations.

Have a great vacation and drop us a note while you’re there.

Château Montelena Winery

Almost as far north as you can go and still be in Napa Valley sits the Château Montelena Winery. It’s in Calistoga and it has been there for a long time, though not always as an active winery. It was established in 1882 by one Alfred Tubbs and to this day Château Montelena is located on Tubbs Lane (which unfortunately gave its name to the disastrous Tubbs fire in 2017). The current history of the winery begins with the acquisition of the property, then in disuse, by Jim Barrett in the early 1970’s. He was one of the winemaking pioneers who led the renaissance of Napa Valley at that time.

It is fair to say that Château Montelena was the original Napa Palace. Palatial it is and was designed to be by Mr. Tubbs. Legend has it that he imported architects and stonemasons from France to build his château. It has been a working winery, a private home and now a tasting room. This pseudo-Gothic masterpiece is certainly a reason in itself for visiting Château Montelena, but it is only one of the attractions there.

In a period when the château was a private home, beginning in the 1950s, the then owners created magnificent gardens in a Chinese style. Today they are called Jade Lake and are a sanctuary for a variety of fish and wildlife. Visitors are welcome to wander in the gardens and on a beautiful day, even with fellow tourists alongside, it is a source of peace and restfulness.

Oh yes, and they make wine. Oh boy, do they ever. For one thing, they were the winner in the Chardonnay category of the storied Judgment of Paris wine tasting in France in 1976. They don’t let you forget this fact at Château Montelena; George Tauber’s famous book on the event is prominently displayed throughout the tasting room.

Not to take anything away from the current releases of their Chardonnay, we are more enamored of their reds, especially the Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. They also make a Zinfandel that we have quite enjoyed in the past.

The main tasting room is an attractive stone and wood space, with a long bar and ample space for quite a few visitors. There is also a secondary area used on busy days at the winery. The servers have always seemed knowledgeable about Château Montelena’s wines although on occasion we have found a few of the servers to be a bit haughty. For the most part, even on weekends, they seem eager to inform you as well as to pour wine for you.

Now, Power Tasting is not in the business of reviewing wines themselves. We are all about the experience of going wine tasting. That said, it is rare to find a winery that offers the combination of top-tier wines along with natural and architectural beauty. It may take a little while longer to get up to Calistoga from San Francisco, but for anyone seriously interested in knowing the history and quality of California winemaking, a visit to Château Montelena is a must.