{"id":3177,"date":"2025-12-31T14:38:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3177"},"modified":"2026-01-11T18:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T18:18:36","slug":"old-and-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3177","title":{"rendered":"Old and New"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some of our wine tasting trips are certain to be full of novelty.  That\u2019s because we are visiting winemaking regions where we\u2019ve never been before.  Most recently for us, that was our travel to Penedes in Spain, as reported in a previous issue<\/a> of Power Tasting<\/em>.  But mostly, we return year after year to certain areas in California, New York and France.  (Even the great Robert Parker specialized.)  Every time we go wine tasting, we face the same dilemma: Do we re-visit old favorites or do we find wineries that we\u2019ve never been to before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several attractions to going back where we have been before.  For one, we like to stop in at wineries where we are members of their clubs.  Tastings are free for us at these tasting rooms, which is appealing in these days of high-priced degustations.  But just as important, we know that we are going to have wines we enjoy.  How do we know?  Because those wines are waiting for us back at home.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Domaine Carneros in Napa Valley, known for its sparkling wines, but where we prefer their Pinot Noirs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then why go out of our way to taste those wines?\u00a0 Because we never get to taste them side by side.\u00a0 We recently visited a winery where we regularly buy Pinot Noir as club members.\u00a0 Tasting each of the wines one after the other, sip at a time, we discovered nuances in wines we knew we liked that weren\u2019t apparent to us before.\u00a0 We also found a Pinot Noir on their list that we hadn\u2019t previously tried and realized that we really liked it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the wines, we know that as members of the club, we will receive an especially warm welcome.  In many instances, we have known the servers and staff for years.  Even those we don\u2019t know seem to go out of their way to give a better explanation of what they pour and maybe find a little something that isn\u2019t generally served to the general public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, we experience a special excitement when we discover a winery we hadn\u2019t heard of before.  There\u2019s a sense of \u201cWhere have you been all my wine tasting life?\u201d  In areas we know well, we may have driven past that winery for years, only happening to stop by on one trip. Finding a wine or two that we truly enjoy is like getting a birthday present when it isn\u2019t our birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also a unique experience when we visit a famous winery in the US or abroad that we had only read about before.\u00a0 There is a feeling we get when tasting wine made by a French aristocrat in his ch\u00e2teau, that can\u2019t be replicated elsewhere.\u00a0 That\u2019s a real ch\u00e2teau<\/em>, not a faked-up Napa palace!\u00a0 And if the wine has been known to be great since 1855, so much the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an old expression, \u201cNew friends are like silver; old friends are like gold.\u201d  This applies to wine tasting as well.  We\u2019ll keep our old favorites and visit them again and again.  But we\u2019ll continue to seek out new wines and tasting experiences as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of our wine tasting trips are certain to be full of novelty.  That\u2019s because we are visiting winemaking regions where we\u2019ve never been before.  Most recently for us, that was our travel to Penedes in Spain, as reported in a previous issue of Power Tasting.  But mostly, we return year after year to certain … Continue reading Old and New<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}