lgsjr – Page 39 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

Une dégustation, Monsieur?

If there’s anything better than a good wine, it’s a good story. And a good story about a good wine is even better.

Many years ago, Steve was vacationing in the south of France and of course he had to go wine tasting. At the time – this was a long while ago – he hadn’t had much experience with Rhone wines. Being in the Rhone valley, this trip was in fact his real introduction to the wines of the region. He asked the hotel he was staying at for recommendations of wineries to visit and they handed him a list of their favorites. Thus informed, Steve set out for wine tasting adventures.

Adventures indeed! The hotel didn’t mention how small and convoluted the roads are in the southern Rhone valley and he got thoroughly lost. But little by little, he did locate most of the wineries on the list. Of course, in France they are all closed for lunch, so many of Steve’s finds did not lead to wine tasting. Near day’s end, he rolled into the village of Vacqueyras (va-KAY-rass) and asked about one of the places on his list. His French was good enough that the local folks knew what he was talking about (okay, maybe they read it off his list) and with some finger-pointing and sign-reading, he eventually arrived at Clos de Cazaux.

What he saw was a farm house, surrounded by a vineyard, with a few outbuildings scattered around the house. A very small, frail, old woman came out of the house, looked Steve over, and figured out that he must be a wine tourist. What ensued was a conversation in Steve’s barely adequate French; fortunately the old lady spoke very slowly so Steve could understand her.

Here’s what ensued:

Entrez dans ma cave, monsieur.

Come into my cave, sir. This was one of the outbuildings.

Nous avons quatre vins, deux Vacqueyras et deux Gigondas.

We have four wines, two from Vacqueyras and two from Gigondas (the next village over, also well known for its red wines.)

Les vins de Vacqueyras sont traditionnelle, fait de Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre et Cinsault.

The Vacqueyras wines are traditional, made of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre et Cinsault. Steve nods.

Un de Gigondas est traditionnel aussi, mais l’autre est fait juste pour les Anglais. Syrah pur.

One of the Gigondas wines is traditional too, but the other is made just for the English. It’s pure Syrah.

Steve realized that by “les Anglais” the woman meant him. And so she poured him the first taste he ever had of a Rhone wine that’s one of his favorites even today, Cuvée des Templiers. The Templiers, or Knights Templar in English, were an order of knighthood in the Middle Ages who (supposedly) kept themselves pure to fight the Crusades. They were and are well represented on the label.

Photo courtesy of wine-searcher.com

Now roll forward some 25 years. Steve and Lucie are vacationing in the southern Rhone valley. Steve has learned quite a bit about Rhone wines in the intervening years, but Lucie is an expert, a Chevalier de la Commanderie de Costes de Rhone. They are in Rasteau on a Sunday and all the wineries are closed. The only place in town to buy wines is the Tourist Information Bureau. So they go, buy a few bottles and chat with the young woman who is staffing the bureau. By now, Steve has forgotten the name of the vineyard but remembers the story, which he relates in his now much improved French, courtesy of Lucie. Can the information woman help them to find the winery again?

She says (in French, of course), “Of course I know the winery. The old woman is my mother-in-law and she’s still alive. But Cuvée des Templiers is not made just for the English. We love it too. And it’s not and never was pure Syrah. I’ll be working there tomorrow, so come by and I’ll open a bottle for you.”

Small world, n’est-ce-pas?

Reynier Wine Library

This is one in a continuing series, irregular though it may be, about favorite wine bars where you can do wine tasting. It wasn’t meant to be a series, but since we’ve already introduced our readers to the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto and L’Ecluse in Paris, then three such articles seals the deal.

So let us introduce you to Reynier in the City of London, that is the sector of London known as The City, where all the financiers are. Actually, many of them have moved on to Canary Wharf…Oh, forget about it. This is the old, historic part of London, where London Bridge is, where the streets are tiny and curvy and have names like Threadneedle and Poultry and Pudding to memorialize the trades that were once practiced there. And there are still many bankers and brokers and insurance chaps and they like to drink with their lunch. Which brings us to Reynier.

Now what’s funny is that the name of the place is actually the Wine Library (www.winelibrary.co.uk), which isn’t such a bad name, but I’ve only ever known it as Reynier (pronounced RAIN-yay) and no one I know who goes there calls it anything else. But other than the mystery of the name and the little streets, why should you go there? Well, “Wine Library” should give you a clue. It’s a fine wine shop with a great selection, running heavily to Bordeaux and Burgundy. “Wait” you must be thinking, “this was supposed to be about a wine bar, not a wine shop.” And so it is, but with a difference.

Reynier wine Library. Photo courtesy of Yap.

As you can see from the photo, there are a lot of wine bottles and we can assure you that they are all for sale. And you can see that there are tables. That’s because you can buy a bottle, pay a small corkage fee and drink the contents on the premises. Of course we can hear you objecting that you’d never sit down and drink a bottle by yourself. Indeed not! So go to Reynier with a friend or two. Which is exactly what all those bankers and brokers and insurance chaps do at lunch time.

It’s not French cooking, or English or Italian because there’s no cooking at all. What there is is a magnificent spread of pates and hams and terrines and cheeses. And grainy mustard and crispy baguettes. And of course the wine you just bought. No king ever had a finer repast.

Photo courtesy of Reynier Wine Library.

I distantly remember seeing the room in the picture with the chairs and tables, but if you want to move with the in crowd you go to the cellar (which is where the buffet is) and sit with the fellows in the skinny suits with wide chalk stripes and loud ties (i.e., the finance set) where you will rest your backside on a low stool and eat off the top of an upturned barrel. If you’re with a few other people, you’ll have to shoulder your way to a seat. It’s worth it because when you’re with a group you’ll run out of the first bottle rather quickly and someone will have to get up and buy another, and maybe another after that. And they say that they return to work after lunch?!?

Great wine, great food, history and the three new friends you’re bound to make at lunch. What could be better? Come and get it while the dollar is hot and the pound is not.

Visiting Napa/Noma in April

This is the second in Power Tasting’s series on the best times to visit Napa/Noma. Since all months are good months, this isn’t much of a challenge. We wrote about visiting in January in a previous issue.

Ah, springtime! T.S. Eliot may have said that April is the cruelest month, but we bet T.S. never went to the Napa Valley or Sonoma County in April. It is a particularly lovely time of the year. If you go in the early part of the month, you may catch the end of mustard season, in which the space between the rows of vines is occupied by brightly colored yellow flowers. Even if you don’t, you will be there for bud break and the initial flowering of the vines. In the colder areas, like Carneros and in the mountains it will be later in the month (or even into May). In warmer spots like Calistoga you are likely to see greenery earlier in the month.

With winter past, you won’t have the freezing days that can happen even in Napa/Noma in winter. There probably won’t be any rain either. You might want to have a light sweater or a long sleeve shirt in the morning but you’ll leave the sweater in the car and roll up your sleeves in the afternoon. If you come from colder climates, you’ll think that summer is upon you.

Napa Valley in April, with art on display among the vines. Photo courtesy of Visit Napa Valley.

But note that we said you won’t see freezing days. It can get pretty cold at night, sometimes getting below 32 degrees. As bad as that temperature is for visitors, it’s a lot worse for grapes. The tender buds are at their most vulnerable and a snap freeze can cripple a harvest before the grapes even appear. You’ll see giant fans in the vineyards to blow the cold air away. Others wet the vines so that the resulting ice insulates the vines. It gives you an alert to bring your jacket with you for dinnertime.

The crowds of wine tasters are not as intense as in the summer months but they’re not as sparse as in the dead of winter, either. If you can get away for a few weekdays, you should have plenty of time to chat with a wine educator or to sip without someone crowding you at the bar. Weekends are another matter. This may be the first chance for many others to taste springtime and you’ll see plenty of them all along the roads and in the wineries.

While there are leaves on the vines, the scenery isn’t as lush as it is at the height of the summer. If taking in the view is part of the reason for your visit (as it should be), this isn’t the time to visit wineries with grand commanding panoramas, like Sbragia Family in Sonoma’s Dry Creek or William Hill in Napa. It would be better to think in terms of snuggling up to the vines, which makes Grgich Hills in Napa Valley’s Rutherford or Limerick Lane in Russian River in Sonoma County better April destinations. If springtime brings a smile to your lips, all the wines will taste better then.

Volpaia

If you buy a bottle of Volpaia Chianti (http://www.volpaia.com/), either the Classico or the Classico Reserva, not only will you get a bottle of rather nice wine (it seems to be our house red these days) but you will also receive a nice little sketch on the label, shown below. If you don’t mind taking a long drive up a steep hill to visit the only winery around for miles, you can see the sketch come to life.

The sketch on a bottle of Volpaia Chianti Classico

The nearest large town to Volpaia (pronounced vole-PIE-ya) is Radda, definitely worth a visit in itself if you are visiting the Chianti region of Tuscany. It is in the heart of the Classico region where all the best Chiantis come from. (It’s called Classico because it’s from this region, a brilliant marketing ploy on the part of the local wine makers. There’s nothing any more classic about it than Sangiovese from other areas of Tuscany, but you do get the DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita or “controlled and guaranteed denomination of origin”) label and the other marketing inspiration, the Gallo Nero or black cockerel.

According to Google Maps, it’s only 7.4 km or 12 minutes from Radda to Volpaia. Evidently Mr. Google looked at the road from a satellite and never drove it. The road is full of hairpin turns and it’s straight up. There are some beautiful views to be had along the way, but the driver (Lucie was driving) won’t be able to look at them and the passenger (Steve was), who will, will be more terrified by the drop than thrilled by the beauty. But never fear, they lose very few tourists.

On the road up to Volpaia

And then you get to the village and you understand why you made the voyage up the mountain. It looks exactly like you expect a tiny Italian village to look. There are the villas, the osteria, the cistern and the castello…and that’s about it. It seems that all of this is owned and operated by one family, the Mascheronis. It attracts tourists all right, but it’s no tourist attraction…it’s the rarest find a tourist can make; it’s the real thing.

The Castello de Volpaia

And, oh yes, you can taste wine. In a way, it’s a typical wine tasting setup: a bar, some bottles, a young man pouring you some wine and explaining what you’re drinking. But it’s in an 11^th century castle! There’s more to taste than Chianti, although the Reserva has been getting good numbers from the rating magazines. There’s a Cabernet Sauvignon that has also been well received, a few whites and a Vin Santo dessert wine worth contending with.

Walk into the room next to the bar and you’ll get a sense of the centrality of wine (and olive oil) making in this village. The bottles gathering dust are yet another reason why you’ll think you’re in a post card.

Wine history, Italian style

So now you have to drive down. Steve tasted the wines, Lucie being the driver, she had just a sip of the Chianti and said: it tastes like hard cherry candy ! The young man said, you’re right, that’s what our Chianti should taste !

No Left Turns

There’s no place in the world that’s more fun for wine tasters than Napa Valley. So many wineries. So many great wineries! And they’re one after another after another, primarily on two main roads and the cross streets that connect them. Of those two main roads, the one with the greatest concentration of top-flight wineries is Route 29, also known as the St. Helena Highway. However, the ability to choose from among such a plenitude means that lots of people want to drive along that road and visit.

Especially on weekends and holidays, traffic is so dense that it is difficult to get from one place to another. If you only have the chance to travel to Napa Valley on a weekend of holiday, you’re pretty much stuck with a bumper-to-bumper crawl. There’s nothing you can do to make it easy, but there are ways to make a voyage into this fabulous corner of Wine Country easier, less onerous.

Do your homework before you go. Don’t expect to show up in Napa Valley on a gorgeous summer weekend (and they seem like they’re all gorgeous weekends) and go to a favorite winery in St. Helena, then down to Yountville, back up to Oakville and finish in Calistoga. For one thing, the stretch of Route 29 with all the wineries is nearly 30 miles long. Don’t plan to go back and forth all day long. You’ll spend all your time in the car instead of in tasting rooms. So get a map and plan your destinations before you get behind the wheel. There are several good maps available on the web; try https://www.visitnapavalley.com/wineries/winery-map/.
No left turns. One thing that the map won’t tell you is how difficult it is to get from one side of Route 29 to the other. Even with all the traffic, it’s still a country road with very few lights. So if, for example, if you’re at Heitz Cellars and you want to go across the street to Flora Springs Winery (you can see it from there), it can take as long as 15 minutes for the flow of cars on the two sides to part long enough for you to get across. So plan your itinerary so that you visit a few on the east side heading north; then go to an intersection with a light; turn around and go to some on the west side heading south.

Photos courtesy of Heitz Cellars

Some areas are easier than others. There are certain strips of Route 29 where it’s easier to visit excellent wineries without having to drive very far between them…and not turning left. For example, on the east side between the Oakville and Rutherford Cross Roads, there are Opus One, Nickel & Nickel, Cakebread, Sequoia Grove, Foley Johnson and St. Supery. If you can’t find a few sips of wine that you like amongst all of those, you either have extraordinarily high standards or you’re just not trying. And then at the end you have Rutherford Grill, where you can get something to eat.
Avoid Route 29 altogether. There are great Napa Valley wineries elsewhere than this crowded road. The roughly parallel artery running north and south is the Silverado Trail, which is wider and much less travelled. Wineries along there are not to be sneezed at either, including Clos du Val, Chimney Rock, Regusci, Stag’s Leap, Stags’ Leap (watch that apostrophe), Pine Ridge and Silverado Vineyards. Left turns are no joy here either so you can follow the same strategy as on Route 29.

The best advice, as always, is to prepare your trip in advance and to be sensible in both your selection of wineries to visit and the amount of wine to taste. Don’t let “Oh, it’s so crowded” discourage you from visiting one of, if not the, best American winemaking region. If so, go visit during the week, not on weekends.

Tasting the Barrels

Some time ago, we took a class at the Joseph Phelps winery in St. Helena on the subject of cooperage, the making of wine barrels. We learned that the source and treatment of the oak makes a distinct difference in the taste of the wines matured in them. Then, on a visit to Paso Robles we got a graduate course.

The location was the Écluse winery (www.eclusewines.com), on a hill on the west side of town. Écluse is the French word for the locks that accommodate slopes in canals, opening and closing to allow boats to pass at different levels. The owners are Steve and Pam Lock, hence the name of the winery. We had heard about their Rhone varietals and asked for an appointment to come visit. Like many wineries in Paso Robles, Écluse is only open for the public on weekends. As we were in the area Monday through Thursday, a special appointment was de rigeur (more French).

We pulled into a gravel lot in front of a barn-like structure and were greeted by Steve Lock himself. Inside the barn were racks of barrels full of maturing wine and a small bar area with some boards stretched between a few barrels and wine bottles resting on them. This was wine tasting like it used to be, Napa in the ‘70s! We explained to Steve that our interest was in the Rhone grapes and he was happy to oblige us. Then he explained that Écluse is as well known for its Cabernet Sauvignons as its Rhones. Would we like to try some?

Steve Lock serving in the barrel room. Photo courtesy of Yelp

We guess we must have given Steve an idea that we were really interested in wine because he then involved us in a fascinating experiment. He had juice from the same vintage of his Cabernet Sauvignons aging in new French, American and Hungarian barrels. The French barrels have the finest grain, imparting a mellow, oaky flavor. The Americans have the widest grain, giving the wines a distinct top note. The Hungarians are in-between and project a creaminess to the wines. Steve took a wine thief and poured some of each, one at a time, into three different glasses. We sipped each and had never understood the impact of the cooperage on the taste of wine as much as we did that day.

A wine thief in use. Photo courtesy the Weekly Grape.

Then we got to play assistant winemaker. Steve gave us each another glass and encouraged us to blend some of the wine that we still had from the three barrels. We have no memory of what we made that day, but we are quite certain that it wasn’t as good as what came out of the bottle we received a few years later, since we joined the Écluse wine club that day.

Sanford Winery & Vineyards

Sanford Winery (http://www.sanfordwinery.com/) makes Burgundian wines – Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – in Santa Barbara County’s famed Santa Rita Hills. Sanford has a tasting room in the Santa Rita Hills that we haven’t visited and also one in the city of Santa Barbara, which we have. Sanford is a Terlato property, the same as Chimney Rock in the Napa Valley. That fact alone is evidence of high quality wines and knowledgeable servers. Santa Barbara’s wine tasting scene is a bit schizophrenic, with a wild party atmosphere in the so-called Funk Zone downtown near the ocean and more refined tasting rooms uptown in or near the classy shopping district on State Street. Needless to say, Sanford is uptown.

Some in-town tasting rooms are strictly commercial. Others project a feeling of being in a nice club room. Still others try to incorporate the atmosphere of the town they are in into the tasting room. Sanford is a bar, a very classy bar to be sure, but all the same, a bar. It has a polished wooden floor, some large and small tables and a bar with some high stools. There’s no standing tastings at Sanford.

Photo courtesy of Winery Explorers (http://wineryexplorers.com/)

It’s in a shopping center. Again, it’s an up-scale shopping center with restaurants and shops full of beautiful things, but it’s a shopping center and it affects the wine tasting experience at Sanford. The wines, which are first-rate, become another expensive luxury item. Okay, all wine is an expensive luxury, but it doesn’t need to feel that way. So when you visit Sanford, and we hope you do, keep the door at your back.

Photo courtesy of Sanford Winery

What you will get when you go to Sanford is, in ascending order, a lesson in their wines, their Sanford & Benedict vineyard and winemaking in the Santa Rita Hills. All of this is accompanied by quite a broad range of wines for you to sample. Some of the wines Sanford produces are breathtakingly expensive; in all likelihood you won’t get a chance to taste those. But the ones that are available to taste give an excellent perspective of what the Santa Rita Hills is capable of and what American Pinot Noirs ought to be.

In some ways, the best part of tasting in Sanford’s Santa Barbara location is that you get to sip these wines without the necessity of an hour or more of driving to Lompoc, where Sanford is based. In fact, that case could be made for tasting wines in the city of Santa Barbara rather than trying to take in all the wineries in the rather vast county of Santa Barbara. Many other top-end wineries have realized that and have opened tasting rooms in-town.

The wine-tasting experience at Sanford Santa Barbara is a bit unusual but definitely worthwhile. The same may be said of visiting Santa Barbara itself, to be addressed in a future Places to Visit article.

Amador County

There are other wines to drink in California’s Amador County, but the main reason to go wine tasting in this part of Wine Country is to try the Zinfandels they’re famous for. There are wineries all over the county, but the greatest concentration of them is in and around the town of Plymouth, mostly on or just off Shenandoah Road, also known as the Shenandoah Valley, about 50 miles east of Sacramento.

There is also a fair number of wineries about a half hour north of Plymouth in another town called Placerville. We haven’t visited there yet so offer no opinions in this article. If you have several days, by all means try locations other than Plymouth, but we recommend against doing a lot of tasting in one place and then driving for some time to another. You mostly drive on small roads. Keep it easy and keep it safe.

While many of the wineries have built glass and steel tasting rooms, none of them come close to palatial. Many wineries, including some of the more popular ones, are located in wooden buildings. They are hardly sheds, but they do project a rustic ambiance that, overall, describes Amador County. There are a lot of ranches around the county. You definitely know you’re in the country when you visit there.

Photo courtesy of Helwig Winery

One feature of Amador county wineries is that many of them have restaurants. Among them are Villa Toscana and Renwood. You’d better look for them if you want something to eat because once you’re down the road in the Shenandoah Road it’s a bit of a drive back into town, and event then there aren’t many places to eat.

Photo courtesy of Renwood Winery

With the restaurants in the wineries, the wine tasting experience is different. You feel more like being in a bar and grill than in a tasting room. At one place we saw people sitting on bar stools ordering plates of cheese and charcuterie, in another one just besides the tasting room was the restaurant. Lucie felt that it was more commercial and that people living around the area go there to party. They seem to consider the wineries like their local bars which takes something away from wine tasting experience.

You’re not quite in the mountains in Amador County but you certainly are in the foothills of the Sierras. Thus there are quite a few wonderful views to be had on a pretty day. We’ve also had the experience of being there on a rainy, foggy day and you do feel a bit closed in.

Among the wineries to consider when you drive out to Amador County (and you will drive as there are no commercial airports closer than Sacramento, forty miles away) are Renwood, Helwig and Turley. Renwood is the biggest, most commercial winery in the region and its Zinfandels are widely available. Helwig has a rather large tasting room, made of wood and offers excellent views. Turley is interesting because it’s the northern outlet of the same label in Paso Robles. We are familiar with the Central Coast winery and often buy their wines but we found virtually an entirely different selection in Amador County.

Turley winery in Amador County

There’s always a reason to go for a tasting trip anywhere in Wine Country. There are some first-rate wines to be experienced in Amador County and if you are a Zinfandel fan you’ll find much that will interest you and a few wines that you will find exciting. Wine tasting in Amador County is certainly is more than “a pleasant day in the countryside” destination.

The Other California

For most travelers to California who are seeking wine tasting adventures, the most obvious destinations are Napa Valley and Sonoma County, which we have dubbed Napa/Noma. More than 90% of the wineries we have visited in that state have been in those locations. And why not? The wine is world-renowned; the scenery is ravishing; and they are close to San Francisco, a frequent business destination. However, there are other areas of the state that produce wine, some of it of excellent quality.

In this and subsequent issues, we will use the Places to Visit column to introduce some of these grape-growing areas. In a previous edition, we did highlight the Temecula Valley near San Diego which, in our opinion, has more to offer as a pleasant day in the vineyards than an occasion to sample great wines. In this and future issues of Power Tasting, we’ll discuss Amador County, Santa Clara Valley, Paso Robles, Santa Maria County and Santa Barbara County. It will be an irregular series, because we still want to write about other locations in Wine Country.

Here are a few things to consider if you want to visit the “Other California”:

Be prepared to drive. Most of us don’t live near to any of these destinations and most visitors don’t often visit far from the major urban areas. And even if you do live near one of them, you’re pretty far from all the others. All the normal rules of safe wine tasting apply: Know your limit and don’t even get close to it. Sip, don’t drink and use the pour bucket. Put some food in your stomach. Space out your winery visits. These points cannot be stressed enough.
Do some homework before you go. It’s likely that many, if not most of the wineries in any given area are unknown to you. So get on your favorite search engine and look for “best wineries” in the area you’ll be visiting. This is no guarantee as some sites contain nothing but self-promotion. But if you see an article in one of the local newspapers, there’s a higher likelihood of getting some unbiased information.
Don’t expect too much. There’s a reason why Napa Valley and Sonoma County are so well known: many wineries there make a lot of really excellent wine. You can find some excellent wine in other areas as well, just not in the same profusion. In any Napa AVA, you’ll find many superlative wineries, a few that are okay but not great and very few, if any, that are awful. In some of the other areas of the state, there may be a few great ones, a lot of okay ones and quite a few really poor ones.
Keep an open mind. Even if you’re not crazy about too many wines you taste, you still can have a pleasant day in a region that may be new to you. At any given winery, you may have to sip and pour quite a few samples until you find a particular wine that appeals to you. Think of it this way: you might discover an unknown gem amongst the dross. It’s worth it to keep searching.
Focus on what that region does best. Every region has a reputation for certain grapes. For example, Amador County is known for Zinfandel and Santa Barbara is famous for its Pinot Noirs. So go ahead and sip a Merlot or a Sauvignon Blanc, but keep your taste buds alert save your alcohol content for what they do best.

Perhaps the best way to summarize our advice concerning the Other California is to approach each region with a sense of adventure. The worst that can happen is you’ll be able to avoid certain wine regions on restaurants lists. The best might be the thrill of an unexpected discovery.

Santa Rosa’s Wednesday Night Market

We have found that the toughest times on a wine tasting trip are the hours after wine tasting and before dinner. You’ve come back to your hotel from your last winery of the day, maybe gone for swim, freshened up…and now what? On other types of vacations, you’d find a nice lounge and have a pre-dinner drink. But you’ve been sipping wine all day and you’ll possibly have some more with your meal, so more alcohol at this point is not a good idea. A little shopping in Sonoma, Yountville, Healdsburg or St. Helena would be nice but the stores are all closed. Where to go? What to do?

If you are in or around Santa Rosa on a Wednesday evening in warm weather, here’s a suggestion: the Wednesday Night Market on 4^th Street near Courthouse Square. If you’d like to spend a little time getting to know the local populace and not just hanging out with wine snobs, come on down. There’s a high chance that you’ll be rubbing shoulders with the same people who farmed the grapes and made the wine that you were sampling all day. They’re out to buy things they need, listen to some music, party a bit and generally enjoy themselves. You can join them.

The Wednesday Night Market is actually a street fair and a farmer’s market mixed together. It’s a long row of little tents where vendors sell food, drinks, crafts, art, knickknacks, household services and, most particularly local produce. Scattered among the booths are music venues, leaning heavily to country & western and Mexicana. People use the term “dancing in the streets” to imply joyous celebration, so on these summer evenings you can come be a part of it. There are also many children’s activities, which for some wine tasting visitors may solve yet another problem.

You can enjoy an ambulatory meal of local specialties, mostly Mexican-inspired, like tacos and grilled turkey legs. Of course, the usual hot dogs and pizza are available too. (The food at the numerous street fairs in New York City are more Italian-flavored. We didn’t see any calzones or zeppoles in Santa Rosa). There are little terraces where you can sample Sonoma County wines, which you have probably been doing all day anyway, or chug a cold beer on a hot night.

Photo courtesy of the Rincon Valley blog

The best of the best of the Santa Rosa street market is the produce. In case you had forgotten, you will immediately remember that California is the fruit basket of the United States. Go from one stall to another and vendors will offer you samples: peaches, plums, radishes, strawberries, carrots, cherries, melons and tomatoes. Oh, the fruits and vegetables of summer in California! Everything is fresh, colorful and bursting with flavor.

Photo courtesy of KQED

You, or at least most of you, don’t live in or near Santa Rosa, so what are you going to do with anything you buy? Hopefully you have a refrigerator at your disposal at your hotel, so your purchases will last a few days. Even so, your mouth will be bigger than your belly. So what? Of course, it’s always a shame to throw away food but the prices at the Wednesday Night Market are so low, especially with regard to the quality you get, that we’re probably talking about less than you paid during the day for a tasting at a single winery. So get yourself peaches or strawberries that you’ll remember forever.

In 2017, the market will occur on Wednesday nights from 5:00 to 8:30, from May 3 to August 16. Enjoy!