Sonoma County Vineyard

Monday, July 5, 2010

B-day - Anniversary

There has been a lot of celebration in the last 10 days - my birthday, my anniversary and 4th of July. This is always a busy and fun time of year for me and I love sharing this time with friends and family.

First, my birthday brought a celebration at home to break in the new Weber BBQ. Of course, we had some great wine to go along with the BBQ.

From the left: Bedarra Vineyards Beachfront, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonay. Bella Vineyards Barrel 32 Lily Hill Zinfandel. Michel-Schlumberger Pinot Blanc. It was really hot that day, so the whites outnumbers the reds (I'm okay with that during the summertime)!

I tried my hand at slow roasted baby back ribs....
They were gobbled up pretty quick, so I think it went well.
My favorite wine of the night was the Bella Barrel 32....
This wine is (was) the top two barrels of the 2007 vintage. Top two determined by the winemaker and owner, of course. I couldn't agree more. This could very well be the best Zin I've ever had. They don't have any more, but I can only hope they make this wine again. The concentration was completely unbelievable - the wine filled my mouth like nothing I've tasted before. Yum.


My wife and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary in the last week. We had a very nice dinner at La Salette on the plaza in Sonoma. This place is very nice, but understated. It has been recommended several times, but we've never taken the plunge before. Are we glad we did.

This was the pork tenderloin....The pork was stuffed with olive, fig and almond stuffing and served with a port wine sauce and fresh vegetables and mashed potatoes. This was so flavorful. I literally cleaned the plate! I chose a Pellegrini Zinfandel from their Eight Cousins Vineyard. It was quite good - a little hot and jammy on its own, it worked really well with all the flavors on the plate.

Every anniversary deserves a really nice bottle of bubbly....
I pulled out a bottle of Domaine Carneros Le Reve - french for the dream come true. Fitting, I think.
We also took a hike up to the top of Sonoma Mountain....
This is a good shot of Sonoma Valley looking toward the town of Sonoma. On the mountain across the way you can make out some hillside vineyards, these are the famous Monte Rosso vineyards. There are some vines up there that are almost 125 years old. The amazement to me is that they survived prohibition. The story goes something like, the hill was too steep for the police to make it up, so they were able to keep the vines alive. I'm sure there was some "sacramental" wine in that story too.

One of the things I was thinking about as we hiked was how different everything would have been 100-125 years ago. We have a tough time growing grapes with all our technology now, I can't imagine what it was like back then.
We also had a great 4th of July filled with plenty of wine, good friends and family and some great BBQ. I was enjoying myself too much to take any pictures!

Cheers!